The No Fly List, maintained by the United States federal government's Threat Screening Center (TSC), is one of several lists used by the Transportation Security Administration's Secure Flight program and airlines to decide who to allow to board airline flights. The TSC's No Fly List is a list of people who are prohibited from boarding commercial aircraft for travel within, into, or out of the United States. This list has also been used to divert aircraft away from U.S. airspace that do not have start- or end-point destinations within the United States. The number of people on the list rises and falls according to threat and intelligence reporting. There were reportedly 16,000 names on the list in 2011, in 2012, and in 2013.
The list—along with Secondary Security Screening Selection, which tags would-be passengers for extra inspection—was created after the September 11 attacks of 2001. The No Fly List, the Selectee List, and the Terrorist Watch List were created by the George W. Bush administration and has continued through all subsequent presidential administrations. Former U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein said in May 2010: "The no-fly list itself is one of our best lines of defense." However, the list has been criticized on civil liberties and due process grounds, due in part to its potential for ethnic, religious, economic, political, or racial profiling and discrimination. It has raised concerns about privacy and government secrecy and has been criticized as prone to false positives.
The No Fly List is different from the Terrorist Watch List, a much longer list of people said to be suspected of some involvement with terrorism. As of June 2014, the Terrorist Watch List is estimated to contain over 2,484,446 records, consisting of 1,877,139 individual identities.Number and rate of growth from: Follow-up Audit of the Terrorist Screening Center, U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, Audit Division, Audit Report 07-41, September 2001; http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/reports/FBI/a0741/final.pdf ; (4/30/2007 – 724,442 records, growth rate 16,000/mo.)
History Before the attacks of September 11, 2001, the U.S. federal government had a list of 16 people deemed "no transport" because they "presented a specific known or suspected threat to aviation." The list grew in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, reaching more than 400 names by November 2001, when responsibility for keeping it was transferred to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). In mid-December 2001, two lists were created: the "No Fly List" of 594 people to be denied air transport, and the "Selectee" list of 365 people who were to be more carefully searched at airports. By 2002, the two lists combined contained over a thousand names, and by April 2005 contained about names. For the first two and a half years of the program, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) denied that the program existed.
In 2004, then-U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy was denied boarding a flight because his name was similar to an alias found on the No Fly List. Laura K. Donohue would later write in The Cost of Counterterrorism: Power, Politics, and Liberty that "antiwar activists, such as Jan Adams and Rebecca Gordan, and political opponents of the Bush administration, such as Senator Edward Kennedy and civil rights attorney David Cole, found themselves included." In June 2016, Timothy Healy, the former director of the FBI Terrorist Screening Center, disputed the claim that Kennedy had ever appeared on the list, saying that another person with a similar name—who had accidentally tried to bring ammunition on to a plane—was placed on an airline's watch list and Kennedy was mistakenly detained by the airline, not based on the No Fly List.C-SPAN, Washington Journal, June 25, 2016, ~9:01 a.m. In October 2006, CBS News' 60 Minutes reported on the program after it obtained a March 2006 copy of the list containing names.
Many individuals were "caught in the system" as a result of sharing the exact or similar name of another person on the list; TSA officials said that, as of November 2005, people in 2005 had complained that their names were matched to a name on the list via the name matching software used by airlines. In January 2006, the FBI and ACLU settled a federal lawsuit, Gordon v. FBI, brought by Gordon and Adams under the Freedom of Information Act in order to obtain information about how names were added to the list. Under the settlement, the government paid $200,000 in the plaintiffs' attorneys' fees.Associated Press, Feds to pay ACLU $200,000 to settle no-fly list dispute (January 25, 2006). A separate suit was brought as a class action "filed by people caught in the name game." In response, "TSA created an ombudsman process, whereby individuals now can download and print out a Passenger Identity Verification Form and mail it, along with certain notarized documents, to the TSA 'so the agency can differentiate the individual from others who may be on the list.'"
In April 2007, the U.S. federal government's "terrorist watch list" administered by the Terrorist Screening Center (which is managed principally by the FBI) contained records. A year later, the ACLU estimated the list to have grown to over names and to be continually expanding. However, according to Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff, in October 2008 the No Fly List contained only names, with an additional "selectees" who "represent a less specific security threat and receive extra scrutiny, but are allowed to fly."
As of 2011, the list contained about 10,000 names. In 2012, the list more than doubled in size, to about 21,000 names as the list now included people who were a threat to security outside aviation. In August 2013, a leak revealed that more than 47,000 people were on the list. In 2016, California Senator Dianne Feinstein disclosed that 81,000 people were on the No Fly List.
