Can Muslims Fly? The No Fly List as a Tool of the “War on Terror”

Uzma Jamil, null

doi:10.13169/islastudj.4.1.0072

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Islamophobia Studies Journal

Volume 4, Issue 1

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Can Muslims Fly? The No Fly List as a Tool of the “War on Terror”

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Author(s): Uzma Jamil

Publication date (Print): Fall 2017

Journal: Islamophobia Studies Journal

Publisher: Pluto Journals

Keywords: Muslims, war on terror, securitization, racial profiling, Islamophobia

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Abstract

The securitization phenomenon is based on a racialized logic that predates 9/11 and has roots in the discourse of Orientalism, the practices of European colonialism and, in the more recent times of the 20th century, the internment of Japanese Canadians during World War II. This article analyzes the “no fly list” as a counter-terrorism tool used by the Canadian government in the “war on terror.” It situates the analysis in the political context of the securitization of Muslims, the social and political processes that construct them as threats to the nation. It examines the evolution of the “no fly list” since 2001 and analyzes its impact on Muslims in Canada, drawing on well-publicized cases. It critiques the list's effectiveness based on the distinction between information and knowledge as tools to fight the “war on terror.” The “no fly list” contributes to Islamophobia through disproportionately profiling racialized Muslim and Muslim-looking passengers as members of a suspect community.

Content

Author and article information

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Uzma Jamil

Journal

Journal ID (doi): 10.13169

Journal ID (publisher-id): islastudj

Title: Islamophobia Studies Journal

Publisher: Pluto Journals

ISSN (Print): 23258381

ISSN (Electronic): 2325839X

Publication date (Print): Fall 2017

Volume: 4

Issue: 1

Pages: 72-86

Affiliations

Dawson College, Canada

Article

Publisher ID: islastudj.4.1.0072

DOI: 10.13169/islastudj.4.1.0072

SO-VID: ba3deecb-caa0-4b80-8f6d-03b0e600ae6e

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All content is freely available without charge to users or their institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission of the publisher or the author. Articles published in the journal are distributed under a http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

