The No Fly List

One of my ESU students wrote a very good paper on the “No Fly list” maintained by the Transportation Safety Agency.  I was amazed at the arbitrariness of the list, the impossibility to find out why a person was on the list, and the lack of procedures for getting off the list.

Now, thanks to an American Civil Liberties Union’s five-year-long lawsuit, a federal court has recognized that the freedom to travel by air is a fundamental right.  

Last October the government notified seven ACLU clients that they were no longer on the list.  Previously the government would neither confirm nor deny an individual’s presence on the list.  

Unfortunately, my ACLU magazine did not say which federal court made the ruling.  The article also noted that the government has not followed the court’s instructions for contesting inclusion in the list, and the lawsuit is continuing.  

Happy Independence Day.