Tea Party yawns, says health-care reform is the real threat to liberty. RT @JonHenke: Unbelievable. American citizen exiled without due process. http://bit.ly/afySVa
Tea Party yawns, says health-care reform is the real threat to liberty. RT @JonHenke: Unbelievable. American citizen exiled without due process. http://bit.ly/afySVa
The man in question can simply fly to Canada, and then walk across the border. Yes being on the no fly list is a nuisance, and perhaps unwarranted, but he is by no means “exiled”.
Or will we suddenly discover a “right to fly” in the the “penumbra of privacy” in the U.S. constitution?
Or, you know, we could cut out the bull-shit and recognize the fairly explicit right to travel. This is fairly clearly in the 5th Amendment, “[…] nor be deprived of life LIBERTY or property, without due process of law […]” And of course, let us not forget the 9th Amendment, “The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be constructed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
Why is it that Republicans can’t read? I really don’t understand that. I also really don’t understand why these supposed conservatives are so against our rights. It’s intensely stupid or disingenuous, or just plain daft.
gahrie…he can’t go to Canada because he does not have a valid passport which would let him enter that country (or any other country for that matter.) Take a look at the original article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/world/middleeast/16yemen.html
“The American authorities in Cairo canceled his passport and issued a new one Sunday with the notation, “valid only for return to the United States before Sept. 12, 2010,” (Odd that he has to return by just after 9/11????
So he now has a passport that only allows him to go to the USA…but the USA won’t allow him to go there via air (and of course the “no fly” list also applies to a passenger ship as well…though I wonder how many of those go from Egypt to the USA anyway.) So I guess he has a couple of choices…he can swim. or he can possibly buy his own boat or perhaps he can persuade someone to privately take him to the USA…but not sure how that works.
Now that gahrie has been called on his indefensible, dismissive bullshit, will he explicitly retract the statement Yes being on the no fly list is a nuisance, and perhaps unwarranted, but he is by no means “exiled”.? Or will he come up with some more indefensible, dismissive bullshit to explain why we shouldn’t care about this?
Oh, wait, he already came up with bullshit explanation #2: the Constitution doesn’t include a right to freely travel. That’s just something that was invented by liberal activist judges. So, according to gahrie’s view of the Constitution, it is completely okay for the federal government to effectively banish United States citizens from entering the United States, with no due process whatsoever, and to say otherwise is to find nonexistent rights in the “penumbra of privacy.”
Moreover, since there is (of course) nothing in the Constitution that differentiates between air travel and other forms of travel — any such distinction would necessarily be in the “penumbra,” and we can’t have that, right gahrie? — it follows that the government can tell citizens not to cross state lines, or town lines, or drive their cars, or use their Segway scooters, or walk across the street. (The “no-walk list.” It’s just a nuisance!) And it can do this without any due process, and without any emergency-related reason — like, say, an epidemic or something, where such powers might actually be warranted. The benevolent bureaucrats of federal government can just decide that they think you might be a threat, and thus can tell you that you must stay at home, and cannot travel. And this is completely fine, not against the Constitution at all. And to say otherwise is to be a liberal activist stretching the Constitution beyond the designs of the founders.
But, meanwhile, it’s unconstitutional to create an individual mandate to prevent uninsured people who can afford health insurance from freeloading off other taxpayers’ contributions to the health-care system.
Riiiiiiight.
Gahrie, please come to grips with reality and recognize that your initial gut reaction was just wrong about this one. We disagree about a lot of things (for instance, I’m not actually expecting to convert you to my way of thinking about the individual mandate), but I’d hate to think you’re so far gone into crazy tea party-world that you can’t see the self-evident travesty that this situation represents.
Brendan et al:
OK, you’ve convinced me. Pres. Obama is an out of control tyrant presiding over an out of control administration trampling willy nilly on honest American’s rights.
Happy now?
If you accept the same as true of Bush, then yes.
If you accept the same as true of Bush, then yes
You have evidence that Pres. Bush “exiled” Americans?
Who and when?
By the way, I think an acceptable compromise would be the one proposed by the “victim”. Search him, his luggage and have an air marshal on the flight.
You have evidence that Pres. Bush “exiled” Americans?
Who and when?
Gahrie, if we were talking about an abuse of the system, it would be reasonable to ask whether it was similarly abused under Bush before judging him on this issue. But this isn’t an abuse of the system. This is the system. It’s working precisely how it’s designed to work. And it is designed to strip everyone, including American citizens, of their fundamental rights. So, yes, Obama’s complicity in the perpetuation of this unconstitution and immoral and un-American system is indefensible. So is Bush’s.
