HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The No Fly List maintained by the
United States federal government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a fe ...
's
Terrorist Screening Center The Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) is a division of the National Security Branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It is the duty of the TSC to identify suspected or potential terrorists. Though housed within the FBI, the TSC is a mult ...
(TSC) is one of several lists included in algorithmic rulesets used by government agencies and airlines to decide who to allow to board airline flights. The TSC's No Fly List is a list of people who are prohibited from boarding
commercial aircraft An airliner is a type of aircraft for transporting passengers and air cargo. Such aircraft are most often operated by airlines. Although the definition of an airliner can vary from country to country, an airliner is typically defined as an ai ...
for travel within, into, or out of the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
. This list has also been used to divert aircraft away from U.S. airspace that do not have start- or end-point destinations within the United States. The number of people on the list rises and falls according to threat and intelligence reporting. There were 16,000 names on the list in 2011, in 2012, and in 2013. The list—along with the
Secondary Security Screening Selection Secondary Security Screening Selection or Secondary Security Screening Selectee, known by its initials SSSS, is an airport security measure in the United States which selects passengers for additional inspection. People from certain countries a ...
, which tags would-be passengers for extra inspection—was created after the
September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...
of 2001. The No Fly List, the Selectee List, and the Terrorist Watch List were created by George W. Bush's administration and have continued through the administrations of
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...
,
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
and Joe Biden. Former U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee chair
Dianne Feinstein Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein ( ; born Dianne Emiel Goldman; June 22, 1933) is an American politician who serves as the senior United States senator from California, a seat she has held since 1992. A member of the Democratic Party, she wa ...
said in May 2010: "The no-fly list itself is one of our best lines of defense." However, the list has been criticized on civil liberties and due process grounds, due in part to its potential for ethnic, religious, economic, political, or
racial profiling Racial profiling or ethnic profiling is the act of suspecting, targeting or discriminating against a person on the basis of their ethnicity, religion or nationality, rather than on individual suspicion or available evidence. Racial profiling involv ...
and discrimination. It has raised concerns about privacy and government secrecy and has been criticized as prone to false positives. The No Fly List is different from the Terrorist Watch List, a much longer list of people said to be suspected of some involvement with terrorism. As of June 2016, the Terrorist Watch List is estimated to contain over 2,484,442 records, consisting of 1,877,133 individual identities.