History

ScienceOpen disciplines: Social & Behavioral Sciences

Keywords: war on terror,Islamophobia,racial profiling,securitization,Muslims

Endnotes

Edward Said, “Thoughts about America,” Outlook India , March 7, 2002, accessed April 24, 2017, http://www.outlookindia.com/article/thoughts-about-america/214829.
Anealla Safdar, “US Muslim Forced Off Plane Cites Islamophobia,” Al Jazeera , November 26, 2015, accessed April 24, 2016, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/11/muslim-forced-plane-anti-islam-rhetoric-rises-1511252006500l6.html.
Oliver Milman, “Southwest Airlines Draws Outrage over Man Removed for Speaking Arabic,” The Guardian , April 16, 2016, accessed April 24, 2016, http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/16/southwest-airlines-man-removed-flight-arabic.
Grace Wong, “Police: ‘Suspicious Activity’ on Chicago-Bound Plane Was Just Someone Watching News on Phone,” Chicago Tribune , November 18, 2015, accessed April 24, 2016, http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-4-passengers-removed-from-chicagobound-plane-in-baltimore-20151117-story.html.
Khaled A. Beydoun, “Speaking Arabic While Flying,” Al Jazeera , April 20, 2016, accessed April 24, 2017, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/04/speaking-arabic-flying-160420051548323.html.
Stuart Croft, Securitizing Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 77–78.
Croft, Securitizing Islam , 81–83.
Mina Shum, dir., The Ninth Floor (National Film Board of Canada. 1h 21 min, 2015).
Gary Kinsman, Dieter K. Buse, and Mercedes Steedman, eds., Whose National Security? Canadian State Surveillance and the Creation of Enemies (Toronto: Between the Lines Press, 2000).
James Marsh, “Japanese Internment: Banished and Beyond Tears,” The Canadian Encyclopedia , February 23, 2012, accessed April 26, 2017, http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/japanese-internment-banished-and-beyond-tears-feature/.
Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1978).
Uzma Jamil, “Reading Power: Muslims in the War on Terror Discourse,” Islamophobia Studies Journal 2, no. 2 (2014): 29–42.
Said, Orientalism , 300–301.
Moustafa Bayoumi, This Muslim American Life: Dispatches from the War on Terror (New York: New York University Press, 2015); Tran Nguyen, We Are All Suspects Now: Untold Stories from Immigrant Communities after 9/11 (Boston: Beacon Press, 2005).
Faiza Patel and Rachel Levinson-Waldman, “The Islamophobic Administration,” New York: The Brennan Center for Justice, April 19, 2017, accessed April 27, 2017, @123456http://www.brennancenter.org/publication/islamophobic-administration.
Colin J. Bennett, “Unsafe at Any Altitude: The Comparative Politics of No Fly Lists in the United States and Canada,” in Politics at the Airport , ed. M. B. Salter (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008), 56.
Bennett, “Unsafe at Any Altitude,” 53.
Reginald Whitaker, “Keeping Up with the Neighbors? Canadian Responses to 9/11 in Historical and Comparative Context,” Osgood Hall Law Journal 41, no. 2–3 (2003): 242–66; David Lyon, “Airport Screening, Surveillance, and Social Sorting: Canadian Responses to 9/11 in Context.” Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice 48, no. 3 (2006): 407.
Bennett, “Unsafe at Any Altitude,” 54.
Ibid., 60.
Lyon, “Airport Screening, Surveillance, and Social Sorting,” 400.
Ibid., 400.
Ibid., 404.
Craig Forcese and Kent Roach, False Security: The Radicalization of Canadian Anti-terrorism (Toronto: Irwin Law, 2015), 63.
Bennett, “Unsafe at Any Altitude,” 60.
Ibid., 60–61.
Forcese and Roach, False Security , 63.
Bennett, “Unsafe at Any Altitude,” 64–65.
Ibid., 65.
Quoted in Bennett, “Unsafe at Any Altitude,” 65.
Bennett, “Unsafe at Any Altitude,” 65.
Ibid., 66.
Forcese and Roach, False Security , 63.
Ibid., 4–5.
Ibid., 4.
Ibid., 5.
Ibid., 35.
Timothy Banks, “Canada's Proposed Secure Air Travel Act,” February 10, 2015, accessed April 26, 2017, http://www.privacyandcybersecuritylaw.com/canadas-proposed-secure-air-travel-act?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=canadas-proposed-secure-air-travel-act?utm_source=Mondaq&utm_medium=syndication&utm_campaign=View-Original”>http://www.privacyandcybersecuritylaw.com/canadas-proposed-secure-air-travel-act?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=canadas-proposed-secure-air-travel-act?utm_source=Mondaq&utm_medium=syndication&utm_campaign=View-Original.
