9th Circuit says government can’t moot challenge to “no-fly” order
In a blow to the US government’s evasion of judicial review of no-fly and blacklisting decisions, the 9th Circuit US Court of Appeals has reinstated a lawsuit against the government by Mr. Yonas Fikre, a US citizen who was effectively exiled from the US and consigned to imprisonment and torture abroad by being placed on a “No-Fly” list, in an attempt to pressure him to become an FBI informer, while he was overseas.
Unwiling to become an FBI informer — even when he was tortured to do so — and unable to return to the country of his citizenship, Mr. Fikre fled to Sweden, where he applied for political asylum. In a successful effort to smear Mr. Fikre and thwart his asylum claim in Sweden, the US then had him indicted on trumped-up charges related to his business (and having nothing to do with terrorism, violence, aviation, or dangerousness).
Mr. Fikre’s application for asylum in Sweden was denied, and Sweden paid to deport Mr. Fikre to the US (by private jet, because the US wouldn’t allow him on any airline flights). The bogus charges against Mr. Fikre were promptly dropped once he got back to the US. But he has been unable to resume his international business career without being able to count on being able to travel from and to the US without US government interference.
The decision by the 9th Circuit panel in Fikre v. FBI overturns the dismissal of Mr. Fikre’s complaint as “moot” by a US District Court judge in Oregon after the government defendants told the court that Mr. Fikre’s name had been removed from the no-fly list.
The 9th Circuit allowed the case to proceed, finding that there was no guarantee that the actions Fikre complained of, and the violations of his rights, wouldn’t recur:
Because there are neither procedural hurdles to reinstating Fikre on the No Fly List based solely on facts already known, nor any renouncement by the government of its prerogative and authority to do so… Fikre’s due process claims are not moot.