Will Maher Arar be on Canada's new No Fly List? After all he still is on the American one.
Once again the State implements a bad idea that is more about invading your privacy then providing public security.
Ms. Stoddart said cases of mistaken identify are likely to occur, which means innocent travellers will experience "the rather chilling fact of finding yourself singled out."
She also expressed dismay at comments by a Transport Canada official who told the Air India inquiry this week that Canada cannot keep the new no-fly list out of the hands of foreign governments.
"I'm surprised to read about this," she said. "It doesn't sound as if it's completely well thought out."
She said Transport Canada officials had stressed how "small and precise" the no-fly list would be. "I'm a bit puzzled that now we seem to be fairly unconcerned about the way it is implemented and the fact that it could be widely disseminated."
Though people on the no-fly list can appeal to an "Office of Reconsideration," Ms. Stoddart said that's not sufficient. "It's better than nothing, but I don't think it's an adequate approach."
She said Transport Canada has yet to provide her office with any evidence that implementing a no-fly list will actually improve air safety.
Since when has Transport Canada become an arm of CSIS and the RCMP? If it is a new policing arm of the State, shouldn't it be under the Minister of Public Security.
Considering how badly they have botched Port and Airport security since 9/11 their No Fly List will turn into another paranoid security state Keystone Kops caper.
We might expect a Supreme court challenge over this, but unfortunately that program has been cut by the Harpocrites.
Canada’s No-fly List Provides False Sense of Security
“Nothing personal sir, but your packages are not allowed on passenger airlines,” said a United Parcel Service customer service agent, sitting in an American call centre. She was explaining to me that my package could not be delivered on an “early a.m.” basis from Toronto to Peterborough.
I was interrogating the agent about why this was so, since I had been using UPS without any problems since starting my practice in 1996. Initially reluctant, the agent eventually confessed that when my account number was entered into their system, the “Flight Guardian” software flashed a red signal.
“Sir,” she said, “after 9/11 we can only pick up packages if the green light is given.”
The next day I called the UPS head office and inquired about the situation. The supervisor apologized and informed me that I could use the expedited service within Canada, but that I did not have the requisite clearance to use this service to the U.S.
We will never know how many Canadians have been so specially designated on more than a dozen lists maintained by the United States. The proliferation of these watch lists around the globe has been a troubling development in the “war on terror.”
Now the Canadian government will complicate the situation even more by introducing its own no-fly list (set to be launched on June 18, 2007), which will inevitably be shaped by, and be available to, the Americans and perhaps even others.
And lets not forget that the American No Fly List is relatively useless as proven by the recent case of an American quarantined for being a TB carrier. But of course he was allowed back into the United States because despite being on a No Fly List he was White, Middle Class and male the very model of what is an American.
TB case has plenty of blame
The case involves a globe-trotting American man, with a rare form of tuberculosis, who traveled in May from the United States to France, to Greece, onto Italy, over to the Czech Republic, back west to Canada and finally home to the United States, despite health warnings he never should have left in the first place.
Though warned, Atlanta attorney Andrew Speaker was never ordered not to travel. So off he went to his nuptials and to take a wedding trip in Europe. While in Europe, he was advised that officials now realized he had a virulent strain of TB, and again, he was warned by U.S. authorities not to travel further.
But travel, he did. He flew back across the Atlantic Ocean to Canada, drove back into the United States through an official crossing, even though U.S. Border Patrol agents had been given his name on a no-fly list.
See:
State Security Is A Secure State