Ibid.
Forcese and Roach, False Security , 79.
Banks, “Canada's Proposed Secure Air Travel Act.”
Ibid.
Forcese and Roach, False Security , 187.
Banks, “Canada's Proposed Secure Air Travel Act.”
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Forcese and Roach, False Security , 188.
Ibid., p. 187.
Prime Minister of Canada, “Fact Sheet: Canada-United States: Neighbors, Partners, Allies,” March 10, 2016, accessed May 12, 2016, http://pm.gc.ca/eng/news/2016/03/10/fact-sheet-canada-united-states-neighbours-partners-allies.
CBC News , “Canada, U.S. Set Up Working Group to Tackle Error-Laden No Fly List,” May 10, 2016, Accessed May 12, 2016, http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-us-no-fly-list-1.3575568.
Forcese and Roach, False Security , 185; Bennett, “Unsafe at Any Altitude,” 64.
CBC News , “No Fly List Tags More Toddlers as Security Risks,” January 4, 2016, accessed May 12, 2016, http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/no-fly-list-flags-more-canadian-toddlers-as-security-risks-1.3388927.
CBC News , “Syed Adam Ahmad's Mother Contacted by Dozens of Families with Similar Stories,” January 20, 2016, accessed May 12, 2016, http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-boy-khadija-cajee-1.3411443.
CBC News , “Extra Airport Screening for under-18s Not Needed, Public Safety Minister Says,” January 7, 2016, Accessed May 12, 2016, http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/additional-screening-under-18-1.3394628.
Shanifa Nasser, “Air Canada Employees Told to Seek Extra ID from Kids Even after Feds' Directive,” May 10, 2016, accessed May 12, 2016, http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ralph-goodale-no-fly-list-air-canada-employee-aeroplan-1.3576417.
Nasser, “Air Canada Employees Told to Seek Extra ID.”
Justice O'Connor, The Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar (Ottawa, 2006), 59, accessed April 29, 2017, http://www.sirc-csars.gc.ca/pdfs/cm_arar_bgv1-eng.pdf.
Reem Bahdi, “Constructing Non-citizens: Canada's War against Terrorism,” in Counter-Terrorism and the Post of Democratic State , ed. Jenny Hocking and Colleen Lewis (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2007), 89, 92.
Center for Constitutional Rights, “The Extraordinary Rendition: The Story of Maher Arar,” Factsheet, New York, 2010, accessed April 29, 2017, https://ccrjustice.org/home/what-we-do/our-cases/arar-v-ashcroft-et-al.
Joseph Brean, “Halifax Rights Complaint Accuses Air Canada of Singling out Mohamed Yaffa Because He's Black, Muslim,” National Post , August 18, 2014, Accessed April 25, 2017, http://news.nationalpost.com/news/ canada/halifax-rights-complaint-accuses-air-canada-of-singling-out-mohamed-yaffa-because-hes-black-muslim.
Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT), Ruling: Between Mohamed Yaffa and Canadian Human Rights Commission and Air Canada. August 8. File no. T1863/9312. 2014 CHRT 22, 2014; Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT), Ruling: Between Mohamed Yaffa and Canadian Human Rights Commission and Air Canada. February 4. File no. T1863/9312. 2016 CHRT 4, 2016.
CHRT, Ruling: Between Mohamed Yaffa and Canadian Human Rights Commission and Air Canada, 2014.
CHRT, Ruling: Between Mohamed Yaffa and Canadian Human Rights Commission and Air Canada, 2016.
Jim Bronskill, “Human Rights Tribunal Probing Air Canada's Use of U.S. No-Fly List after It Barred Arab-Canadian Man from Flight,” National Post , March 21, 2014, Accessed April 26, 2017, http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/human-rights-tribunal-probing-air-canadas-use-of-u-s-no-fly-list-after-it-barred-arab-canadian-man-from-flight.
Mitchell D. Silber and Arvin Bhatt, Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat (New York: NYPD Intelligence Division, 2007).
Imran Awan, “I Am a Muslim Not an Extremist: How the Prevent Strategy Has Constructed a ‘Suspect’ Community,” Politics and Policy 40, no. 6 (2012): 1158–85; Arun Kundnani, The Muslims Are Coming! Islamophobia, Extremism and the Domestic War on Terror (London: Verso Books, 2014).
Colin Moynihan, “A New York City Settlement on the Surveillance of Muslims,” The New Yorker , January 6, 2016, Accessed April 29, 2017, http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-new-york-city-settlement-on-surveillance-of-muslims.