You, however, clearly still don’t get it. You’re just using it as a chance to get in a cheap shot against Obama, while at the same time using score quotes around “victim” to clearly indicate you don’t regard it as a real problem. For you, this is about partisanship. You want to establish that we lefties are hypocrites. Well guess what. I unequivocally condemn President Obama for allowing this to continue on his watch. So have the other lefty commentators I’ve read on the topic. Now: what say you?
I’m still waiting for the explicit retraction of “being on the no fly list is a nuisance, and perhaps unwarranted, but he is by no means ‘exiled’,” as well as of the claim that a right to travel is NOT a fundamental constitutional right that can only be taken away with due process. And now I’m also waiting for an admission that Bush is at least equally culpable in perpetuating this unconstitutional system.
I suspect I’ll be waiting for quite a while. You’ll probably come back with another snarky cheap shot at Obama and the Left, instead of addressing the underlying substantive issue. That’s pretty much what you do.
P.S. an acceptable compromise
A “compromise” between what? A naked assertion of totally unconstitutional power by the state, and an individual citizen’s god-given right of free movement? On what grounds should those two concepts, one completely illegitimate and one completely legitimate, be”compromised”?
The solution is to institute some acceptable form of due process, tailored to the particular situation so as to uphold legitimate safety concerns. But that’s not a “compromise,” because there’s nothing to compromise. The government is just WRONG.
There is no Constitutional right to fly. Seriously, how can you write that with a straight face? It is a clearly established precedent that there is no right to drive a car, but somehow there is a right to fly?
The no fly list is clearly an extension of the governments duties in dealing with immigration and national defense.
If you want me to admit that Pres. Bush instituted the no fly list, fine. But I consider that a good thing. I was pleasantly surprised when Pres. Obama maintained or strengthened EVERY Bush administration anti-terrorism practice and program.
(By the way where are the death counts in the news and Code Pink protesters now that Pres. Obama is in charge? When did Cindy Sheehan go from sainted mother to crazy kook?)
The outrage of this incident is not that the man was put on the no fly list. The outrage is the faceless government bureaucrats who are refusing to seek a reasonable compromise that would allow this man to return. I absolutely believe he has a right as an American citizen to return to the United States and receive due process. If the government prevents him from flying commercially, they have an obligation to return him to the United States. (There, feel better?)
Can’t you see that this is yet another example of a government bureaucracy behaving badly?
“There is no Constitutional right to fly. Seriously, how can you write that with a straight face? It is a clearly established precedent that there is no right to drive a car, but somehow there is a right to fly?”
O RLY?
I confess I haven’t studied these cases in depth, but the United States Supreme Court has held:
Kent was subsequently limited by Regan v. Wald, 468 U.S. 222, 240 (1984), so as to uphold the Cuba travel ban. But Regan didn’t question the basic premise stated above. In fact, it stated that “such restrictions do not violate the freedom to travel protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment” — thus explicitly reaffirming that such a right does indeed exist (it just doesn’t prevent the government from taking the action at issue in that particular case).
The general right to travel also doesn’t forbid such basic regulatory functions as licensing people to drive cars (and taking away said licenses — with due process!! — under certain circumstances as defined by law — not as defined by unaccountable executive-branch bureaucrats) or, yes, making lists of people who can’t fly for security reasons. The mere existence of the no-fly list isn’t the problem (or is at least, I’ll concede, potentially a reasonable “compromise”). The problem is the absence of any due process allowing a person wrongly placed on the list to get himself or herself off the list. And that’s been a feature (or bug) of the system all along, not just under Obama.
This isn’t just just about government bureaucrats abusing their discretion (though that is certainly happening too). It’s about the existence of a system that doesn’t provide people with any ability to vindicate their Fifth Amendment rights in this arena. Your position is, “the bureaucrats should have been more reasonable and compromised with this guy,” but that’s a bit like saying, in reference to the unconstitutional D.C. gun ban, that the bureaucrats charged with enforcing the ban should have been more lenient and reasonable in their enforcement, and if they had, that would have solved the whole problem. No: the problem was the ban itself, not its enforcement. Likewise here, the problem is not that the unaccountable bureaucrats charged with arbitrarily deciding whether or not this guy gets to exercise his fundamental constitutional right to travel exercised that authority in a capricious way. The problem is that they have no business exercising that authority in the first place, or at a minimum, there should be some actual appeals process whereby their decisions can be challenged — not just an “appeal” to a higher level of unaccountable bureacurats with no due process.
