All right. Welcome back to none of the above.
We've all seen the videos and the headlines.
Air travelers have been more out of line than usual in recent years.
The FAA reports,
the nation's airlines have had to deal with nearly 500 unruly passenger reports
in just the first six weeks of 2022.
Now,
the ceo of Delta Airlines is asking the Department of Justice
to introduce a no fly list for passengers who have been convicted
of a of an onboard disruption. According to Ceo Ed bastian.
The rate of incidents with unruly passengers on
Delta has increased nearly 100% since 2019.
Other airlines have mentioned they too have seen similar trends as well. However,
there are critics to this argument and they say this proposal is of
creating a no fly list for these passengers would have unintended consequences.
It would be a violation of civil liberties naturally the A. C. L. U.
One of the loudest voices against such a list
joining us now to discuss is jay Stanley J.
Is senior policy analyst at the A. C. L. U. Speech privacy and technology project.
It is always particularly excited to speak with someone from the A. C. L. U.
So I appreciate your time. So
let's get right to it. Why would this list be a bad idea?
Well,
the government has already has no fly list that's created
for terrorists or alleged terrorists
because the government often doesn't present
the evidence that has when it puts people on this list
and those have been kind of a civil liberties nightmare.
People don't know why they put on the list.
We represent people who can't get off them.
They're not told what information led to them being put
on the list or whether it was true or false.
Um,
and those lists have been abused, for example,
the FBI has stuck people on the list and said, we'll take you off if you
and formed for us in your community.
Um,
so that doesn't create a lot of confidence if you engage in violence on an airplane,
that's already illegal.
It's illegal to engage in violence anywhere.
Um, you don't ban people from, uh, you know,
getting water or gas service in their homes because they commit crimes and,
and travel is a constitutional right.
And so we need to be very hesitant
before we impose what is basically a mandatory minimum sentence for anybody who,
you know, commits violations.
And and and finally,
I guess there's a lot of unanswered questions
about exactly how this will be implemented.
And some of the proposals we've seen have been terrible
jay, how often is it that names get confused?
Let's say someone else has my name,
That person who has been a bad actor gets put on one such of these lists.
I then try and show up to the airport.
I mean, I've heard anecdotally of, of things like that happening.
Is that as big an issue or a challenge as I've heard it is,
it's definitely an issue. I mean, we don't have a comprehensive cradle degrade
identification system in this country.
And there are lots of people who don't have driver's licenses.
Um And so you know there are lots of people
have the same names and the same dates of birth.
It's a big country um and so you know, errors do happen.
Um And also like you have to worry that
you know somebody maybe somebody's having a terrible day,
they're flying to visit their son who had been in a car accident.
They're super upset.
You know,
that kind of person would be treated exactly the same as
some repeat offender who's obviously like a very troubled person.
Both of them would get airline bands.
Um Somebody who is in sales and they have to
travel for to make a living would be you know,
punished.
The punishment would be much bigger than somebody who
travels like once a year for a vacation.
And they could just laugh off this punishment.
And if you live on Puerto rico or hawaii or Guam or
american smaller than the parts of America that are on islands.
It could be a huge punishment could cut you off from your family.
Um There's no regular boat service from those islands to the mainland. So
uh you know there's already punishment if you break the law if you engage in,
you know in violence or if you break other FAA rules,
the justice Department is that it's going to be
punishing them um and prosecuting them very vigorously.
And so, you know, a lot of this has to do with masks and divisions around masks.
And that's going to blow over.
Whether it's next week or next month or next year, it's going to blow over.
Meanwhile, we want to create a permanent infrastructure
um that will lead people to be treated unfairly. Sure, Jake.
I said you you make the case uh in a very strong way, though the A. C. L. U.
Tends to do that. So I'm not surprised having covered politics for many years.
First.
Give me your sense as to who who do you see making up the other side of this debate?
We just we just shared a quote from Ed bastian at Delta,
Are there many other headlines?
Are there many elected officials or democrats in
Congress calling for this sort of thing?
How big are the calls
that stand in opposition to your beliefs?
I don't have a firm sense of the political landscape here,
but I know that the airlines are pushing for it and
um the some of the unions are pushing for it.
And believe me, we have a lot of sympathy for airline personnel who have to deal with,
you know, disruptive behavior and sometimes violence.
They should not have to deal with that.
Um The question is whether this is the right solution and will actually fix it.
Um Some of it may go away when mask wearing blows over.
Um but generally, you know,
putting in place that's kind of harsh punishment especially you can do it
in a blanket manner that affects everybody is sort of a mandatory minimum.
It's probably not going to be effective at reducing it. One thing Congress could do
is make flying less miserable. I mean the airline's business
model,
a big part of their business model is literally to make people uncomfortable
in the airplane and then like charge them for for small comforts.
Um So uh you know that that can help the situation, right?
The fact make flying less miserable.
Um That's a potential thing that could be done. So
ah you know,
I think that we just need to be very careful before we allow
the government to um to set up this kind of infrastructures and we,
you know,
we saw that republican senators came out against it and
something that had to do with math politics I think.
Sure, so, so so let me, let me go there.
I'm gonna pop in real quick because we're gonna have time.
That's where I want to go because I've covered Capitol Hill for
many years and to me on the vast majority of issues,
the A. C. L. U. And democratic leadership tend to be in lock step, not on everything,
but oftentimes they are and I don't frequently see
headlines where you align yourself with the A.
C. L. U.
On the same side of Ted Cruz James, Lankford Senator Marco,
rubio kevin Cramer and other republicans.
What does that say about this story? Even if there is some mask politics at play here,
I think there's mass politics to play,
but I think there's also a long and honorable tradition or
thread within american conservatism of being
skeptical about expanding government power,
um protecting wanting to protect privacy.
And, you know, we frequently have had allies on the right
in the year, in past decades or on these kinds of issues.
And, you know, so I don't think it's it should be that surprising to people that,
you know,
conservatives who at the end of the day are supposedly anti government
and skeptical of government power,
would align with civil libertarians when it comes to
ill thought out proposals to expand punishments in government power.
Yeah, it's a really important story.
It's when we will continue to follow Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst at the A. C.
L. U. Speech privacy and technology project.
J great to have you on the show,
really appreciate the work that you and your colleagues do.
Thanks for being here