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U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Friday rejected a call for travel bans from Ebola-ravaged West Africa, suggesting that it was too early for such a move. “We have a lot of people in Sierra Leone and in places like Liberia who are dual citizens,” the Nevada Democrat said in Henderson. “If there was a ban they would just fly to smaller countries before coming here.” House Republicans had called for such a travel ban at a congressional hearing Thursday. President Barack Obama rejected the proposal on Friday. Reid also backed the Obama administration’s approach to the deadly, expressing...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering adding the names of healthcare workers being monitored for the Ebola virus to the government's no-fly list, federal officials tell Fox News. The move is being considered as a response to Wednesday's disclosure that Dallas nurse Amber Joy Vinson was cleared to fly on a commercial airliner earlier this week despite having been exposed to the Ebola virus while treating Thomas Edward Duncan at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.

Last Saturday, Kahler Nygard took a Spirit Airlines flight to Denver to visit with friends. When he departed from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, Transportation Security Administration agents patted him down and allowed him to board his flight. When the plane landed, he was singled out and ordered to exit before the other passengers. After he exited the aircraft, TSA agents approached Nygard and demanded that he go through an additional pat-down and a screening of his luggage for explosive materials. He had already arrived safely at his destination in Denver and simply wanted to leave the airport. After an argument,...

President Obama has presided over a massive increase in the size and scope of the country's "no-fly" list, which bars individuals suspected of having terrorist ties from flying on airlines. Forty-seven thousand people were on the no-fly list in 2013, marking an all-time high that dwarfs the amount ever included during George W. Bush's presidency, according to an analysis of newly released classified documents published Tuesday by The Intercept. In addition, a "selectee list" used to pull out travelers for heightened scrutiny at airports and border crossings has grown larger than 16,000 people, including 1,200 Americans. The classified documents also...

The Obama administration has quietly approved a substantial expansion of the terrorist watchlist system, authorizing a secret process that requires neither “concrete facts” nor “irrefutable evidence” to designate an American or foreigner as a terrorist, according to a key government document obtained by The Intercept. The “March 2013 Watchlisting Guidance,” a 166-page document issued last year by the National Counterterrorism Center, spells out the government’s secret rules for putting individuals on its main terrorist database, as well as the no fly list and the selectee list, which triggers enhanced screening at airports and border crossings. The new guidelines allow individuals...

A federal judge in Oregon says the process surrounding the federal government's "no-fly list" is unconstitutional. Specifically, U.S. District Judge Anna Brown said the process doesn't give Americans on the list an effective way to challenge their inclusion.

Americans have always treasured the freedom to pick up and go anywhere they please. Our forebears had to travel to get here, often had to travel more after they arrived and sometimes moved on to uncharted territories out West only to return East. No one stopped them, whatever direction they were going. They had the good fortune to live and migrate before the creation of the all-encompassing national security state. After the 9/11 attacks, Americans woke up to find that their freedom to travel was not a fundamental right but a vaporous privilege, bestowed by the government and revocable at...

Over the last three years, the FBI has dramatically expanded its No-Fly List of suspected terrorists, including blacklisting innocent Americans who present no threat to security.... The FBI's violation of these Americans' due process rights is, in and of itself, abusive and unlawful. After all, preventing people from correcting the errors that led to their inclusion on a blacklist does not make our skies any safer, but it does harm constitutionally protected rights to travel and reputation—as a federal court recently recognized. And a closer look into the experiences of several ACLU clients shows another, even darker side to the...

A Mississippi man flying to visit his wife in Japan on Monday was detained during a stop in Hawaii and has been barred from reboarding his flight - or any other flight - because his name came up on the U.S. No-Fly List, leaving him stranded on the island. Gulfport resident Wade Hicks, Jr., boarded a military jet at Travis Air Force Base in San Francisco so he could spend time with his newlywed wife, a U.S. Navy lieutenant stationed in Okinawa, Japan, the Canada Free Press reports.

The Money Quotes: "The US prosecutor-general said on Wednesday that four people were being questioned after Tuesday's events. Nine Coptic Egyptian-Americans were also put on an airport watch list. They are believed to have contributed to the production of the anti-Islam film that led to the embassy protest."

SAN DIEGO — A San Diego State University graduate trying to return home after a family celebration of his commencement from a master’s program in Costa Rica was told he is on a U.S. government no-fly list and could not board a plane, a local Islamic community official said Wednesday night. Kevin Iraniha, 27, a Muslim who was born and raised in San Diego, was “shocked” and said he has never been involved in criminal or suspicious activity, said Hanif Mohebi, executive director of the San Diego chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Iraniha had just obtained his master’s...

