No Fly List

The No Fly List is a list, created and maintained by the United States government's Terrorist Screening Center (TSC), of people who are prohibited from boarding a commercial aircraft for travel in or out of the United States. The list has also been used to divert aircraft, not flying to or from the U.S, away from U.S. airspace. The number of people on the list rises and falls according to threat and intelligence reporting. There were 10,000 names on the list in 2011, 21,000 in 2012, and 47,000 in 2013.

The list—along with the Secondary Security Screening Selection, which tags would-be passengers for extra inspection—was created after the September 11 attacks in 2001. The No Fly List, the Selectee List and the Terrorist Watchlist were created by the administration of George W. Bush and retained by the administration of Barack Obama. U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said in May 2010: "The no-fly list itself is one of our best lines of defense." However, the list has been criticized on civil liberties and due process grounds, due in part to the potential for ethnic, religious, economic, political, or racial profiling and discrimination. It has also raised concerns about privacy and government secrecy. Finally, it has been criticized as costly, prone to false positives, and easily defeated.