The Constitution Applies When the Government Bans Americans From the Skies

http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security-racial-justice/constitution-applies-when-government-bans-americans-skies

by ahmadss • 13 years ago

422 201 13 years ago

jdp23• 13 years ago

Just a reminder, the deadline for comments on the TSA's body scanners is Monday. http://www.regulations.gov/#!docketDetail;D=TSA-2013-0004 has the info.

danielweber2• 13 years ago

The use of the word "Blacklists" for "No-Fly Lists" in the headline is confusing.

jnbiche• 13 years ago

What exactly do you think a No-Fly List is? The use of the word "blacklist" is entirely appropriate.

danielweber2• 13 years ago

Before the headline changed, it was asking if the NSA could "blacklist" people without telling them what.

Given the context of no-fly lists, you can see what that's about. But without that context, you are wondering just what in the world it means. Are those people not allowed to be Americans?

jstanley• 13 years ago

This is outrageous. This is contagious. So futile.

PavlovsCat• 13 years ago

I do love angry art. It can be just as pretty, if not sometimes prettier, than normal art.

bediger4000• 13 years ago

This is so un-American I can hardly believe that anyone in the USA would do it. Where's the due process? Where's the confrontation of the accuser? Where's the ability to redress a wrong?

This is so wrong on so many levels of Americanism. It's just Soviet, that's what it is.

AmVess2• 13 years ago

It's not even Soviet. It's worse. At least in the Soviet Union, one could travel freely without shakedowns that come at the drop of a hat.

lmm2• 13 years ago

Huh? In the Soviet Union one had to be registered as residing in a particular city. You could be stopped and asked for your papers, and if you were in a different city from the one you were down as living in there would certainly be questions.

interstitial• 13 years ago

The word un-American does not apply to a nation of cowards.

skylan_q• 13 years ago

But... but... their gunna take are guns!!!

No. They won't. That's because not a single shot will be fired in retaliation to government intrusion and control. Not a single thing will be done about it.

antman• 13 years ago

Can you support that? Isn't it more probable that furious marketing of government positions that show futility in any action against it, is causing people not to react?

3pt14159• 13 years ago

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_Protect

At least the Canadian one allows you to protest. As a result only about a thousand people on the list.

gambiting• 13 years ago

As a person coming from a former Soviet republic - it reminds me of times 30 years ago, where the usual conversation with any official would look like this :

"no"

"why?"

"because the government says so"

No trial, no hearing, someone somewhere in secret made the decision and you had nothing to say in that matter. Or if you tried, you would be charged with interfering with government business, or "national security" and jailed for a random amount of time.

Really that different to what the US government is doing right now?

vxNsr• 13 years ago

Yeah but at least in the USSR you could bribe your way out of this type of situation. Here it's even worse because the people at the bottom (checking counter people) wont take bribes and maybe even can't because the computer will stop them from entering certain info.

nathan_long2• 13 years ago

Giving a bribe might make a specific situation easier for you, but having a system where bribes are tolerated is cancerous. Few things have such power to destroy a nation.

ajross2• 13 years ago

Obviously it's not different in principle, but in practice there are comparatively few people on the no-fly list, and the no-fly list is a comparatively unique mechanism. US citizens aren't typically prohibited from travelling, or corresponding with internationals, or publishing journals and notes, etc...

Yes, this is bad. Yes it should be fixed. But let's check the "ZOMG WE'RE IN A COMMIE GULAG!" hyperbole at the door. The less seriously we take this the more reason the government has to pick the "sane compromise" position which involves no-fly lists and universal-but-mostly-invisible surveillance.

astine• 13 years ago

I don't think anyone's saying we're in a commie gulag, but the comparison is still valid. The vectors for abuse of government power are growing and our resources are shrinking. The problem is still bearable, but we're headed in the wrong direction nonetheless.

polshaw• 13 years ago

Something about a frog and boiling water seems relevant somehow.

ctdonath6• 13 years ago

The problem is such hyperbole is the only thing standing in the way of a system going that far. There are a great many normalized restrictions now which were ridiculed as commie gulag fodder not long ago, restrictions which not long ago would have been met with rebellion.

Billions of people have lived in "commie gulags". Most of them could still live their lives, and normalized any limitations they lived under. Stay within those "reasonable" restrictions, and you'd be OK; suggest breaking down those restrictions, and you'd be subject to the wrath of other citizens ridiculing your "hyperbole".

