U.S. No-Fly List Doubles in One Year

Three cheers for the ever-expanding definition of a "terrorist"!

In just one year, the number of people on the U.S.' no-fly list more than doubled from about 10,000 to 21,000 between 2010 and 2011. About 500 of the new names on the list are Americans, while the rest are from countries all over the world. The sudden uptick in the number of no-flyers is due to the Department of Homeland Security lowering its standards for whom it considers to be a suspected terrorist. That policy change came after Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the so-called underwear bomber, attempted to blow up a plane on Christmas in 2009 as it flew over Detroit. The main difference is that suspected terrorists no longer have to be considered a risk to just flights, but to anything on the ground, too. Of course, there's no way to know whether you're on the list until you're told that you can't board a flight, and even then, you'll never get an explanation as to why you can't fly, a point that the American Civil Liberties Union has sued to overturn.