Faced with a series of Federal court rulings upholding challenges to “no-fly” orders, or allowing them to proceed toward trial, the US government agencies responsible for “no-fly” orders have responded by pretending that they don’t understand what the courts have ordered them to do. Instead of complying with court orders, the responsible agencies are asking […]
A lawsuit filed today in Federal District Court in Michigan challenges “the widespread government practice of placing names on watch lists without providing individuals with any notice of the factual basis for their placement and without offering a meaningful opportunity to contest the designation.” According to the complaint: This lawsuit is an expression of anger […]
We’ve focused mostly on the “no-fly” list and other government blacklists and “watchlists” restricting the movement of people. But the latest administrative injustice involving an innocent British philosopher reminds us that government blacklists also restrict the movement of information, goods, and money — sometimes with serious negative effects on innocent people’s lives. How the US […]
In a judgment announced yesterday, the European Court of Justice has ruled that a secret list promulgated by the European Commission, specifying items to be prohibited from airline carry-on baggage, cannot be enforced against individual airline passengers because it was not made public: The annex to Commission Regulation (EC) No 622/2003 of 4 April 2003 […]
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has announced plans for changes to its procedures for processing information sent to CBP by airlines (and possibly also train, bus, and ferry operators) about passengers on international routes with non-binary or non-gendered “X” gender marker passports, to take effect on Tuesday, October 12, 2025. The planned changes were […]
“Data matching” may seem abstract, but its consequences can be life-changing: visa revocation, deportation, sudden cessation of Social Security payments, all without warning or opportunity to present argument or evidence to a human fact-finder. One of the hallmarks of the new U.S. Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is large-scale algorithmic analysis and comparison of existing […]
In a unanimous 9-0 decision announced today, the US Supreme Court has ruled that a lawsuit brought by Yonas Fikre challenging the US government’s placing him on its no-fly list can go forward even though the government has, for the time being (and only after he sued), taken him off its travel blacklist. Mr. Fikre […]
As we mark twenty years since the creation of this website for the Identity Project, perhaps it’s time to assess the state of freedom of movement in the USA and for US citizens. We’ve been reporting, in more detail than anyone else, on changes in policies and practices that affect our right to travel freely. […]
Today the US Supreme Court heard more than an hour of oral argument (transcript, MP3 audio) in the case of FBI v. Fikre, the latest in a series of cases in which the government has tried to avoid having a judge or jury review the criteria, procedures, and factual basis (if any) for no-fly decisions […]
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument this Monday, January 8, 2024 on an appeal brought by the FBI challenging a Circuit Court decision in favor of Yonas Fikre. It’s the second case on the Supreme Court’s 10 a.m. EST calendar for oral argument Monday. You can listen live online, attend a live watch […]