The "sane compromise" is standing by core principles. We learned to institute such principles as foundational law precisely because "sane compromises" and "mitigating circumstances" went very, very bad; if we deviate from them again, we will again learn - the very hard way - why those principles were enshrined in the first place. If the government decides you should be prohibited from doing X, a warrant must be approved by a judge, the restriction presented you in no uncertain terms, your accusers available for questioning, a court available for redress of grievances, and means for acquittal possible involving a jury of fellow citizens - not some secret list you can't even see to confirm whether your name is in fact on it.

chetanahuja2• 13 years ago

Yes, this is bad. Yes it should be fixed. But let's check the "ZOMG WE'RE IN A COMMIE GULAG!" hyperbole at the door.

No let's not. We absolutely need to be reminded of the frogs that got turned into frog soup in the next pot over.

pfortuny• 13 years ago

If you read Evgenia Ginzburg's writings, she was convinced -as were many many others- that even in her case the Gulag was for the greater good.

Just calling it a "commie gulag" does not minimize the fact that for many people they were "for the betterment of the country and its protection."

So: yes, one needs to take the worst to memory in order to prevent the bad from happenning. History is filled with good-willing governants.

HarryHirsch2• 13 years ago

US citizens aren't typically prohibited from travelling

Anyone on the no-fly list is effectively banned from travelling, just because the US are such a large country and the alternatives are plainly too exhausting.

Again: most constitutions guarantee freedom of movement. The reason it is written there is because the framers had experience with travelling restrictions and how they were used against political opponents. This last lesson seems to have been forgotten.

mikeash10• 13 years ago

If the only difference, by your own admission, is how many such awful things there are, then why shouldn't we start comparing it to places like the USSR?

throwaway10001• 13 years ago

Obviously it's not different in principle, but in practice there are comparatively few people on the no-fly list

Yeah but if it's YOU, it's 100% of people as far as you're concerned. No one cares that you're a 4 year old, the computer says no boarding and it is so.

ChuckMcM• 13 years ago

There are some pretty large differences but it is similar enough that more and more people are making the comparison in conversation. Folks who have read up on the Mccarthy hearings on anti-american activities will see a similar pattern of public backlash developing. s/Communism/Terrorism/g right? It becomes easier and easier to recruit people to vote against the excesses and then these people get booted out of government. Can't happen fast enough for me

regularfry2• 13 years ago

The difference here is that there's no witch-hunt of high-profile, popular people to cause that backlash. Yet.

blackaspen• 13 years ago

Soon though(thinking of PRISM), they'll be able to say you landed yourself on a No-Fly list because of a joke you cracked in an email you sent to your friend ten years ago that they only just mined now. (And a joke that their algo/analyst didn't understand)

And then they still won't let you appeal it. I wasn't aware though that No-Fly extended to boats, that makes it criminal. The only way to get off the continent then is to go to Canada or Mexico (or another SA country) and hop on a non-US associated airline. That is criminal.

jtbigwoo• 13 years ago

They can't even get on a boat to cross the Atlantic.

Does anybody know if other countries reference the U.S. no-fly list? Could one of these plaintiffs drive to Canada and travel abroad that way?

omarali2• 13 years ago

Canada has it's own version of the no fly list which includes data from the US no fly list.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Fly_List#No_fly_lists_in_oth...

a3_nm• 13 years ago

I would imagine that travelling through South American countries would be a better option (ie., the only option).

run4yourlives7• 13 years ago

Canada and the US share data. It may be possible but that probably depends on your personal situation. If you can get across the border you'd be okay I would guess, although you better hope the flight doesn't fly into (or over) US airspace.

For reference:

http://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/ifim/airspace/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maher_Arar

omarali2• 13 years ago

Is it possible for someone on the no fly list to join the lawsuit? I know two US citizens who are on the list.

ahmadss• 13 years ago

don't know, but you could probably email the lawyers that wrot e this blog post and find out. contact information for various ACLU lawyers is listed in the filing [1] found on the blog post.

