Pre-crime: DHS admits that it puts people on the no-fly list based on “predictive assessment”
By Cory Doctorow
BoingBoing.net
Sat, Aug 15, 2015
A DoJ filing in an ACLU lawsuit in Oregon admits that you can be put on a no-fly list based on “predictive assessments about potential threats,” as opposed to threatening or dangerous things you’ve actually said or done.
It’s the first case in which a court is being asked to “review the basis for the government’s predictive model for blacklisting people who have never even been charged, let alone convicted, of a violent crime.”
The Obama administration is trying to prevent further disclosures about the program’s basis for denying Americans the right to travel based on secret evidence and an opaque process. FBI counter-terrorism assistant director Michael Steinbach defended the no-fly list’s dependence on security through obscurity: “If the Government were required to provide full notice of its reasons for placing an individual on the No Fly List and to turn over all evidence (both incriminating and exculpatory) supporting the No Fly determination, the No Fly redress process would place highly sensitive national security information directly in the hands of terrorist organizations and other adversaries.”
Basically: Our process only works if we get to keep it secret. If our adversary understood it, it would be easy to defeat.”
The Rest…HERE
