TSA’s Do-Not-Fly list denies due process

Airport security just got a lot more complicated.

The Transportation Security… Airport security just got a lot more complicated.

The Transportation Security Administration, with help from federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies, has compiled a Do-Not-Fly list of people who are not allowed to board commercial aircraft. There is also a selectee list, naming people who must undergo an extensive screening process before being allowed on flights.

And until authorities tell people they’re on the list, they can only find out at the airport, and if they are detained, their long-planned, already-paid-for flights may depart without them.

The list, like so many other elements of new, improved security, is riddled with vagaries and secrecy. According to an Associated Press report, “Little … is known about the lists, including how many people are on them and how they qualify to get on or off.”

The only information available to the public, it seems, is that there is a list, it definitely exists and anyone may or may not be on it.

This fits with the new interpretation of due process, as seen through the refractory and kaleidoscopic glasses of the executive branch.

The American Civil Liberties Union is suing the United States Department of Homeland Security and the TSA, with seven unnamed plaintiffs, including a former minister, a member of the military and a college student, whose names closely resemble, or are identical to, those on the No-Fly list, according to a Reuters report.

Imagine if every Joe Smith who entered an airport was detained just because one Joe Smith managed — somehow — to get on the list. And, he (or she, if it were a Jo Smith) wouldn’t know until confronted by airport security. Sure, further background checks, and calls to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, could clear Joe Smith’s name, but that still takes time, and by then, Smith will have missed his or her flight.

Airports are not the proper arenas for assigning penalties. That honor belongs to the judicial system. If people are being punished on suspicion — which they shouldn’t be anyway — that punishment should come with a swift and fair trial. If people are to be punished, shouldn’t they be given a day in court rather than simply blacklisted at the whim of TSA and Homeland Security?

And why are people suspected of being security threats not being apprehended by the proper authorities?

Do-Not-Fly does nothing except exemplify the executive branch’s new security regime that seeks to undermine basic American principles, like due process and accountability.