[1] http://www.aclu.org/national-security/latif-et-al-v-holder-e...

ctdonath6• 13 years ago

Is it possible for someone not on the no fly list to join the lawsuit? No US citizens can find out whether they are on the list short of being refused (being on the list does not guarantee refusal, and refusal does not guarantee being on the list).

cpursley• 13 years ago

It's interesting to sit back and realize that the libertarians were right all along. On security theater and the bailout economy.

prof_hobart4• 13 years ago

But being right about the problems isn't automatically the same as being right about the solutions...

McPants3• 13 years ago

Being right about the problems is the first step. I would argue providing a bad solution for a problem you know exists is better than providing a good solution for a problem that doesn't exist.

baddox5• 13 years ago

But sometimes it is.

manachar• 13 years ago

Criticism of the current state of affairs did not uniquely come from libertarians. Plenty of conservatives and liberals were quite concerned about security theater.

javert8• 13 years ago

But they have no principled justification to refute it. So they're not helping the situation. They don't have any intellectual firepower.

(The libertarian are also not perfect on these grounds, but perhaps somewhat better.)

run4yourlives7• 13 years ago

The US is a lost cause for anyone on the bad side of the government for any particular reason, crimes committed or not.

What really gets me though is that people are truly shocked that the piece of paper held up as some illusion of rights is, like everything else, simply not worth the paper it is printed on.

This is a document that has been used to justify slavery, prohibition, woman as property, Jim Crow laws, the "sanctity" of marriage etc. If history shows us anything it is that regardless of whatever is written down, the laws of the land will be made by the popular opinion of those that have power, and how they interpret things. The USA is no different than Rome, feudal Europe or France under Napoleon, despite the best intentions of its founders.

clarkmoody• 13 years ago

Slavery was the issue that almost destroyed the Union before it formed and nearly destroyed the Union again in 1860. But it seems we worked that one out.

Prohibition was instituted through the proper constitutional channel of the amendment process -- and repealed the same way. You may view it as the extreme opposite of the gay marriage issue today: a sweeping prevailing mindset that turned out to be a really bad idea in the long run.

As for women, Jim Crow we worked those out too. I can't respond to your '"sanctity" of marriage' comment, because all I'm getting is vague left-wing ire.

Those rights on that piece of paper have saved us from much government tyranny. Indeed, without the Bill of Rights, we would have lost many of them long ago. The founders were rightfully wary of government in this regard. Why is the 9th Amendment there at all? Does the government treat us as serfs or as sovereigns?

The Constitution is not perfect: it did not foresee the level of political activism present on the Supreme Court throughout the years. The Court has been amending the Constitution for far too long without proper oversight. We should not be able to predict the votes of the Justices, since most of us are not constitutional scholars. Yet we can...

The USA is different than most countries throughout history, but it has lost its way. The latest NSA / IRS news could be seen as simply the last in a long train of 'repeated injuries and usurpations' to and of our Liberty.

run4yourlives7• 13 years ago

Those rights on that piece of paper have saved us from much government tyranny.

Really? Have you lived outside of the USA at all? Because I fail to see how anyone who has can make this statement. Life is no better or worse. The constitution does absolutely nothing.

Indeed, without the Bill of Rights, we would have lost many of them long ago. The founders were rightfully wary of government in this regard

This says more about American culture than it does anything else. Of course Canada survived without a constitution for most of it's existence, the UK still doesn't have one, and Australia doesn't have a Bill of Rights. In fact, most countries in the world don't have a constitution as America knows it to be. They seem to be doing just fine.

The USA is different than most countries throughout history,

No, actually, it isn't. The principles of the USA were in place in Athens and Rome thousands of years ago, the Magna Carta and the Republic of France more recently. Stop believing your own mythology.

mtgx2• 13 years ago

What annoys me most is that while Brazilians and Turkish people are willing to start revolutions over seemingly unimportant things, Americans aren't willing to even protest (in the streets, like real protests are done) these things which seem much worse.

kzrdude3• 13 years ago

not unimportant, you probably need to see it in context.

dotpavan• 13 years ago

Wall St. protests (mostly small compared to the others you mentioned) did happen..

People do express their dissatisfaction, though it seems to be dwindling with more acceptance of whatever is being thrusted upon them..

Just wondering how committed are the sports fanatics in US/Latin America/India or movie fanatics in India and then comparing the (missing) outrage when liberties are at stake.

shpxnvz9• 13 years ago

I'm curious what purpose you see for protests in a representative democracy? It is not intended that our government make law to suit small groups of very vocal people, but rather that the will of the people be expressed, through equal representation, by elected members of government.

