Thanks for the input. But yeah, there are two separate issues here: Is it constitutional, and is it effective?
Conservatives are still fine with the Patriot Act and the no-fly lists but are unable to deal with the contradiction it leads to which is:
Why the fuck would you be ok selling a gun to someone you deem to be a terrorist!?
They can’t answer that. Conservatives seem to often find themselves in these contradictions and have no answer for it. Instead they just ignore it.
No, I think that misses the point of the analogy. That happens to be what the evidence points to with prisons. We don’t know what the evidence points to with watch lists. The publicly available evidence is that they do more harm than good. I don’t know what the classified evidence shows. But I think making our policy evidence-based is a good thing, which you seemed to be criticizing.
Being on the “no fly list” doesn’t mean you are a terrorist. Not sure why you would think it does.
If it were that simple, we could just arrest everyone on the list and be done with it.
No. But his point being …
… that guy over there? He looks shifty to me. We better not let him on a plane. There’s no telling what he might do. Don’t you want to be safe? What’s that? An AR-15? Of course he can have one of those. Hell, give him two, with those big fucking magazines that hold like a bazillion rounds. Yee haw! What could possibly go wrong?
Really? Actually not sure what you think it is.
I agree that a ‘watch list’ which has to tell people upfront that they are on it is less useful. Practically speaking you either have to accept a less useful list or change “fair notice of the action being taken and an opportunity to contest it” to “and/or”.
I don’t how it would fare in court but to me personally a ‘no fly or gun’ list which didn’t tell you till you tried to fly or buy one would be OK if you could seek redress. OTOH expecting it to have a big effect on the problem would be naive. But it seems something that could conceivably be compromised on and have some positive effect, arguably. Banning semi-auto box magazine rifles nationally OTOH is simply not gonna happen. Pushing for it is a way of advancing a particular political party’s election campaign, and that’s fine actually, bait and switch (aka ‘the principal or it’ or ‘in the long run we’ll…’) is part of democracy. It’s still not gonna happen.
On what the NSA does, everybody talks about that but a vanishingly small % of people have much idea AFAICT. A lot of the details of whether govt agencies are doing the right things (too timid and PC?, too intrusive?) rely on confidence in public institutions. That doesn’t mean no oversight, but confidence the oversight process works and you trust the overseers. There’s not a lot of confidence now.
I don’t know that the ACLU has accurately define the No Fly List, but let’s say they have. That definition does not support your assertion that being not he list makes you “a terrorist”. I’m at a loss as to why you think it does.
It is new to see you wiggle and dance and niggle over how you parse a definition to cling to a position you’ve lost.
How about you tell us what the legal definition is in the US to get you on the no-fly list.
No, that’s isn’t what I’m saying at all. I’m saying that we should use evidence to improve the no-fly list, just like we use evidence to improve prisons. What I disagree with is calling a bunch of random criticisms and anecdotes “evidence” and concluding that either system should be abolished. In either case, we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bath water.
I understand, but disagree, with those who have a principled objection to the no-fly list. But when there are practical concerns about the no-fly list, I think we should fix them, not abolish the system, because I think it’s a matter of common sense that the TSA is not a reliable defense against a clever person who wants to blow up an airliner, so we ought to have a few more tools in our defensive toolbox.
Like, for example, if someone happens to have had email exchanges with Anwar al Awlaki, fuck that guy, no flights (or guns) for him. I don’t think we ought to have to arrest and convict that guy before he can be prohibited from flying.
True, however there is no constitutional right to get on an airplane, but, for better or worse, there is a Constitutional right to own a gun.
The outcome that people we are not sure can be trusted to be on a commercial airliner are legally entitled to buy a gun is fucking insane. Even Heller acknowledged that the 2nd Amendment doesn’t prohibit some regulation of gun sales; this is a case where it is obvious that we should do some regulating.
Regulating is one thing. Prohibition is another. If you want to prohibit, you’re going to need due process. If you can work due process into the No Fly List, then you might have something.
If you want to live in Libertopia where airlines are free to disregard the no-fly list, and it is clear to all passengers what that airline’s policy is to allow suspected but not convicted terrorists to fly, does that suit your concerns?
It is remarkable and positively un-American to me that a US citizen can be on a no-fly list with no legal recourse to get off it.
It is obviously an absurd situation we have now where someone is deemed a terrorist threat such that they cannot fly but buying a gun is a-ok.
Perhaps the best example ever where the conservative cause comes to odds with itself. I’d laugh if it wasn’t so serious.
I think you misunderstood. I was talking about applying the No Fly List to gun purchases. Under current US jurisprudence, you can’t prohibit a citizen from buying a gun without due process. The No Fly List, in its current form, doesn’t cut the “due process” mustard. I’m not sure how you would fix that, but if you have an idea as to how to do that, I’d be interested in hearing it.
Christ on a 747, why are you clinging to this idea that being on the No Fly List deems you a terrorist? It doesn’t. Your own cite disproved that.
If someone is denied a gun purchase for being on the no-fly list, and they feel it’s in error, a judge can get involved. Problem solved.
That’s not the way Due Process works.
Like how searches at airports need a warrant because otherwise we are deprived of our Fourth Amendment liberties?
No, because the restriction is not on “searches” but on “unreasonable” searches. You don’t have a constitutional right to get on an airplane w/o being searched.