Obama’s Pragmatism Part 2: Civil Liberties Division

In Washington at the weekend, I spent some time talking to a friend who works on privacy and civil liberties concerns. He’d been a little worried, professionally that is, that the Obama administration might reduce his workload and disappointed, personally that is, that it has not. Far from it in fact. Today’s example is a demonstration of how innocent US citizens are, thanks to the No-Fly list, essentially consigned to exile:

For six weeks, Mr. [Yahya] Wehelie has been in limbo in the Egyptian capital. He and his parents say he has no radical views, despises al-Qaeda and merely wants to get home to complete his education and get a job. When he offered to fly home handcuffed and flanked by air marshals, Mr. Wehelie said, F.B.I. agents turned him down. ….“For many of these Americans, placement on the no-fly list effectively amounts to banishment from their country,” said Ben Wizner, a senior staff attorney with the A.C.L.U.