Obviously our system does not quite work as intended, but I'm not sure I see how protesting in the street could be effective, or if it was effective how that could be a feature rather than a bug?

malandrew2• 13 years ago

Brazilians actually are protesting important things. It just so happens that the straw that broke the camel's back was a bus fare increase of R$0.20.

The problem in the US is that our politicians have learned exactly how to abuse the system in a way that attracts the least ire from the general populace.

People in the US are likely to start protesting and getting angry over things like income taxes and fuel tarifs. That would get the ball rolling and then they would escalate their protests to things that matter.

strlen• 13 years ago

Jim Crow, anti-miscegenation laws and hopefully anti-gay marriage laws etc.. could not have been ended without the 14th amendment and the Bill of Rights. 14th amendment is what overrode state-level majoritarianism (in states that had a white majority) and state terrorism/white minority rule (in states like South Carolina which did not).

The constitution and judicial review are not perfect, but they're far better than than naked and unchecked power of government(s).

"Women as property" did not occur in the United States. Denying suffrage rights to women as well as difficult of divorce were unjust, but us wasn't a particularly bad offender in that respect: many civilized countries gave women the vote after US did; many US states gave women the right to vote long before the right was extended nation-wide.

The USA is no different than Rome, feudal Europe or France under Napoleon, despite the best intentions of its founders.

Well, I'd think there are some subtle differences, don't you think?

If you're going to compare US to any other country, compare it to UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. You'll find 1) the human rights records of all of these countries are on average similar 2) they're still far better than most other places, including other western countries.

I do think that a written constitution is better than de-facto basic law and custom: e.g., freedom of expression has been particularly strong in US due to the first amendment.

Which is why warantless surveillance is such a big deal: even amongst liberal democracies US is probably not the worst offender here, but (to use your parallel to Rome) this may be the proverbial Rubicon -- plain disregard for the text of the US constitution for "reasons of state" or "greatest good for the greatest number."

I will argue this: the "rights revolution" (namely extension of constitution to restrict federal and state governments) happened contrary to the worst _literal_ intention of the founders. The fact that we were able to preserve the "meta" spirit of the founding movement without codifying the repressive prescriptive mores of the 18th century is a huge testament to the constitution.

vacri2• 13 years ago

many US states gave women the right to vote long before the right was extended nation-wide

Well, 'some', not 'many'. And they kept repealing it, too. New Jersey had it for 17 years (if you owned enough property... very unusual for women of the time), Wyoming for 18, and Utah women were given the vote, voted the wrong way, and then had it taken from them. That's not empowerment, that's being a political football.

DanielBMarkham• 13 years ago

Our brief highlighted the utter irrationality of the government's No Fly List procedures. The plaintiffs in Latif all flew for years without any problems. But more than two years ago, they were suddenly branded as suspected terrorists based on secret evidence, publicly denied boarding on flights, and told by U.S. and airline officials that they were banned from flying¾perhaps forever.

One of the reasons that I'm not too attached to the specific details of the Snowden story (aside from supporting him, of course) is that it's just a piece of a much larger picture. Snowden's "NSA direct server access" is but a tiny speck in an ocean of civil liberties problems.

In this case, the government is effectively using a quasi-military/police force to control who can travel the country. (Yes, I know you can drive, but for business travelers, air travel is many times the lifeblood of their work) People are banned from traveling, in many cases from performing their livelihoods. They do not know how they got on the list. They cannot get off the list.

In charge of all of this is an agency, best I can tell, that has a mission of making all transportation safe from random terror attacks.

It's insane. Aside from not protecting anybody, can you begin to imagine the ways such a system could be abused? It staggers the mind.

There are probably around 100 people in the entire country that shouldn't fly. But the way this no-fly list is constructed, it will continue to increase year-by-year, without any incentive to pare the numbers back. Is anybody doing the math on the kind of economic impact such a system will have over a few decades?

I've said it before. We need to completely disband the TSA. Structural adjustments are not going to fix its scope creep, conflict of interest with the military industrial complex, and lack of competence. It's just gotta go.

gcb02• 13 years ago

They are also ignoring the side effects. What happens in any place where incompetence/corruption run rampant?

People find ways around.