History

Before the
attacks of September 11, 2001 The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated Suicide attack, suicide List of terrorist incidents, terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, ...
, the U.S. federal government had a list of 16 people deemed "no transport" because they "presented a specific known or suspected threat to aviation." The list grew in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, reaching more than 400 names by November 2001, when responsibility for keeping it was transferred to the
Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic ...
(FAA). In mid-December 2001, two lists were created: the "No Fly List" of 594 people to be denied air transport, and the " Selectee" list of 365 people who were to be more carefully searched at airports. By 2002, the two lists combined contained over a thousand names, and by April 2005 contained about names. For the first two and a half years of the program, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
(FBI) and
Transportation Security Administration The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that has authority over the security of transportation systems within, and connecting to the United States. It was created ...
(TSA) denied that the program existed. In 2004, then-U.S. Senator
Edward Kennedy Edward Moore Kennedy (February 22, 1932 – August 25, 2009) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Massachusetts for almost 47 years, from 1962 until his death in 2009. A member of the Democratic ...
was denied boarding a flight because his name was similar to an alias found on the No Fly List. Laura K. Donohue would later write in ''The Cost of Counterterrorism: Power, Politics, and Liberty'' that "antiwar activists, such as Jan Adams and Rebecca Gordan, and political opponents of the Bush administration, such as Senator Edward Kennedy and civil rights attorney David Cole, found themselves included." In June 2016, Timothy Healy, the former director of the FBI
Terrorist Screening Center The Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) is a division of the National Security Branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It is the duty of the TSC to identify suspected or potential terrorists. Though housed within the FBI, the TSC is a mult ...
, disputed the claim that Kennedy had ever appeared on the list, saying that another person with a similar name—who had accidentally tried to bring ammunition on to a plane—was placed on an airline's watch list and Kennedy was mistakenly detained by the airline, not based on the No Fly List. In October 2006, CBS News' '' 60 Minutes'' reported on the program after it obtained a March 2006 copy of the list containing names. Many individuals were "caught in the system" as a result of sharing the exact or similar name of another person on the list; TSA officials said that, as of November 2005, people in 2005 had complained that their names were matched to a name on the list via the name matching software used by airlines. In January 2006, the FBI and ACLU settled a federal lawsuit, ''Gordon v. FBI'', brought by Gordon and Adams under the
Freedom of Information Act Freedom of Information Act may refer to the following legislations in different jurisdictions which mandate the national government to disclose certain data to the general public upon request: * Freedom of Information Act 1982, the Australian act * ...
in order to obtain information about how names were added to the list. Under the settlement, the government paid $200,000 in the plaintiffs' attorneys' fees. A separate suit was brought as a
class action A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class actio ...
"filed by people caught in the name game." In response, "TSA created an ombudsman process, whereby individuals now can download and print out a Passenger Identity Verification Form and mail it, along with certain notarized documents, to the TSA 'so the agency can differentiate the individual from others who may be on the list.'" In April 2007, the U.S. federal government's "terrorist watch list" administered by the
Terrorist Screening Center The Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) is a division of the National Security Branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It is the duty of the TSC to identify suspected or potential terrorists. Though housed within the FBI, the TSC is a mult ...
(which is managed principally by the FBI) contained records. A year later, the ACLU estimated the list to have grown to over names and to be continually expanding. However, according to Homeland Security secretary
Michael Chertoff Michael Chertoff (born November 28, 1953) is an American attorney who was the second United States Secretary of Homeland Security to serve under President George W. Bush. Chertoff also served for one additional day under President Barack Obama. ...
, in October 2008 the No Fly List contained only names, with an additional "selectees" who "represent a less specific security threat and receive extra scrutiny, but are allowed to fly." As of 2011, the list contained about 10,000 names. In 2012, the list more than doubled in size, to about 21,000 names. In August 2013, a leak revealed that more than 47,000 people were on the list. In 2016, California Senator Dianne Feinstein disclosed that 81,000 people were on the No Fly List. There is a huge, secretive US anti-terrorism database for Canada specifically, "Tuscan" (Tipoff US/Canada), revealed by Canada's access to information system. The database is used by both the US and Canada, and applies to all borders, not just airports. It is believed to contain information on about 680,000 people thought to be linked with terrorism. The list was created in 1997 as a consular aid. It was repurposed and expanded after 9/11, and again in 2016. The names in Tuscan come from the US
Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment The Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) is the U.S. government's central database on known or suspected ''international'' terrorists, and contains highly classified information provided by members of the Intelligence Community such as ...
(Tide), which is vetted by the FBI's
Terrorist Screening Center The Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) is a division of the National Security Branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It is the duty of the TSC to identify suspected or potential terrorists. Though housed within the FBI, the TSC is a mult ...
and populates various US traveller databases, Canada's Tuscan and the Australian equivalent, "Tactics".


Weapons purchases by listed persons (No Fly No Buy)

In a 2010 report, the Government Accountability Office noted that "Membership in a terrorist organization does not prohibit a person from possessing firearms or explosives under current federal law," and individuals on the No Fly List are not barred from purchasing guns.Jeff Stein
Terrorist Watch List No Bar to Buying Guns
''Newsweek'' (December 3, 2015).
According to GAO data, between 2004 and 2010, people on terrorism watch lists—including the No Fly List as well as other separate lists—attempted to buy guns and explosives more than 1,400 times, and succeeded 1,321 times (more than 90% of cases).Ailsa Chang
People on Terrorism Watch List Not Blocked From Buying Guns
NPR (April 24, 2013).
Senator
Frank Lautenberg Frank Raleigh Lautenberg (; January 23, 1924 June 3, 2013) was an American businessman and Democratic Party politician who served as United States Senator from New Jersey from 1982 to 2001, and again from 2003 until his death in 2013. He was ori ...
of New Jersey repeatedly introduced legislation to bar individuals on the terror watch lists (such as the No Fly List) from buying firearms or explosives, but these efforts have not succeeded. Senator
Dianne Feinstein Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein ( ; born Dianne Emiel Goldman; June 22, 1933) is an American politician who serves as the senior United States senator from California, a seat she has held since 1992. A member of the Democratic Party, she wa ...
of California revived the legislation after the November 2015 Paris attacks and President
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...
has called for such legislation to be approved. Republicans in Congress such as
Senate Homeland Security Committee The United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is the chief oversight committee of the United States Senate. It has jurisdiction over matters related to the Department of Homeland Security and other homeland s ...
chair
Ron Johnson Ronald Harold Johnson (born April 8, 1955) is an American accountant, businessman, and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Wisconsin, a seat he has held since 2011. A Republican, Johnson was first elected to the U.S. S ...
and former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan oppose this measure, citing due process concerns and efficacy, respectively. Republicans have blocked attempts by Democrats to attach these provisions to Republican-backed measures. The
American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...
has voiced opposition to barring weapons sales to individuals listed on the current form of the No Fly List, stating that: "There is no constitutional bar to reasonable regulation of guns, and the No Fly List could serve as one tool for it, but only with major reform."Hina Shamsi
Until the No Fly List Is Fixed, It Shouldn't Be Used to Restrict People's Freedoms
American Civil Liberties Union (December 7, 2015).
Specifically, the ACLU's position is that the government's current redress process—the procedure by which listed individuals can petition for removal from the list—does not meet the requirements of the Constitution's Due Process Clause because the process does not "provide meaningful notice of the reasons our clients are blacklisted, the basis for those reasons, and a hearing before a neutral decision-maker." In December 2015, Feinstein's amendment to bar individuals on the terror watch list from purchasing firearms failed in the Senate on a 45-54 vote.Kelsey Snell & Karoun Demirjian
Senate rejects gun control amendments offered following San Bernardino shooting
''Washington Post'' (December 3, 2015).
Senate Majority Whip
John Cornyn John Cornyn III ( ; born February 2, 1952) is an American politician and attorney serving as the senior United States senator from Texas, a seat he has held since 2002. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the Senate majority whip for ...
of Texas put forth a competing proposal to "give the attorney general the power to impose a 72-hour delay for individuals on the terror watch list seeking to purchase a gun and it could become a permanent ban if a judge determines there is probable cause during that time window." The measure, too, failed, on a 55-45 vote (60 votes were required to proceed). The votes on both the Feinstein measure and the Cornyn measure were largely along party lines.