Comments

Comment on this article

[1] Edward Said, “Thoughts about America,” Outlook India , March 7, 2002, accessed April 24, 2017, http://www.outlookindia.com/article/thoughts-about-america/214829.

[2] Anealla Safdar, “US Muslim Forced Off Plane Cites Islamophobia,” Al Jazeera , November 26, 2015, accessed April 24, 2016, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/11/muslim-forced-plane-anti-islam-rhetoric-rises-1511252006500l6.html.

[3] Oliver Milman, “Southwest Airlines Draws Outrage over Man Removed for Speaking Arabic,” The Guardian , April 16, 2016, accessed April 24, 2016, http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/16/southwest-airlines-man-removed-flight-arabic.

[4] Grace Wong, “Police: ‘Suspicious Activity’ on Chicago-Bound Plane Was Just Someone Watching News on Phone,” Chicago Tribune , November 18, 2015, accessed April 24, 2016, http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-4-passengers-removed-from-chicagobound-plane-in-baltimore-20151117-story.html.

[5] Khaled A. Beydoun, “Speaking Arabic While Flying,” Al Jazeera , April 20, 2016, accessed April 24, 2017, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/04/speaking-arabic-flying-160420051548323.html.

[6] Stuart Croft, Securitizing Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 77–78.

[7] Croft, Securitizing Islam , 81–83.

[8] Mina Shum, dir., The Ninth Floor (National Film Board of Canada. 1h 21 min, 2015).

[9] Gary Kinsman, Dieter K. Buse, and Mercedes Steedman, eds., Whose National Security? Canadian State Surveillance and the Creation of Enemies (Toronto: Between the Lines Press, 2000).

[10] James Marsh, “Japanese Internment: Banished and Beyond Tears,” The Canadian Encyclopedia , February 23, 2012, accessed April 26, 2017, http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/japanese-internment-banished-and-beyond-tears-feature/.

[11] Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1978).

[12] Uzma Jamil, “Reading Power: Muslims in the War on Terror Discourse,” Islamophobia Studies Journal 2, no. 2 (2014): 29–42.

[13] Said, Orientalism , 300–301.

[14] Moustafa Bayoumi, This Muslim American Life: Dispatches from the War on Terror (New York: New York University Press, 2015); Tran Nguyen, We Are All Suspects Now: Untold Stories from Immigrant Communities after 9/11 (Boston: Beacon Press, 2005).

[15] Faiza Patel and Rachel Levinson-Waldman, “The Islamophobic Administration,” New York: The Brennan Center for Justice, April 19, 2017, accessed April 27, 2017, @123456http://www.brennancenter.org/publication/islamophobic-administration.

[16] Colin J. Bennett, “Unsafe at Any Altitude: The Comparative Politics of No Fly Lists in the United States and Canada,” in Politics at the Airport , ed. M. B. Salter (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008), 56.

[17] Bennett, “Unsafe at Any Altitude,” 53.

[18] Reginald Whitaker, “Keeping Up with the Neighbors? Canadian Responses to 9/11 in Historical and Comparative Context,” Osgood Hall Law Journal 41, no. 2–3 (2003): 242–66; David Lyon, “Airport Screening, Surveillance, and Social Sorting: Canadian Responses to 9/11 in Context.” Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice 48, no. 3 (2006): 407.

[19] Bennett, “Unsafe at Any Altitude,” 54.

[20] Ibid., 60.

[21] Lyon, “Airport Screening, Surveillance, and Social Sorting,” 400.

[22] Ibid., 400.

[23] Ibid., 404.

[24] Craig Forcese and Kent Roach, False Security: The Radicalization of Canadian Anti-terrorism (Toronto: Irwin Law, 2015), 63.

[25] Bennett, “Unsafe at Any Altitude,” 60.

[26] Ibid., 60–61.

[27] Forcese and Roach, False Security , 63.

[28] Bennett, “Unsafe at Any Altitude,” 64–65.

[29] Ibid., 65.

[30] Quoted in Bennett, “Unsafe at Any Altitude,” 65.

[31] Bennett, “Unsafe at Any Altitude,” 65.

[32] Ibid., 66.

[33] Forcese and Roach, False Security , 63.

[34] Ibid., 4–5.

[35] Ibid., 4.

[36] Ibid., 5.

[37] Ibid., 35.

[38] Timothy Banks, “Canada's Proposed Secure Air Travel Act,” February 10, 2015, accessed April 26, 2017, http://www.privacyandcybersecuritylaw.com/canadas-proposed-secure-air-travel-act?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=canadas-proposed-secure-air-travel-act?utm_source=Mondaq&utm_medium=syndication&utm_campaign=View-Original”>http://www.privacyandcybersecuritylaw.com/canadas-proposed-secure-air-travel-act?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=canadas-proposed-secure-air-travel-act?utm_source=Mondaq&utm_medium=syndication&utm_campaign=View-Original.

[39] Ibid.

[40] Forcese and Roach, False Security , 79.

[41] Banks, “Canada's Proposed Secure Air Travel Act.”

[42] Ibid.

[43] Forcese and Roach, False Security , 187.

[44] Banks, “Canada's Proposed Secure Air Travel Act.”

[45] Ibid.

[46] Ibid.

[47] Ibid.

[48] Forcese and Roach, False Security , 188.

[49] Ibid., p. 187.