The more people they add to the no-fly list for no reason, the more people will be willing to travel with fake documents. Or create business around the block (those people can probably fly airwave). Soon, there will be so much work arounds that the one or two terrorist per century that would have been deterred by that measure will just have plenty of options to bypass it as well.

pasbesoin• 13 years ago

1) Smear some chemical trace on a competitor's clothing or luggage, and/or submit an "anonymous tip".

2) Profit!

Seriously, though -- think about it. Secret system -- who knows how it's being gamed.

jtome2• 13 years ago

I've always thought of no-fly lists as completely out of place in a democracy. Either you have enough evidence to charge them with something or you have no business restricting them from doing anything.

bobwaycott2• 13 years ago

Exactly. And if you have enough evidence to charge them with a crime, then you should do so and take the person to court. And if they are found guilty by a jury of their peers, punishment should be assessed. If not, the person is innocent and should not be inconvenienced or harassed further.

No citizen should be victim of unknown charges and/or evidence that impacts their free movement through society.

chc6• 13 years ago

I'm not sure this principle works in reality. It seems to entail that somebody who fails their driving exam must still be allowed to drive and that somebody with no training should be able to advertise himself as a surgeon.

(Just in case anybody didn't follow the above: Failing an exam or lacking training are not crimes you can be charged with, so under the principle "Either you have enough evidence to charge them with something or you have no business restricting them from doing anything," we have no business restricting anyone from doing anything on those bases.)

shpxnvz9• 13 years ago

Great point and agreed, with one correction. Democracy does not offer any guarantees of freedom, and fortunately we have a constitution which was intended to set limits on encroachment of individual rights.

To quote Marvin Simkin, "Democracy is not freedom. Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch. Freedom comes from the recognition of certain rights which may not be taken, not even by a 99% vote."

The same argument could be made for felon's rights, by the way. Either a person is too dangerous to be free or you have no business taking away his rights.

mtgx2• 13 years ago

And what about their "we can search everything you have within a 100-mile radius of the border" policy? That's a huge civil liberties abuse too and one that must be dealt with.

rayiner8• 13 years ago

That is not now and never has been the policy. The "100 mile Constitution free zone" is one of the most outrageously misleading fabrications on the internet. See: http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2013/02/does-a-constituti....

You can't leave out the crucial bit that it's all about border searches, for people who have recently crossed the border. All the policy means is that border searches don't literally have to occur at the border (they might be on a major cross-border thoroughfare somewhat inland).

The 4th amendment has never meant that the government or customs needs a warrant to search people at the border.

__--__• 13 years ago

Because nobody's mentioned it yet, this has already been dealt with. There's a legal precedent:

Ameida-Sanchez v. US

    But the search of the petitioner's automobile by a roving patrol, on a
    California road that lies at all points at least 20 miles north of the
    Mexican border,[5] was of a wholly different sort. In the absence of
    probable cause or consent, that search violated the petitioner's
    Fourth Amendment right to be free of "unreasonable searches and
    seizures."

alexqgb• 13 years ago

"They do not know how they got on the list. They cannot get off the list."

The default description of the Surveillance State is "Orwellian". But in a recent post for the Atlantic, Rebecca Rosen argues that "Kafkaesque" is much closer to the mark. The arbitrary, inscrutable, and inescapable nature of the No Fly List encapsulates this character perfectly.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/06/why-sh...

specialist• 13 years ago

Orwell, Kafka, Huxley, others, all had great insights.

Sadly, John Brunner doesn't get much love. His novels greatly influenced my worldviews.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shockwave_Rider

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sheep_Look_Up

tomrod• 13 years ago

Can a person still fly charter if they are on the no-fly list?

fijal• 13 years ago

"There are probably around 100 people in the entire country that shouldn't fly" <- this is the problem

if there are people who are guilty of something, they should be prosecuted and jailed. There are procedures for that. There is no "actually you did not do anything, but you're high risk for flying" approach in any law-respecting country. Either you're guilty or you're not.

Vivtek3• 13 years ago

"There are alternatives to flying".