Vulnerabilities

With the aim of preventing individuals on the No Fly List from flying in commercial airliners, U.S. airports require all passengers to show valid picture ID (e.g. a passport or driver's license) along with their boarding pass before entering the boarding terminal. At this checkpoint, the name on the ID is matched to that on the boarding pass, but is not recorded. In order to be effective, this practice must assume that 1) the ticket was bought under the passenger's real name (at which point the name was recorded and checked against the No Fly List), 2) the boarding pass shown is real, and 3) the ID shown is real. However, the rise of print-at-home boarding passes, which can be easily forged, allows a potential attacker to buy a ticket under someone else's name, to go into the boarding terminal using a real ID and a fake boarding pass, and then to fly on the ticket that has someone else's name on it. Additionally, a 2007 investigation showed that obviously false IDs could be used when claiming a boarding pass and entering the departures terminal, so a person on the No Fly List can simply travel under a different name.


False positives

A "
false positive A false positive is an error in binary classification in which a test result incorrectly indicates the presence of a condition (such as a disease when the disease is not present), while a false negative is the opposite error, where the test resul ...
" occurs when a passenger who is not on the No Fly List has a name that matches or is similar to a name on the list. False positive passengers will not be allowed to board a flight unless they can differentiate themselves from the actual person on the list, usually by presenting ID showing their middle name or date of birth. In some cases, false positive passengers have been denied boarding or have missed flights because they could not easily prove that they were not the person on the No Fly List.