At 4:45 p.m. on March 1, Jamal Tarhuni boarded an Amtrak train in Portland and settled in for a 36-hour ride to Minneapolis. There, he spoke at the annual Nobel Peace Prize forum about his experiences in Libya as a relief organization volunteer. He then drove for 17 hours over two days with a friend to Washington, D.C., to attend a reception for the Libyan prime minister and meet with U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden's staff. Afterward, Tarhuni retraced his steps -- by car to Minneapolis and train to Portland -- ultimately spending more than 100 hours traveling a route that...

It wasn't until a recent trip to the National Air and Space Museum that I grew to appreciate what we have lost in the past decade of suffocating airport security. I gazed at the vestiges of American aerial power, from the slim Wright Flyer to Amelia Earhart's glowing "little red bus." These were symbols of American ingenuity and innovation that led to incalculable transformation of the modern world. We live in an era punctuated by nostalgia -- for our vibrant economy, our reputation -- and now we can add American aviation to that list. This realization especially affected me as...

A former Wikileaks spokesman claims to have deleted thousands of unpublished files that had been passed to the whistleblowing site. Daniel Domscheit-Berg told the German Newspaper Der Spiegel that the documents included a copy of the complete US no-fly list. He said he had "shredded" them to avoid their sources being compromised. Mr Domscheit-Berg previously worked alongside Julian Assange until the pair had a high profile falling-out. It is understood that he took the files off Wikileaks' servers at the time of his departure. Wikileaks confirmed the claims on its Twitter feed, saying: "We can confirm that the DDB claimed...

(CNN) -- SNIPPET: "The charge centers around a one-way ticket that authorities allege Abdel Hameed Shehadeh purchased from Queens, New York, to Islamabad, Pakistan. Shehadeh originally told investigators that the purpose of his trip was to visit an Islamic university and attend a friend's engagement party. But he later admitted to FBI agents in Hawaii that he bought the ticket in order to join a fighting group such as the Taliban, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in New York Monday."

WASHINGTON: The US homeland security department has put a six-year-old Indian origin American girl on the "no fly" list on the grounds of having suspected ties to terrorists. Alyssa Thomas, 6, is under spotlight of the US government, and her family recently came to know that she is on the "no fly" list maintained by the US homeland security. During a recent trip from Cleveland to Minneapolis, the girl’s father, Santhosh Thomas, and his wife were made aware of the listing. The Thomas family was allowed to make their trip but they were told to contact the homeland security to...

WESTLAKE, Ohio, - The name of a 6-year-old Ohio girl wound up on the U.S. Homeland Security Department's "no fly" list, her parents say. Alyssa Thomas of Westlake found herself in that unwanted company when the family took a trip from Cleveland to Minneapolis recently, Cleveland's WJW-TV reported Friday. "We were, like, puzzled," said her father, Dr. Santhosh Thomas. "I'm like, well, she's kinda 6 years old and this is not something that should be typical. "She may have threatened her sister, but I don't think that constitutes Homeland Security triggers." Despite the snafu, the family was allowed to complete...

CAIRO — A Virginia man, stuck in Egypt for the last six weeks living in a cheap hotel and surviving on fast food, said Wednesday his name was placed on a U.S. no-fly list because of a trip to Yemen. Yahya Wehelie, 26, who was born in Fairfax, Virginia, to Somali parents was returning with his brother Yusuf from 18 months studying in Yemen, when Egyptian authorities stopped him from boarding his flight to New York saying the FBI wanted to speak with him. Wehelie said he was then told by FBI agents in Egypt that his name was on...

"It's no surprise that [Republican Carly] Fiorina is attacking me," Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., wrote in a recent fundraising pitch, "because she's so out of touch with California voters. ... She supports allowing people on the no-fly terrorist watch list to buy guns."This is a line I've seen and heard repeatedly in the last month, and one that I expect to hear from many Democratic candidates this fall. At issue in the debate, and in recently proposed legislation: Should the government restrict the gun rights of people whose names appear on a secret list kept by the government?The Government Accountability...

SNIPPET: "An Aeromexico plane flying to Mexico City from Paris had to land late Sunday afternoon at Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport in Montreal to remove a passenger whose name is on the U.S. no-fly list, Radio-Canada reported. The man was escorted out of the plane and taken into custody by the RCMP."