In a case brought by the Hamas-founded Council on American-Islamic Relations, a federal judge ruled the FBI’s “no fly” watchlist of “known or suspected terrorists” violates the constitutional rights of the people placed on it.
U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, granted summary judgment Wednesday to nearly two dozen Muslim U.S. citizens who had challenged the list with the help of CAIR, the Washington Times reported.
The judge is seeking additional legal briefs before deciding on a remedy, the Times said.
The FBI’s lawyers argued in court that any travel difficulties suffered by the plaintiffs are outweighed by the government’s interest in protecting the nation from terrorist attacks.
But Trenga ruled that the difficulties were significant, including being handcuffed at border crossings and frequently subjected to invasive secondary searches at airports. He concluded the plaintiffs have a right to due process when their constitutional rights are infringed.
The plaintiffs claimed they were wrongly placed on the list and charged the government’s process for adding names is flawed.
Gadeir Abbas, a CAIR senior litigation attorney, said he will ask the judge to severely curtail how the government compiles and uses its list, the Times reported.
“Innocent people should be beyond the reach of the watchlist system,” Abbas said. “We think that’s what the Constitution requires.”
Abbas said that while other lawsuits have forced the government to improve the process for enabling people to clear their names from the list, Trenga’s ruling is the first to broadly challenge the government’s use of the watchlist.
“There is no evidence, or contention, that any of these plaintiffs satisfy the definition of a ‘known terrorist,'” Trenga wrote.
He also argued that the alternative standard of “suspected terrorist” can easily be triggered by innocent conduct that is misconstrued.
The Justice Department designated CAIR an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case. And the Washington, D.C.-based group, which was founded by Hamas operatives, was designated a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates.
Customs officers, aviation officials and many private law enforcement entities have access to the watchlist, also known as the Terrorist Screening Database.
As of June 2017, the Times reported, the list had approximately 1.16 million names. The vast majority are foreigners.
Only about 4,600 on the list in 2017 were U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents.
The House of Representatives adopted a proposal in July by Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., that would force the Trump administration to disclose details about how it shares the watchlist with foreign countries.
