Airlines want even more people put on the no-fly list
Undeterred by the manifest unfairness of the US government’s current no-fly list, some airlines and their allies are apparently renewing a campaign they began last year to get Congress to create yet another extrajudicial procedure by which the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) could put even more people on the US no-fly list.
Seriously? Can anyone really think that the way to make the current bloated and bigoted no-fly list more fair is to add even more names to it? That what the TSA needs is more authority to impose arbitrary and judicially unreviewable sanctions on disfavored members of the traveling public? That the branch of the government best qualified to exercise the power to make decisions that restrict people’s rights and in some cases would cost them their livelihood, perhaps for life, is the TSA?
Once a no-fly list exists, it’s almost inevitable that some people will see it as a one-stop solution to every problem, and will push to expand it by adding new rules to the no-fly blacklisting algorithm. But this is exactly the wrong way to go. If a bill to protect air travelers is going to be reintroduced and considered in Congress, it should be the Freedom to Travel Act.