The Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB) “fails to provide constitutionally sufficient procedural due process,” according to a motion for summary judgment filed this week in a lawsuit brought by people who have been placed on the TSDB blacklist.

We’ve been following this case, Elhady v. Kable, since it was filed in 2016. Discovery and depositions taken in the case, as well as leaks by whistleblowers while the case has been pending, have revealed an unprecedented level of detail about the operation of the blacklisting system, the inter-agency “Watchlisting Advisory Council” which overseas the blacklist, and the dissemination of blacklist information.

The TSDB is described euphemistically by the US government as a “watchlist”, but in reality it’s a blacklist. Individuals — including infants and children as well as adults, and US citizens and residents as well as non-residents — are subjected to adverse government and private action by having the government place them on the TSDB blacklist and disseminate this stigmatizing designation — with the intent that the designation will be used against listed individuals — to Federal, state, and local government agencies and  private entities.

The government has refused to disclose the criteria for TSDB listings, but has conceded that being listed does not require suspicion of having committed or intending to commit any crime. Listings are determined through a secret, extrajudicial administrative process, without those being blacklisted being notified or having any opportunity, before or after the fact, to know whether or why they are being blacklisted, what the basis  is for their blacklisting, or what the evidence against them is.

The case has survived multiple attempts by the government to have it dismissed on jurisdictional and procedural grounds and to avoid discovery and depositions.  Now the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment that the TSDB is unconstitutional is scheduled for oral argument on April 4, 2019, before US District Court Judge Anthony Trenga in Alexandria, VA.