Try driving to Puerto Rico or Hawaii.

will_brown• 13 years ago

I hate to make such a prediction, but this case is factually analogous to the ACLU's case against the targeted killings of US citizens without due process and ACLU's demand the standards of the kill list be disclosed. If a citizen can have his life taken without due process, it seems consistent a citizen's Constitutional Right to travel can be taken without due process. For those that do not know:

"On August 30, 2010, the [ACLU] filed a "targeted killing" lawsuit, naming President Barack Obama, CIA Director Leon Panetta, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates as defendants. They sought an injunction preventing the targeted killing of [a US citizen], and also sought to require the government to disclose the standards under which U.S. citizens may be "targeted for death". Judge John D. Bates dismissed the lawsuit in an 83-page ruling, holding that the claims were judicially unreviewable under the political question doctrine inasmuch as he was questioning a decision that the U.S. Constitution committed to the political branches."

Coincidentally, or likely not coincidentally Judge John D. Bates, is also the presiding Judge of the FISA Court as shown in the Rules of Procedure for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (See: http://www.uscourts.gov/uscourts/rules/FISC2010.pdf)

I do not agree, but at least the US government has an argument that by disclosing publicly known or suspected terrorists, it may jeopardize our national security interests. How the hell can that be logically extended to the idea that disclosing the criteria to get on the "kill list" or "no fly list" jeopardizes our national security interests?

mapt• 13 years ago

"Back in September 2003, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) released a piece of model legislation it called the Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act. Like so many bills drafted by the free-market think tank, AETA was handed over, ready made, to legislators with the idea that it could be introduced in statehouses across the country with minimal modification. Under the measure, it would become a felony (if damages exceed $500) to enter "an animal or research facility to take pictures by photograph, video camera, or other means," and, in a flush of Patriot Act-era overreaching, those convicted of making such recordings would also be placed on a permanent "terrorist registry."

Frustrated by unauthorized documentaries of slaughterhouse abuses, the agriculture industry hired corporate lobbyists to hire Congressmen to insert laws that would ban PETA activists from using the US air transportation system.

These have been implemented in a number of states recently, although I'm not sure if any of them included the watchlist provision in the final draft.

* http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/06/ag-gag-laws-m...

prsutherland• 13 years ago

Would drones be considered a loop hole here?

grecy• 13 years ago

It appears people are agreeing this (and other) actions by the government are unacceptable.

So what are Americans doing about it?

We see people in Turkey, Brazil and many other parts of the world protesting against their government, while those in the US appear to be doing nothing.

What's it going to take?

InclinedPlane• 13 years ago

It's good to see that in the 21st century there are at least some areas of daily life that haven't been pushed into a constitution free zone through technicalities.

guelo• 13 years ago

I sometimes wonder how the authoritarians that come up with these policies can look at themselves in the mirror and call themselves patriotic Americans.

trobertson• 13 years ago

They don't. They don't need to. This idea of a 'patriotic American' is propaganda. A complete and utter fabrication. It's a tool used to divide the American populace into opposing factions: those are patriotic, and those who are enemies of the stats.

It's a remarkably similar tactic to what the Nazi's used [1]. The Nazis attempted (and succeeded) in demonizing anyone who didn't agree with their ideals. That's basically what our politicians are doing: demonizing anyone who is 'not a patriot', 'against national security', 'disagrees with American Exceptionalism'.

Also, to those who will inevitably think 'Godwin's Law': thank you for derailing a legitimate comparison.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_propaganda#Themes

Tycho2• 13 years ago

Can I coin a new political term: terrorismism. It is the enlargement of all state powers over its citizens in the name of fighting terrorists.

dragonwriter4• 13 years ago

Interestingly, the enlargement of state powers over its citizens in the name of fighting (boogeyman of the day) is exactly what gave "the Terror", and its architects the original "Terrorists", their names.

So, "terrorismism" is just classical Terrorism.

Tycho2• 13 years ago

Who were the classical terrorists?

frisco• 13 years ago

I'm interested to see how the Tea Party deals with these issues. It could be a huge opportunity for them... As crazy as they are, if they take up the mantle of getting government out of peoples' personal lives, it could propel them into legitimacy. I'm this close to deciding that this is a vote-deciding issue compared to abortion, fiscal policy, or foreign affairs. Democrats, take note.

trippy_biscuits• 13 years ago

Ever since they decided that they had the right to look at or touch my privates before I can get on a plane, I refuse to fly.

Fuxy• 13 years ago

Welcome to the United Prisons of Americal where the only thing preventing you from being forced to walk to your destination is the fact that using a car is still legal... for now.

The Constitution Applies When the Government Bans Americans From the Skies

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