This sucks, and what sucks more is that I assume it's true.
Also, what's the point of putting people on the no-fly list if they can take a private charter jet and get in anyways?
Also, what's the point of putting people on the no-fly list if they can take a private charter jet and get in anyways?
To intimidate citizens. What do you think?
> Sweden paid for a private jet to fly him to Portland five years after he left.
I'd assume the "no fly list" isn't going to apply to requests from other governments to transport US citizens. I don't think the US is worried about friendly European governments shipping terrorists into the US on private planes.
My theory is that someone in a diplomatic role in Sweden called in a couple favors to handle this. Since his request for asylum in Sweden was denied his visa there was likely to expire soon.
> Both TSA officials and FBI Terrorist Screening Center director Timothy Healy confirmed to ABC News last week that the effort to keep U.S. airspace off-limits to terror suspects has not included vetting the passengers and pilots on large private jets such as the one owned by Chagoury, which he has used to shuttle between Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York and Europe.
I'd suspect there are similar loopholes for private jets chartered by friendly governments. But you may be right and someone in the Swedish government called in a favor.
There are only 500 U.S. citizens on the no fly list, it doesn't appear like it is being used a weapon of coercion on a wide scale.
The US has to share that sort of terrorism suspect list in order to get other countries lists and to make connections.
That said, I'm not sure how the fuck the No-Fly list has survived so long. It is boldly unconstitutional.
True. It's perfectly plausible the FBI would outsource their dirty work in a deniable manner, but equally plausible the UAE would be highly motivated to take extreme measures in interrogating someone circumstantially linked to terrorism entirely of their own accord. Arguably the interrogator volunteering the US and UAE are definitely working together is better evidence for the latter than the former.
Either way the beatings actually add to the suspicion that the approach - joined up or otherwise - was governed more by a "just because we don't have any evidence of your guilt doesn't mean we believe you're innocent" attitude than "we really badly want you to work for us"
I see a report from 2012 which cites 500 Americans, out of a total 21,000 (https://www.aclu.org/national-security/factsheet-aclus-chall...), and a report from 2014 which cites 47,000 total (https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/08/05/watch-commande...), so I would assume the number of U.S. citizens on the no fly list is at least double the figure you list.
Well, we can only speculate as to the extent that this list is being used to "intimidate" individuals. Just because there are only 500 on the list, does not mean it hasn't be threatened upon countless other individuals.
It doesn't even have to be directed at you for you to be scared of it. Heck, I'm even scared that some day some random asshole with the same name as me will do something stupid and get himself on that damn list; and I haven't even done anything wrong. I think you'll find a few news articles online about people being harassed because their name hits against the list.
I guess that brings me to the third point. There are 500 unique names on that list, as I'm under the impression that all that list has is name+surname. Unless they include other details, odds are there are many more than 500 individuals that those names match against.
Most people can't afford charter jets