Our Very Own No-Fly List
A federal "no-fly" list that comes into effect Monday to safeguard domestic airline passengers could end up blacklisting innocent people and lead to racial and religious profiling, critics warn.
Even before the so-called Specified Persons list was officially launched, at least one Canadian family was struggling to remove a name.
And a Conservative MP, whose name was placed on the U.S. no-fly list, is worried that other Canadians could soon share his fate.
That this list is going to be abused is almost inevitable, and the rather high potential for false positives, given the fact that lots of people tend to have the same name, guarantees that the inconvenience will go far beyond the people actually targeted.
Further, as was noted elsewhere, the people that are actually dangerous aren’t going to be using their real names to try and board planes. Everyone else on the list aren't considered dangerous enough to be arrested. There’s nothing to stop them from walking into government buildings, schools, hospitals, roaming the streets, hopping onto buses or trains, and doing pretty much as they please, unless and until they decide to try and board a plane, at which point they suddenly become a dangerous individual worthy of notice. And then what? They are prevented from boarding the plane and get to wander off and do as they please elsewhere?
How exactly does this make us safer again?
