twomp
04-07-2016, 12:26 AM
BABY DOE WAS 7 months old when his troubles with the U.S. government began. His mother was taking him on a flight when security officials stopped them at an airport. He was patted down and subjected to “chemical testing.” His mother’s bag was searched. His diapers were examined. Unbeknownst to the family from California, four letters on the infant’s boarding pass — “SSSS” — had singled him out as a particularly dangerous class of individual: a “known or suspected terrorist.”
Four years later, Baby Doe, as he’s identified in court documents, is part of a class-action lawsuit taking aim at the federal government’s sweeping terrorist watchlisting system. His ordeal is one of 18 included in the suit, filed Tuesday in Alexandria, Virginia, by the Michigan branch of the Council of American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR. The rights group claims its plaintiffs’ collective experiences are the consequence of “an injustice of historic proportions.”
“Through extra-judicial and secret means,” the suit alleges, “the federal government is ensnaring individuals into an invisible web of consequences that are imposed indefinitely and without recourse as a result of the shockingly large federal watchlists that now include hundreds of thousands of individuals.”
Before September 11, 2001, the U.S. government had a list of 16 people prohibited from boarding flights due to suspected terrorism links. By 2013, that number had swelled to 47,000. Today, the watchlisting apparatus includes both the no-fly list and the selectee list — which triggers the enhanced airport screening Baby Doe’s family allegedly experienced — as well as other lesser-known, though much larger, secret government watchlists.
The watchlisting system has come under fire from attorneys across the country, who have blasted the procedures for secretly labeling individuals as known or suspected terrorists — “KSTs” in government parlance — as discriminatory against Muslims, arbitrary in execution, and devoid of acceptable means for legal challenge and redress. For years, the government would refuse even to acknowledge whether an individual was included on the no-fly list. Following recent rounds of litigation, the Department of Homeland Security last year instituted a policy of providing confirmation to people who believe they have been wrongly watchlisted so long as the disclosure does not endanger “national security and law enforcement interests.”
In addition to compensation for those wrongly watchlisted, the CAIR lawsuit aims to break down obstacles faced by those seeking to challenge their placement on the government’s controversial lists. The government has three weeks to respond to the suit. The FBI said it could not comment on pending litigation.
read the rest here:
https://theintercept.com/2016/04/06/class-action-suit-targets-system-that-added-a-baby-to-terrorist-watchlist/
Four years later, Baby Doe, as he’s identified in court documents, is part of a class-action lawsuit taking aim at the federal government’s sweeping terrorist watchlisting system. His ordeal is one of 18 included in the suit, filed Tuesday in Alexandria, Virginia, by the Michigan branch of the Council of American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR. The rights group claims its plaintiffs’ collective experiences are the consequence of “an injustice of historic proportions.”
“Through extra-judicial and secret means,” the suit alleges, “the federal government is ensnaring individuals into an invisible web of consequences that are imposed indefinitely and without recourse as a result of the shockingly large federal watchlists that now include hundreds of thousands of individuals.”
Before September 11, 2001, the U.S. government had a list of 16 people prohibited from boarding flights due to suspected terrorism links. By 2013, that number had swelled to 47,000. Today, the watchlisting apparatus includes both the no-fly list and the selectee list — which triggers the enhanced airport screening Baby Doe’s family allegedly experienced — as well as other lesser-known, though much larger, secret government watchlists.
The watchlisting system has come under fire from attorneys across the country, who have blasted the procedures for secretly labeling individuals as known or suspected terrorists — “KSTs” in government parlance — as discriminatory against Muslims, arbitrary in execution, and devoid of acceptable means for legal challenge and redress. For years, the government would refuse even to acknowledge whether an individual was included on the no-fly list. Following recent rounds of litigation, the Department of Homeland Security last year instituted a policy of providing confirmation to people who believe they have been wrongly watchlisted so long as the disclosure does not endanger “national security and law enforcement interests.”
In addition to compensation for those wrongly watchlisted, the CAIR lawsuit aims to break down obstacles faced by those seeking to challenge their placement on the government’s controversial lists. The government has three weeks to respond to the suit. The FBI said it could not comment on pending litigation.
read the rest here:
https://theintercept.com/2016/04/06/class-action-suit-targets-system-that-added-a-baby-to-terrorist-watchlist/