[50] Prime Minister of Canada, “Fact Sheet: Canada-United States: Neighbors, Partners, Allies,” March 10, 2016, accessed May 12, 2016, http://pm.gc.ca/eng/news/2016/03/10/fact-sheet-canada-united-states-neighbours-partners-allies.

[51] CBC News , “Canada, U.S. Set Up Working Group to Tackle Error-Laden No Fly List,” May 10, 2016, Accessed May 12, 2016, http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-us-no-fly-list-1.3575568.

[52] Forcese and Roach, False Security , 185; Bennett, “Unsafe at Any Altitude,” 64.

[53] CBC News , “No Fly List Tags More Toddlers as Security Risks,” January 4, 2016, accessed May 12, 2016, http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/no-fly-list-flags-more-canadian-toddlers-as-security-risks-1.3388927.

[54] CBC News , “Syed Adam Ahmad's Mother Contacted by Dozens of Families with Similar Stories,” January 20, 2016, accessed May 12, 2016, http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-boy-khadija-cajee-1.3411443.

[55] CBC News , “Extra Airport Screening for under-18s Not Needed, Public Safety Minister Says,” January 7, 2016, Accessed May 12, 2016, http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/additional-screening-under-18-1.3394628.

[56] Shanifa Nasser, “Air Canada Employees Told to Seek Extra ID from Kids Even after Feds' Directive,” May 10, 2016, accessed May 12, 2016, http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ralph-goodale-no-fly-list-air-canada-employee-aeroplan-1.3576417.

[57] Nasser, “Air Canada Employees Told to Seek Extra ID.”

[58] Justice O'Connor, The Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar (Ottawa, 2006), 59, accessed April 29, 2017, http://www.sirc-csars.gc.ca/pdfs/cm_arar_bgv1-eng.pdf.

[59] Reem Bahdi, “Constructing Non-citizens: Canada's War against Terrorism,” in Counter-Terrorism and the Post of Democratic State , ed. Jenny Hocking and Colleen Lewis (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2007), 89, 92.

[60] Center for Constitutional Rights, “The Extraordinary Rendition: The Story of Maher Arar,” Factsheet, New York, 2010, accessed April 29, 2017, https://ccrjustice.org/home/what-we-do/our-cases/arar-v-ashcroft-et-al.

[61] Joseph Brean, “Halifax Rights Complaint Accuses Air Canada of Singling out Mohamed Yaffa Because He's Black, Muslim,” National Post , August 18, 2014, Accessed April 25, 2017, http://news.nationalpost.com/news/ canada/halifax-rights-complaint-accuses-air-canada-of-singling-out-mohamed-yaffa-because-hes-black-muslim.

[62] Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT), Ruling: Between Mohamed Yaffa and Canadian Human Rights Commission and Air Canada. August 8. File no. T1863/9312. 2014 CHRT 22, 2014; Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT), Ruling: Between Mohamed Yaffa and Canadian Human Rights Commission and Air Canada. February 4. File no. T1863/9312. 2016 CHRT 4, 2016.

[63] CHRT, Ruling: Between Mohamed Yaffa and Canadian Human Rights Commission and Air Canada, 2014.

[64] CHRT, Ruling: Between Mohamed Yaffa and Canadian Human Rights Commission and Air Canada, 2016.

[65] Jim Bronskill, “Human Rights Tribunal Probing Air Canada's Use of U.S. No-Fly List after It Barred Arab-Canadian Man from Flight,” National Post , March 21, 2014, Accessed April 26, 2017, http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/human-rights-tribunal-probing-air-canadas-use-of-u-s-no-fly-list-after-it-barred-arab-canadian-man-from-flight.

[66] Mitchell D. Silber and Arvin Bhatt, Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat (New York: NYPD Intelligence Division, 2007).

[67] Imran Awan, “I Am a Muslim Not an Extremist: How the Prevent Strategy Has Constructed a ‘Suspect’ Community,” Politics and Policy 40, no. 6 (2012): 1158–85; Arun Kundnani, The Muslims Are Coming! Islamophobia, Extremism and the Domestic War on Terror (London: Verso Books, 2014).

[68] Colin Moynihan, “A New York City Settlement on the Surveillance of Muslims,” The New Yorker , January 6, 2016, Accessed April 29, 2017, http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-new-york-city-settlement-on-surveillance-of-muslims.