Factoring the terrorist class: no-fly lists in Canada, the 'war on terror', and technoscientific discourse.

In this discursive analysis of media reporting on no-fly lists, lists are explored as exclusionary biopolitical tools that concretize and reify allegedly threatening objects (people and things). Lists are positioned here as discriminatory instruments for managing and policing high-risk milieus of circulation by acting as mechanisms and signifiers for identifying, limiting and containing the mobility of dangerous objects. This analysis reveals that no-fly list security arrangements deployed under the auspices of the 'war on terror' are constructed on technoscientific language and practices surrounding data-mining, risk assessment and global surveillance infrastructures and networks. Given that the misidentification of 'normal' people on no-fly lists through technoscientific error is a rampant story in media reporting, this analysis also reveals that the 'truth' of the efficient and effective policing of high-risk milieus of circulation, like airports, through the discriminatory logic of lists is a precarious one at best. As such, it is argued in this chapter that the no-fly list plotline of the 'war on terror' masks the techno-deterministic and discriminatory thinking behind these security measures; that the right technological arrangement, deployed in the right way, can invariably solve any political problem, including terrorism. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]