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Dec 9, 2005 The problems with the"list" started many years ago.
The Congressional No-Fly List
There are now 80,000 names on the U.S. government’s secret terror (“no-fly”) watchlist, according to a new report. Before 9/11, just 16 names were on the list, and by the end of the year the number jumped to 1,000. By 2002, the list had 40,000 names.But the list hasn’t been used to just stop terrorists. Some of the names on that list belong to U.S. lawmakers:
Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), 2004:
U.S. Sen. Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy said yesterday that he was stopped and questioned at airports on the East Coast five times in March because his name appeared on the government’s secret “no-fly” list. [Federal air security officials] acknowledged being embarrassed that it took the senator and his staff more than three weeks to get his name removed.
Rep. John D. Lewis (D-GA), 2004:
Rep. John Lewis, D – Georgia, a nine-term congressman famous for his civil rights work with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., has been stopped 35 to 40 times over the past year, his office said…Lewis contacted the Department of Transportation, the Department of Homeland Security and executives at various airlines in a so-far fruitless effort to get his name off the list, said spokeswoman Brenda Jones.
Rep. Don Young (R-AK), 2004:
Rep. Donald E. Young (R-Alaska), said he was flagged on the “watch list” when the airline computer system mistook him for a man on the list named Donald Lee Young.
Feeling safer?
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So, fix it.
And, no fly no buy!
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Yusuf Islam (singer-songwriter) 2004
The plane he was on from London Heathrow to Washington Dulles was diverted to Maine's Bangor International when a name similar to his showed up on a no-fly list. He was held and question by the FBI and other intelligence officers for almost 48 hours. After the questioning, with no verification of his identity, he was deported and put on a plane back to the UK, much to the dismay of fans who had purchased tickets to see him in concert on his U.S. tour. So much for jumping on the Peace Train.
You might know him as Cat Stevens.
Fix the damn problems with the watch lists!
And enforce "No-Fly, No Buy" common sense gun purchase restrictions.
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I guess we couldn't find any examples after 2004 there, CS?
An article from 2005?
Using 11+ year old data to justify not using the no fly list as a tool in 2016.
That's really weak.
And Ted Kennedy' s worst case scenario under no fly - no buy is that it would have taken him a couple of weeks to straighten out the problem so that he could buy an AR-15?
Heavens to Betsy!
Last edited by Goose (6/23/2016 2:48 pm)