Notable cases

False positives and abuses that have been in the news include: * Numerous children (including many under the age of five, and some under the age of one) have generated false positives. * Daniel Brown, a United States Marine returning from
Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
, was prevented from boarding a flight home in April 2006 because his name matched one on the No Fly List. * David Fathi, an attorney for the ACLU of Iranian descent and a plaintiff in an ACLU lawsuit, has been arrested and detained because his name was on the No Fly List. * Asif Iqbal, a management consultant and legal resident of the United States born in
Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...
, plans to sue the U.S. government because he is regularly detained when he tries to fly. He has the same name as a former
Guantanamo detainee The Guantanamo Bay detention camp ( es, Centro de detención de la bahía de Guantánamo) is a United States military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, also referred to as Guantánamo, GTMO, and Gitmo (), on the coast of Guant ...
. Iqbal's work requires a lot of travel, and, even though the Guantanamo detainee has been released, his name remains on the No Fly List, and Iqbal the software consultant experiences frequent, unpredictable delays and missed flights. He is pushing for a photo ID and birthdate matching system, in addition to the current system of checking names. * Robert J. Johnson, a surgeon and a former lieutenant colonel in the
U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...
, was told in 2006 that he was on the list, although he had had no problem in flying the month before. Johnson was running as a
Democrat Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to: Politics *A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people. *A member of a Democratic Party: **Democratic Party (United States) (D) **Democratic ...
against U.S. Representative John McHugh, a
Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
. Johnson wondered whether he was on the list because of his opposition to the
Iraq War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق ( Kurdish) , partof = the Iraq conflict and the War on terror , image ...
. He stated, "This could just be a government screw-up, but I don't know, and they won't tell me." Later, a '' 60 Minutes'' report brought together 12 men named Robert Johnson, all of whom had experienced problems in airports with being pulled aside and interrogated. The report suggested that the individual whose name was intended to be on the list was most likely the Robert Johnson who had been convicted of plotting to bomb a movie theater and a Hindu temple in
Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...
. * In August 2004, Senator
Ted Kennedy Edward Moore Kennedy (February 22, 1932 – August 25, 2009) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Massachusetts for almost 47 years, from 1962 until his death in 2009. A member of the Democratic ...
told a
Senate Judiciary Committee The United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, informally the Senate Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of 22 U.S. senators whose role is to oversee the Department of Justice (DOJ), consider executive and judicial nominations ...
discussing the No Fly List that he had appeared on the list and had been repeatedly delayed at airports. He said it had taken him three weeks of appeals directly to Homeland Security Secretary
Tom Ridge Thomas Joseph Ridge (born August 26, 1945) is an American politician and author who served as the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security from 2001 to 2003, and the first United States Secretary of Homeland Security from 2003 to 2005. ...
to have him removed from the list. Kennedy said he was eventually told that the name "T Kennedy" was added to the list because it was once used as an alias of a suspected terrorist. There are an estimated American men whose legal names correspond to "T Kennedy". (Senator Kennedy, whose first name was Edward and for whom "Ted" was only a nickname, would not have been one of them.) Recognizing that as a U.S. Senator he was in a privileged position of being able to contact Ridge, Kennedy said of "ordinary citizens": "How are they going to be able to get to be treated fairly and not have their rights abused?" Former mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani pointed to this incident as an example of the necessity to "rethink aviation security" in an essay on
homeland security Homeland security is an American national security term for "the national effort to ensure a homeland that is safe, secure, and resilient against terrorism and other hazards where American interests, aspirations, and ways of life can thrive" t ...
published while he was seeking the Republican nomination for the 2008 presidential election. * The late U.S. Representative, former
Freedom Rider Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated Southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions ''Morgan v. Virginia'' ...
, and former Chairman of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee,
John Lewis John Robert Lewis (February 21, 1940 – July 17, 2020) was an American politician and civil rights activist who served in the United States House of Representatives for from 1987 until his death in 2020. He participated in the 1960 Nashville ...
, was stopped many times in his life. * Canadian journalist Patrick Martin has been frequently interrogated while traveling, because of a suspicious individual, believed to be a former
Provisional Irish Republican Army The Irish Republican Army (IRA; ), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reu ...
bombmaker, with the same name. * Walter F. Murphy, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at
Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...
, reported that the following exchange took place at Newark on 1 March 2007, where he was denied a boarding pass "because I urphywas on the Terrorist Watch list." The airline employee asked, "Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that." Replied Murphy, "I explained that I had not so marched but had, in September 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the constitution." To which the airline employee responded, "That'll do it." * David Nelson, the actor best known for his role on ''
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet ''The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet'' is an American television sitcom that aired on ABC from October 3, 1952, to April 23, 1966, and starred the real-life Nelson family. After a long run on radio, the show was brought to television, where it ...
'', is among various persons named David Nelson who have been stopped at airports because their name apparently appears on the list. *
Jesselyn Radack Jesselyn Radack (born December 12, 1970) is an American national security and human rights attorney known for her defense of whistleblowers, journalists, and hacktivists. She graduated from Brown University and Yale Law School and began her car ...
, a former
United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United Stat ...
ethics adviser who argued that
John Walker Lindh John Philip Walker Lindh (born February 9, 1981) is an American convicted felon who was captured as an enemy combatant during the United States' invasion of Afghanistan In late 2001, the United States and its close allies invaded Afghani ...
was entitled to an attorney, was placed on the No Fly List as part of what she believes to be a reprisal for her whistle-blowing. * In September 2004, former pop singer Cat Stevens (who converted to Islam and changed his name to "Yusuf Islam" in 1978) was denied entry into the U.S. after his name was found on the list. * In February 2006, U.S. Senator
Ted Stevens Theodore Fulton Stevens Sr. (November 18, 1923 – August 9, 2010) was an American politician and lawyer who served as a U.S. Senator from Alaska from 1968 to 2009. He was the longest-serving Republican Senator in history at the time he left ...
stated in a
committee A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly. A committee is not itself considered to be a form of assembly. Usually, the assembly sends matters into a committee as a way to explore them more ...
hearing that his wife Catherine had been subjected to questioning at an airport as to whether she was Cat Stevens due to the similarity of their names. * U.S. Representative Don Young, the third-most senior Republican in the House, was flagged in 2004 after he was mistaken for a "Donald Lee Young". * Some members of the Federal Air Marshal Service have been denied boarding on flights that they were assigned to protect because their names matched those of persons on the No Fly List. * In August 2008,
CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
reported that an airline captain and retired
brigadier general Brigadier general or Brigade general is a military rank used in many countries. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries. The rank is usually above a colonel, and below a major general or divisional general. When appointed ...
of the U.S. Air National Guard has had numerous encounters with security officials when attempting to pilot his own plane. * After frequently being detained for questioning at airport terminals, a
Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
businessman changed his name to avoid being delayed every time he took a flight. * In October 2008, the ''
Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large na ...
'' reported that
Maryland State Police The Maryland State Police (MSP), officially the Maryland Department of State Police (MDSP), is the official state police force of the U.S. state of Maryland. The Maryland State Police is headquartered at 1201 Reisterstown Road in the Pikesvill ...
classified 53 nonviolent political activists as terrorists, and entered their names and personal information into state and federal databases, with labels indicating that they were terror suspects. The protest groups were also entered as terrorist organizations. During a hearing, it was revealed that these individuals and organizations had been placed in the databases because of a surveillance operation that targeted opponents of the death penalty and the
Iraq War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق ( Kurdish) , partof = the Iraq conflict and the War on terror , image ...
. * In April 2009, TSA refused to allow an Air France flight from Paris to Mexico to cross U.S. airspace because it was carrying Colombian journalist
Hernando Calvo Ospina Hernando Calvo Ospina (born 6 June 1961) is a Colombian journalist, author and director of various documentaries. He resides in France. Life and work Born in Cali, he was a student of journalism at the Central University of Ecuador in Quito, Ec ...
. Air France did not send the passenger manifest to the U.S. authorities; they did however send it to Mexico who forwarded it to the U.S. * On August 19, 2009, Air France flight AF-438 was not allowed to cross into U.S. airspace because of the presence on board of one Paul-Emile Dupret, a civil servant at the European Parliament for 18 years, who had written some articles criticizing the EU's policies toward Latin America because they are aligned too closely with those of the United States. Even though AF-438 did not cross into U.S. airspace, Paul-Emile Dupret was not allowed to fly to Montreal, where he was to take part in an official delegation of the European Parliament in Ottawa and Montreal. On March 20, 2016 at Charles DeGaulle Airport, Air France prevented Dupret from boarding and suggested that he speak with a US security agent in the airport. *
Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (fo ...
actor Shah Rukh Khan was held for extensive questioning by U.S. Immigration and Customs officials in August 2009 because, as he reported, "his name came up on a computer alert list." Customs officials claimed that he "was questioned as part of a routine process that took 66 minutes." Khan was visiting the United States to promote his film '' My Name Is Khan'', which concerns
racial profiling Racial profiling or ethnic profiling is the act of suspecting, targeting or discriminating against a person on the basis of their ethnicity, religion or nationality, rather than on individual suspicion or available evidence. Racial profiling involv ...
of Muslims in the United States. * In June 2010, ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' reported that Yahya Wehelie, a 26-year-old Muslim American man, was being prevented from returning to the United States, and was stranded in
Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...
. Despite Wehelie's offer to FBI agents to allow them to accompany him on the plane, while shackled, he was not permitted to fly. The ACLU has argued that this constitutes
banishment Exile is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons and peoples suf ...
. In July 2010, Wehelie was permitted to fly to New York under a federal waiver. * A U.S. citizen, stranded in Colombia after being placed on the No Fly List as a result of having studied in
Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...
, sought to re-enter the U.S. through
Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
but was returned to Colombia by Mexican authorities. * Michael Migliore, a 23-year-old Muslim convert and dual citizen of the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
and
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
, was detained in the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
after traveling there from the U.S. by train and then cruise ship because he was not permitted to fly. He said that he believes he was placed on the no-fly list because he refused to answer questions about a
2010 Portland car bomb plot The 2010 Portland car bomb plot involved an incident in which Mohamed Osman Mohamud (born 1991), a Somali-American student, was arrested in an FBI sting operation on November 26, 2010, after attempting to set off what he thought was a car bomb ...
without his lawyer present. He was released eight or ten hours later, but authorities confiscated his electronic media items, including a cell phone and media player. * Abe Mashal, a 31-year-old Muslim and United States Marine Veteran, found himself on the No Fly List in April 2010 while attempting to board a plane out of Midway Airport. He was interrogated by the TSA, FBI and Chicago Police at the airport and was told by they had no clue why he was on the No Fly List. Once he arrived at home that day two other FBI agents came to his home and used a Do Not Fly question-and-answer sheet to question him. They informed him they had no idea why he was on the No Fly List. In June 2010, those same two FBI agents summoned Mashal to a local hotel and invited him to a private room. They then told him that he was in no trouble and the reason he ended up on the No Fly List was because of possibly sending emails to an American imam they may have been monitoring. They then informed him that if he would go undercover at various local mosques, they could get him off the No Fly List immediately and he would be compensated for such actions. Mashal refused to answer any additional questions without a lawyer present and was told to leave the hotel. Mashal then contacted the ACLU and is now being represented in a class-action lawsuit filed against the TSA, FBI and DHS concerning the legality of the No Fly List and how people end up on it. Mashal feels as if he was blackmailed into becoming an informant by being placed on the No Fly List. Mashal has since appeared on ABC, NBC, PBS and Al Jazeera concerning his inclusion on the No Fly List. He has also written a book about his experience titled "No Spy No Fly." * In November 2002 '' Salon'' reported that the No-Fly program seemed "to be netting mostly priests, elderly nuns, Green Party campaign operatives, left-wing journalists, right-wing activists and people affiliated with Arab or Arab-American groups." Art dealer Doug Stuber, who ran Ralph Nader's Green Party presidential campaign in North Carolina in 2000, was prevented from flying to Europe on business in October 2002. He was repeatedly pulled out of line, held for questioning until his flight left, then told falsely he could take a later flight or depart from a different airport.
Barbara Olshansky Barbara Olshansky is an American human rights lawyer. ''The Case for Impeachment'' Olshansky is author with Dave Lindorff of ''The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office''. Olshansky and Lindo ...
, then Assistant Legal Director for the
Center for Constitutional Rights The Center for Constitutional RightsThe Center for Constitutional Rights
(CCR) is a Nick Fuentes Nicholas Joseph Fuentes (born August 18, 1998) is an American white supremacistMultiple sources: * * * * * political commentator and live streamer. A former YouTuber, his channel was permanently suspended in February 2020 for violating ...
was placed on the No Fly List. Fuentes was an attendee at the Save America March put on by then-President
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
, as well as was present at the
January 6 United States Capitol attack On January 6, 2021, following the defeat of then- U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, a mob of his supporters attacked the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. The mob was seeking to keep Trump in p ...
.


