DHS lost a round
 

https://reason.com/blog/2015/04/14/d...n-somebodys-on

As I read it a person must be denied boarding before starting the process to find out why boarding was denied. That is simply not acceptable. DHS is restricting a persons freedom to travel without due process.

ACLU is right to take this back to court.

That's not a surprising provision. To sue (for anything) you need to have standing - in other words, you need have been harmed in some demonstrable way. This is a fundamental legal principle.

So, until you're denied boarding, being on the no-fly list hasn't harmed you, so you have no grounds to sue.

That said, the current situation, where people are denied boarding, but the gov't refuses to tell them whether or not it's because they're on the no-fly list, is absurd.

Once you're denied boarding, you have been harmed, and should have the right to sue. It becomes impossible to sue to get off the no-fly list if you can't even confirm you're on it in the first place.

Which is exactly why the system was set up this way.

A person should have an absolute right to know if government has placed them on some list that may restrict their freedom.

If a person is to dangerous to fly then charge them with a crime and let the courts sort it out.

You may believe this, but it runs completely contrary to a legal principle (standing) that far predates the foundation of the US.

Yup, and I'm in no way defending the policy of refusing to tell people if they were on the no-fly list, nor am I defending the structure of the no-fly list (which is absurdly bloated) itself.

A lot of legal principles far predate the foundation of the U.S. and are still standing in some places. That doesn't mean such approach deserves to remain applicable for all purposes and be applied everywhere.

The blacklist reference goes back to at least the time of England's King Charles the Second who decided that under standing legal principles officials needed to be punished (read: "killed") for engaging in regicide (of his father). Being killed certainly ends the killed ones' freedom of movement.

Obviously I'm not a legal scholar and would appreciate a citation of this principle.

Not something I'd cite in a brief, but... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_(law)

That ("lack of standing") isn't an issue with regard to Boggie Dog's post about people placed -- notice the word "placed" is in the past tense -- on a movement-restricting blacklist.

It ceases to be an issue once the placement has restricted your movement. Until it does, there's no harm, so no standing.

You'll notice that in the cases that have thus far been successful (i.e. Latif v Holder), the plaintiffs had been denied boarding.

The placement on blacklists results in no harm whatsoever prior to denial of boarding? No, that is not true.

That a "successful case" against being blacklisted involved being denied boarding does not mean that the only form of harm (from being blacklisted) requires being denied check-in/boarding. It may just be an easier case to win due to all the scam "secrecy" invocations getting in the way of as easily winning cases about the blacklisting-caused harm that may precede or otherwise be independent of being denied boarding/check-in by an airline.

I wonder if this legal concept has been pushed a little too far. BY extension, this means that if someone puts GHB into your drink at a party, you have no legal standing to sue them unless you actually try to drink the drink.

On the other hand, for criminal prosecution, intent is enough, even if the attempt to harm has failed.

So, what specific harm has been suffered by someone who's placed on the no-fly list, doesn't know it, but never flies? Vague claims of some sort of badness won't hold up - no injury, no case.

If a car dealership decides that, if you ever bring your car in for service, they're going to use orange juice instead of motor oil, and you never know that they have that plan, and you never take your car in for service, you haven't been harmed in any way.