A former Assistant Secretary for Homeland Security to President Obama says that unvaccinated Americans should be placed on a federal no-fly list. In an article published by The Atlantic Juliette Kayyem likened Americans choosing not to get the Coronavirus vaccine to dangerous terrorists monitored by the federal government.
Fox News reports:
“The White House has rejected a nationwide vaccine mandate—a sweeping suggestion that the Biden administration could not easily enact if it wanted to—but a no-fly list for unvaccinated adults is an obvious step that the federal government should take,” former Assistant Secretary for Homeland Security Juliette Kayyem wrote in an op-ed for The Atlantic this week.
In the piece, originally titled “Unvaccinated people belong on the no-fly list” and then updated to say “Unvaccinated People Need to Bear the Burden,” Kayyem argued that existing TSA regulations already set the precedent that rules can be enforced to determine who flies.
“When you go to the airport, you see two kinds of security rules. Some apply equally to everyone; no one can carry weapons through the TSA checkpoint,” Kayyem wrote. “But other protocols divide passengers into categories according to how much of a threat the government thinks they pose. If you submit to heightened scrutiny in advance, TSA PreCheck lets you go through security without taking off your shoes; a no-fly list keeps certain people off the plane entirely. Not everyone poses an equal threat. Rifling through the bags of every business traveler and patting down every preschooler and octogenarian would waste the TSA’s time and needlessly burden many passengers.”
“For the privilege of flying, Americans already give up a lot: We disclose our personal information, toss our water bottles, extinguish our cigarette butts, and lock our guns in checked luggage. For vaccinated people, having to show proof of vaccination when flying would be a minor inconvenience,” she wrote.
Kayyem’s article comes as the Biden administration continues to push Americans to get the vaccine. So far a number of states and cities have also implemented new mandates, New York City now requires proof of vaccination in order to enter restaurants and gyms, and Washington, D.C. reimposed its mask requirement.