There is a huge, secretive US anti-terrorism database for Canada specifically, "Tuscan" (Tipoff US/Canada), revealed by Canada's access to information system. The database is used by both the US and Canada, and applies to all borders, not just airports. It is believed to contain information on about 680,000 people thought to be linked with terrorism. The list was created in 1997 as a consular aid. It was repurposed and expanded after 9/11, and again in 2016. The names in Tuscan come from the US Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (Tide), which is vetted by the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center and populates various US traveller databases, Canada's Tuscan and the Australian equivalent, "Tactics".
Weapons purchases by listed persons (No Fly No Buy) In a 2010 report, the Government Accountability Office noted that "Membership in a terrorist organization does not prohibit a person from possessing firearms or explosives under current federal law," and individuals on the No Fly List are not barred from purchasing guns.Jeff Stein, Terrorist Watch List No Bar to Buying Guns , Newsweek (December 3, 2015). According to GAO data, between 2004 and 2010, people on terrorism watch lists—including the No Fly List as well as other separate lists—attempted to buy guns and explosives more than 1,400 times, and succeeded 1,321 times (more than 90% of cases).Ailsa Chang, People on Terrorism Watch List Not Blocked From Buying Guns , NPR (April 24, 2013).
Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey repeatedly introduced legislation to bar individuals on the terror watch lists (such as the No Fly List) from buying firearms or explosives, but these efforts have not succeeded.William Branigin, N.Y. mayor decries 'terror gap' in U.S. gun laws , Washington Post (May 5, 2010). Senator Dianne Feinstein of California revived the legislation after the November 2015 Paris attacks and President Barack Obama has called for such legislation to be approved.
Republicans in Congress such as Senate Homeland Security Committee chair Ron Johnson and former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan oppose this measure, citing due process concerns and efficacy, respectively. Republicans have blocked attempts by Democrats to attach these provisions to Republican-backed measures.Donovan Slack, Paul Singer & Erin Kelly, Republicans say no to new gun control legislation after San Bernardino , USA Today (December 3, 2015).
The American Civil Liberties Union has voiced opposition to barring weapons sales to individuals listed on the current form of the No Fly List, stating that: "There is no constitutional bar to reasonable regulation of guns, and the No Fly List could serve as one tool for it, but only with major reform."Hina Shamsi, Until the No Fly List Is Fixed, It Shouldn't Be Used to Restrict People's Freedoms , American Civil Liberties Union (December 7, 2015). Specifically, the ACLU's position is that the government's current redress process—the procedure by which listed individuals can petition for removal from the list—does not meet the requirements of the Constitution's Due Process Clause because the process does not "provide meaningful notice of the reasons our clients are blacklisted, the basis for those reasons, and a hearing before a neutral decision-maker."
In December 2015, Feinstein's amendment to bar individuals on the terror watch list from purchasing firearms failed in the Senate on a 45-54 vote.Kelsey Snell & Karoun Demirjian, Senate rejects gun control amendments offered following San Bernardino shooting , Washington Post (December 3, 2015). Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas put forth a competing proposal to "give the attorney general the power to impose a 72-hour delay for individuals on the terror watch list seeking to purchase a gun and it could become a permanent ban if a judge determines there is probable cause during that time window." The measure, too, failed, on a 55-45 vote (60 votes were required to proceed). The votes on both the Feinstein measure and the Cornyn measure were largely along party lines.
Vulnerabilities
With the aim of preventing individuals on the No Fly List from flying in commercial airliners, U.S. airports require all passengers to show valid picture ID (e.g. a passport or driver's license) along with their boarding pass before entering the boarding terminal. At this checkpoint, the name on the ID is matched to that on the boarding pass, but is not recorded. In order to be effective, this practice must assume that 1.) the ticket was bought under the passenger's real name (at which point the name was recorded and checked against the No Fly List), 2.) the boarding pass shown is real, and 3.) the ID shown is real. However, the rise of print-at-home boarding passes, which can be easily forged, allows a potential attacker to buy a ticket under someone else's name, to go into the boarding terminal using a real ID and a fake boarding pass, and then to fly on the ticket that has someone else's name on it. Additionally, a 2007 investigation showed that obviously false IDs could be used when claiming a boarding pass and entering the departures terminal, so a person on the No Fly List can simply travel under a different name.
False positives A "false positive" occurs when a passenger who is not on the No Fly List has a name that matches or is similar to a name on the list. False positive passengers will not be allowed to board a flight unless they can differentiate themselves from the actual person on the list, usually by presenting ID showing their middle name or date of birth. In some cases, false positive passengers have been denied boarding or have missed flights because they could not easily prove that they were not the person on the No Fly List.
Notable cases False positives and abuses that have been in the news include: Numerous children (including many under the age of five, and some under the age of one) have generated false positives.