My WAG, America is paying for that information (either with cash or reciprocal agreements to share information)
[QUOTE=Alessan]
We are taking about airline rights. If the airlines decide to transport passengers the U.S. does not approve of, does the U.S. government have the right to stop them? If so, what’s to prevent the U.S. from forbidding an airline to transport any passengers or crew through American airspace - emptying the First Freedom of any meaning?
[/QUOTE]
No, actually, I don’t think that’s the issue. As far as I can tell, the OP’s article is about an individual no fly list, not about air lines not being able to fly between other countries or over US air space. So, your Wiki example is a bad one, since it’s about (from your link):
It makes no mention of allowing any and all PASSENGERS, and isn’t about individual rights.
Basically, my take on this is it’s an over reaction, though one that has a logical basis. After all, if you pre-suppose a terrorist trying to get into the US from overseas (say, from the Middle East, Europe or Asia), then if they can get into Mexico or Canada (countries that have large borders with the US…and largely unguarded borders, at least wrt Canada, and large borders with lots of fairly easy access in the case of Mexico) then they could get into the US. So, it would be in the US’s interest to have an interest in vetting who goes into major air hubs in Canada or Mexico that have easy access to the US via their road infrastructure, especially with respect to lists with suspected terrorists on them. Like I said, I think it’s overkill, but it does make logical sense in that context. And it’s not the totalitarian iron fist being portrayed by some in this thread. Though the details in the OPs link are sketchy, and a bit slanted from my thumb nail read, I’d guess that both Canada and Mexico could simply tell the US where to stick it’s list, and there would be little we could do in reality. I doubt we’d embargo either country, close our borders or remove our diplomats. And at a guess, nuking them from orbit, even though it’s the only way to be sure, is probably out of the question…
-XT
Well, they could disallow any airline that didn’t vet its passengers from flying to the US. It would have the same result and be a lot cheaper than nukes.
Well, that would get into Alessan’s cite then, which would probably be ticklish. And it’s unclear to me that this has been threatened or even discussed, since the article in the OP makes no mention of it. My uninformed WAG is that the US is going through normal channels, is providing a no fly list to the countries that border the US and to countries that fly into the main air hubs, and that it’s in those countries best interest as well as the US’s to vet folks that are suspected of terrorist connections from making those flights…or, at least looking into them closely. If someone has actual evidence of some of the gloom and doom speculated about in this thread, I’m all ears, but all I’ve seen is a lot of hand wringing thus far.
That said, I agree with those who say that this seems unnecessary and a bit overblow and overkill oriented. I’m unsure why the sudden paranoia over this now, though I have to assume there is some rational basis for it, and have to concede that I’m not exactly privy to such information.
-XT