I just sort of realized something. An actual, real terrorist most likely wouldnât risk going above the radar to try and get off the no-fly list. Itâd be incredibly stupid, since theyâd be the same people who the government (ostensibly) wants to capture. Therefore, thereâs little reason not to have a real procedure for someone to be reviewed and taken off the no-fly list.
A real terrorist whoâs on it probably wouldnât be stupid enough to appeal their inclusion on the list, and innocent people on the list should be fairly easy to review and take off the list. Doing so would make the government look much better than it does right now.
But it would appear instead that the government would rather hold on to their ability to be vindictive bigots than to actually do their goddamn job and try to keep the country safe. The only reason to manage the no-fly list the way the FBI has so far, is to use it as a horsewhip to try and beat people into doing their bidding, regardless of whether thereâs any valid or legal suspicion on the people on the list.
The more I learn about the FBI the more I loathe them, their note-taking procedure when interviewing/questioning a suspect, their penchant for creating fake  terror plots,
/If you want to not be entrapped by an FBI interview, insist on tape recording everything. Bring your own tape recorder.
//edited to add: theyâll usually almost always cancel the interview if you insist on recording it.
No, see, the No-Fly List isnât people they want to capture. They have a regular Wanted list for that. The NFL is populated with people somehow deemed too dangerous to ever allow on a plane â enhanced screening notwithstanding â but for whom there is somehow not enough evidence to arrest. The criteria for inclusion are secret, but obviously well below the threshold of suspicion that would warrant a⌠warrant.
Ah. So basically, itâs just plain olâ illegal spy on US citizens by way of ânational securityâ.
I stand by my statement that the NFL is thinly-veiled if not overt bigotry in the name of National spending-a-lot-of-money-without-oversight.
ETA,
The FBIâs saying people on the NFL are to dangerous to let on a plane is a damned stupid excuse. If theyâre too dangerous to be on a plane, how are they simultaneously not too dangerous to allow to pilot a 1500 pound, explosive-filled, self-propelled landmine? If youâre too dangerous to let on a plane, then pretty much by default youâre too dangerous to allow to drive. Unless the FBI is playing chicken with the American public on the line, which I wouldnât put it past them.
Iâm pretty sure that that should go up to 11.
Your first mistake was trying to apply logic or reason to DHS policy.
Yâall are looking at this from the wrong perspective. The organization that maintains the do-not-fly list is not small. They have to liaison with the FBI, DHS, ICE, TSA, NSA, DIA, and who knows who else is on the list? They all need to have security clearances. So weâre looking at a few hundred people, most earning in the high five figures to low six figures. Thereâs HR people and benefits managers and whoever has the contract for bathroom cleaning and coffee service and washing the security guardsâ uniforms. Weâre looking at probably half a billion dollars a year, minimum, which is enough money to make nearly anything self-justifying. Any actual security is just a by-product.
In case none of you are angry enough to crush your own molars yet, people of particularly high interest to intelligence agencies are never put on the list, since if they found out they were on the list theyâd know they were being watched. So: actual terrorists get to fly, and the list is used to hassle people the state security apparatus wants to give the stink-eye to. Itâs no different than NYCâs stop-and-frisk.
Itâs especially insane given that, without some sort of weapons/explosives/tools, even the most l33t terrorists that ever crawled out of somebodyâs paranoid fantasies are basically reduced to kicking fellow passengers, which is about as threatening as your average onboard inebriate.
Unless even the super-double-plus-enhanced version of TSA screening is utterly ineffective(could that be possible? Heaven forfend!), you could transport basically any terrorist you felt like in relative safety(if you had too many of them, I suppose they could defeat the other passengers in hand to hand combat and start pounding on the cockpit door; but a modest percentage would be harmless).
Aside from the âhaha, due process, you tell funny joke, yes?â angle, there simply is no justifiable set of people to include on the âno fly listâ.
it seems the NFL is a useful tool to extort people into beeing informants.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