DHS Traveler Redress Inquiry Program

The DHS Traveler Redress Inquiry Program (TRIP) is a procedure for travelers who are delayed or denied boarding of an aircraft, consistently receive excess scrutiny at security checkpoints, or are denied entry to the U.S. because they are believed to be or are told that they are on a government watch list. The traveler must complete an online application at the
Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries. Its stated missions involve anti-terr ...
website, print and sign the application, and then submit it with copies of several identifying documents. After reviewing their records, DHS notifies the traveler that if any corrections of data about them were warranted, they will be made. Travelers who apply for redress through TRIP are assigned a record identifier called a "Redress Control Number". Airline reservations systems allow passengers who have a Redress Control Number to enter it when making their reservation. DHS TRIP may make it easier for an airline to confirm a traveler's identity. False-positive travelers, whose names match or are similar to the names of persons on the No Fly List, will continue to match that name even after using DHS TRIP, so it will not restore a traveler's ability to use Internet or curbside check-in or to use an automated kiosk. It does usually help the airline identify the traveler as not being the actual person on the No Fly List, after an airline agent has reviewed their identity documents at check-in. However, DHS TRIP has not been very helpful to travelers who accidentally end up on the No Fly List, as their efforts to clear their names are often futile to the extent that they are not told why they are on the list.


