BoingBoing points to a fine article in Homeland Security Affairs on how the No-Fly List is costing about $100 million a year … for a whole lotta nothing. I mean, really — they could put a dozen air marshalls on every flight in the US and be a gazillion times more effective.
As will be analyzed below, it is estimated that the costs of the no-fly list, since 2002, range from approximately $300 million (a conservative estimate) to $966 million (an estimate on the high end). Using those figures as low and high potentials, a reasonable estimate is that the U.S. government has spent over $500 million on the project since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Using annual data, this article suggests that the list costs taxpayers somewhere between $50 million and $161 million a year, with a reasonable compromise of those figures at approximately $100 million. Clearly the no-fly list is a program that is not without substantial cost. It represents, at least financially, a large part of the government’s protection of air travel. 4 In order to begin to analyze whether or not the benefits are worth the costs, both must be identified and analyzed.
The article goes on to describe (a) other indirect costs (such as forcing European flights to Mexico that happen to cross American airspace to turn around and go back to Europe), (b) how trivial it is to bypass the No-Fly List, and (c) how the government, aside from making vague claims, has yet to demonstrate how the No-Fly List has actually done anything to make air travel safer.
But at least it makes for some wacky travel anecdotes, right?