A “compromise” between what? A naked assertion of totally unconstitutional power by the state, and an individual citizen’s god-given right of free movement?
So, are you outraged by the fact that the US government issues passports in the first place?
Wouldn’t this make all immigration laws unconstitutional?
The fact is, the state does have the duty to police the borders, the state does have the duty to regulate who may enter the country and the state does have the ability to restrict the right to fly.
This is simply a case where a government bureaucracy is abusing those duties and abilities.
The problem is the absence of any due process allowing a person wrongly placed on the list to get himself or herself off the list. And that’s been a feature (or bug) of the system all along, not just under Obama.
Passengers will have a way to appeal if their name turns up on the government’s no-fly list, under provisions of the intelligence bill signed into law yesterday.
The law requires the Transportation Security Administration to create a system for travelers to correct inaccurate information that has landed them on the no-fly list. It also directs the Department of Homeland Security to create a Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board to ensure that anti-terrorist government actions do not infringe on people’s rights.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8986-2004Dec17.html
Our comments crossed in the Interwebs, and moreover, I just edited & expanded on the last paragraph while you were posting your comment, so you may respond before seeing those changes. Regardless, no, I’m not outraged by basic and obviously necessarily administrative regulations of travel; what outrages me is the idea that there is no due process available to review the administrative decisions when abuse occurs. It isn’t “simply a case where a government bureaucracy is abusing those duties and abilities” — it’s a case where the system has been set up in such a way that the bureaucracy is totally unaccountable and citizens have no ability to challenge its decision-making process, as is their right under the Fifth Amendment. That’s a systemic issue, not just an individual abuse of authority.
Re: the WaPo article… as the original linked article explains, that law doesn’t address situations like this. It only allows corrections of mistaken identity and whatnot. This isn’t a case of mistaken identity, it’s a case where the government’s information about this person’s “threat” status is factually incorrect. That remains unchallengeable under present law, as I understand it.
From the original linked article:
You know what frustrates me? That Republicans are so incredibly dumb. I’m sorry, but gahrie, you are just being flat out dumb. The only other option is that you are a disingenuous ass, and I’ve never meet you, so I’m going with ignorant.
It seriously is baffling that Republicans insist on reading the Constitution backwards. Especially the Bill of Rights. Lets set aside that freedom to travel is a fundamentally recognized part of liberty. And is, therefor, explicitly one of the things that you need to use due process to take away. Even if it were not, the right to travel is a long understood as a fundamental part of this nation. (After all, without the right to travel what really separates us from Communist China). It is a fundamental human right. Just because driving is a privilege doesn’t make being able to hire a car to take you wherever you’d like to go a privilege. Doesn’t make walking wherever you want via public land a privilege.
When the framers wrote the Bill of Rights their fundamental fear wasn’t that they had to put this in the Constitution, their fear was that by putting it in the Constitution future morons would think that the rights enumerated were the only ones–everyone in the debate agreed that the people had more rights than were enumerated in the Constitution, or Bill or Rights, or could be for that matter. Which is exactly backwards of how you seem to think this is written. In fact it’s the only case where the debate about the Bill of Rights is actually explicitly in the Bill of Rights as the ninth amendment, the unenumerated rights clause. The Bill of Rights itself basically says that unless government has been explicitly granted the ability to take away a right you have that right. A right doesn’t have to be in the Constitution, the power of the government to take away any right MUST be in the Constitution. Not only that, but those un-enumerated rights should not be seen as lesser though they were not enumerated. Again, as explicitly stated in the ninth amendment. No, I don’t know why the Warren court used the ridiculous tortured logic it did to arrive at their decision in Roe. But that doesn’t actually make the Ninth any less a part of the Constitution.
I won’t say that Liberals aren’t prone to reading the Constitution backwards also. But at the basic level the Constitution grants the government specific powers. If it fails to grant government a power, government lacks that power. And that really does go both for rights and for government programs and whatever else. And yes, I think the Air Force existing as a separate branch of the military is unconstitutional, and it should be included as part of the Army the way that the marines are included as part of the Navy.
DCL:
As far as the whole enumerated powers argument, I’ve made it several times myself on this blog. In fact, I have made the statement that the Bill of Rights was a mistake, because of the very argument you make.
I have never argued that the man could not leave Egypt. Or even that he could not return to the United States. In fact I have said he should be allowed to fly to the United States.
However, I still maintain there is no right to fly, and that the no fly list is Constitutional.