Lawsuits

On April 6, 2004, the
American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...
"filed a nationwide class-action challenge to the government's No Fly List", in which they charge that "many innocent travelers who pose no security risk whatsoever are discovering that their government considers them terrorists – and find that they have no way to find out why they are on the list, and no way to clear their names." The case was settled in 2006, when "the federal government agreed to pay $ in attorneys' fees to the ACLU of Northern California" and to "
ake Ake (or Aké in Spanish orthography) is an archaeological site of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization. It's located in the municipality of Tixkokob, in the Mexican state of Yucatán; 40 km (25 mi) east of Mérida, Yucatán. The name ...
public, for the first time, hundreds of records about the government's secret 'no fly' list used to screen airline passengers after September 11, 2001." On August 5, 2010, the ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of 14 plaintiffs challenging their placement on the No Fly List. and on June 24, 2014, U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown ruled in favor of the plaintiffs saying that air travel is a "sacred" liberty protected by the U.S. Constitution and ordered the government to change its system for challenging inclusion. A Malaysian academic has been the first to successfully bring a suit involving the No Fly List to trial. On August 18, 2008, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco issued a ruling on behalf of Rahinah Ibrahim, who was a Stanford University graduate student when she was arrested at the San Francisco-Oakland International Airport in 2005, overturning a lower court decision and allowing her case against inclusion in the No Fly List to proceed through the court system. A public trial began on December 2, 2013 in San Francisco in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge
William Alsup William Haskell Alsup (born June 27, 1945) is a Senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Early life and career Born in Jackson, Mississippi, Alsup received a Bachelor of ...
. After the government revealed that Ibrahim had ended up on the list because of human error by the FBI, Alsup ruled on January 14, 2014 "that Ibrahim did have the right to sue and ordered the government to tell Ibrahim whether she is still on the list." Ibrahim was represented by the San Jose-based law firm of McManis Faulkner. Ibrahim was awarded $400,000 in court costs; in January 2019 the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that she was entitled to the "vast majority" of the millions of dollars in costs her lawyers were requesting, and ordered Alsup to rule on whether the government had acted in bad faith.
Gulet Mohamed Gulet Mohamed (born 1991) is a naturalized United States citizen who was detained in Kuwait and placed on the no-fly list maintained by the Terrorist Screening Center. Mohamed was born in Somalia and immigrated in 1995. He was raised in Alexandr ...
, a U.S. citizen from Virginia, was placed on the no-fly list as a teenager in 2011 while he was visiting family in Kuwait. Because he was on the no-fly list, he was unable to return to the U.S. before his visa expired. He was taken into custody in Kuwait for overstaying his visa, where he alleges that he "was repeatedly beaten and tortured by his interrogators". Kuwaiti authorities tried to deport him to the U.S., but the airline denied him boarding, presumably because he was on the U.S. No Fly List, and he was returned to prison. While he was imprisoned in Kuwait, a lawsuit was filed on his behalf in the Eastern District of Virginia by the
Council on American–Islamic Relations The Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) is a Muslim civil rights and advocacy group. It is headquartered on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., with regional offices nationwide. Through civil rights actions, media relations, civic enga ...
. After the lawsuit was filed, he was allowed to return to the U.S.; the U.S. government then moved to dismiss the lawsuit as moot. On May 28, 2013, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the government's motion to dismiss Mohamed's lawsuit. On January 22, 2014, Judge Anthony J. Trenga denied most of another government motion to dismiss the lawsuit, allowing the case to proceed toward trial.


Controversy and criticism

The
American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...
(ACLU) has long criticized the No Fly List and similar lists because of the lack of notification to persons included on such lists. The ACLU's stance is that the government has not provided a constitutionally adequate means of allowing individuals to challenge their inclusion on the list and that "constitutional rights are at stake when the government stigmatizes Americans as suspected terrorists and bans them from international travel." Among the complaints about the No Fly List is the use of
credit report :''This article deals with the general concept of the term credit history. For detailed information about the same topic in the United States, see Credit score in the United States.'' A credit history is a record of a borrower's responsible repa ...
s in calculating the risk score. In response to the controversy,
Transportation Security Administration The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that has authority over the security of transportation systems within, and connecting to the United States. It was created ...
(TSA) officials said in 2005 that they would not use credit scores to determine passengers' risk score and that they would comply with all rights guaranteed by the
First First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...
and Fourth amendments to the United States Constitution. In the midst of this controversy, the Government Accountability Office of the
U.S. Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washin ...
produced a report critical of the CAPPS II system. It characterized the proposal as incomplete and seriously behind schedule, and noted that the TSA had failed to address "developmental, operational, and privacy issues identified by Congress". On July 14, 2004, TSA officials announced that CAPPS II was being pulled from consideration without proceeding to full testing. Critics have alleged that the TSA has merely chosen to start with a less controversial entry point that they are calling the "
Registered Traveler The Registered Traveler Pilot Program was an airline passenger security assessment system tested in the United States air travel industry in 2005. It was used in several U.S. airports in a voluntary pilot phase and continues in operation in severa ...
" program. TSA has also begun testing of another program called "
Secure Flight Secure Flight is an airline passenger pre- screening program, implemented from August 2009 by the United States Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Secure Flight matches passenger information against watch lists maintained by the federa ...
", which is supposed to solve some of the problems of CAPPS I while avoiding the privacy issues of CAPPS II. In January 2009, Marcus Holmes conservatively estimated the total cost of the program to be $536 million since 9/11, with a reasonable estimation range that approaches $1 billion, and he questioned whether the benefits of the list outweigh the costs.


No fly lists in other countries

Canada's federal government has created its own no fly list as part of a program called Passenger Protect. The Canadian list incorporates data from domestic and foreign intelligence sources, including the U.S. No Fly List. It contains between 500 and 2,000 names. In addition, Canada's access to information system revealed that the US "Tuscan" (Tipoff US/Canada) database is provided to every Canadian border guard and immigration officer; they have the power to detain, interrogate, arrest and deny entry to anyone listed on it. Unlike the no-fly list, which only applies to airports, Tuscan is used for every Canadian land and sea border, and visa and immigration application. In
Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...
, the no fly list is known as the
Exit Control List The Exit Control Lists (ECL; ur, ) is a system of border control maintained by the Government of Pakistan under Exit from Pakistan (Control) Ordinance, 1981. The people on the list are prohibited from leaving Pakistan. Priorities 1. Exit from P ...
.


See also

*
Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System The Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (often abbreviated CAPPS) is a counter-terrorism system in place in the United States air travel industry. The United States Transportation Security Administration (TSA) maintains a watchlist, p ...
*
FBI Index The FBI Indexes, or Index List, was a system used to track American citizens and other people by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) before the adoption of computerized databases. The Index List was originally made of paper index cards, firs ...
*
Hollywood blacklist The Hollywood blacklist was an entertainment industry blacklist, broader than just Hollywood, put in effect in the mid-20th century in the United States during the early years of the Cold War. The blacklist involved the practice of denying empl ...
*
Interpol Terrorism Watch List Interpol launched the Interpol Terrorism Watch List on 11 April 2002 for access by Interpol offices and authorized police agencies in its 184 member countries, during the 17th Interpol Regional Conference for the Americas in Mexico City. Following t ...
* Office of Foreign Assets Control


References


Sources


"Homeland Insecurity: Why 'No-Fly' Just Doesn't Fly"
by Randall Amster, ''Truthout'', February 3, 2010.
"Meet Mikey, 8: U.S. Has Him on Watch List"
New York Times, January 14, 2010.
"Unlikely Terrorists On No Fly List"
''60 Minutes'', October 8, 2006.

* {{cite news , url=http://news.findlaw.com/usatoday/docs/aclu/greenvtsa40604cmp.pdf , title=Michelle D. Green; John F. Shaw; David C. Fathi; Sarosh Syed; Mohamed Ibrahim; David Nelson; Alexandra Hay, on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. Transportation Security Administration , publisher=
American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...
, first=Reginald T. , last=Shuford , date=April 6, 2004, author-link=Reggie Shuford
1,600 are Suggested Daily for FBI's List
by Walter Pincus, ''
Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large na ...
'', November 1, 2009
Plaintiff in ACLU Suit Challenging Government No-Fly List Describes Struggle
– video report by ''
Democracy Now! ''Democracy Now!'' is an hour-long American TV, radio, and Internet news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman (who also acts as the show's executive producer), Juan González, and Nermeen Shaikh. The show, which airs live each weekday at ...
''
Mrs Shipley's Ghost The Right to Travel and Terrorist Watchlists
by Jeffrey Kahn, University of Michigan Press, 2013; – book on the No Fly List and other terrorist watchlists


External links


"Terrorist Screening Center"
FBI.gov
"Terrorist Watchlist Checks and Air Passenger Prescreening"
Congressional Research Service The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is a public policy research institute of the United States Congress. Operating within the Library of Congress, it works primarily and directly for members of Congress and their committees and staff on a ...
, December 30, 2009.
"Terrorist Watch List Screening and Background Checks for Firearms"
Congressional Research Service The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is a public policy research institute of the United States Congress. Operating within the Library of Congress, it works primarily and directly for members of Congress and their committees and staff on a ...
, May 1, 2013. United States Department of Homeland Security Aviation in the United States Aviation security Legal issues related to the September 11 attacks George W. Bush administration controversies Islam-related controversies in North America Counterterrorism in the United States Government databases in the United States de:Watch List