Dr. Ibrahim’s legal brief’s theories about what DHS did wrong
Rahinah Ibrahim’s trial brief goes over the basic legal theories of the case, and details what Dr. Ibrahim is asking the court to do. This is not legal advice; you can read what we think about some of its high points, or just follow the link and read it yourself. This focuses more on the factual allegations than the details of the legal rules that Dr. Ibrahim claims DHS has violated.
The first thing you’ll notice about this 53-page document is that looks like something that went through government censorship, like a FOIA result full of blacked-out passages. That is because it did go through government censorship. Dr. Ibrahim’s lawyers have no security clearances, but at the insistence of the judge, they have been checked-out by the government and authorized to see documents that are DHS “Sensitive Security Information”, a sui-generis class of stuff-you-can’t-see that doesn’t even have most of the protections for the public that classified information has. Carefully tweaked language in Congressional bills that used to exempt federal aviation research from public view have turned into a Kafkaesque power by the head of DHS to say anything is “SSI” for just about any vague reason. Dr. Ibrahim’s lawyers can see things that they cannot reveal to Ms. Ibrahim or to the public. They can write things in their legal brief that neither the public nor Dr.. Ibrahim are permitted to know (that’s the stuff that is blacked out). Dr. Ibrahim is still not permitted to know if she is or ever was on the No-Fly list!!!
Pages 10 through about 19 detail the facts about what happened to Dr. Ibrahim and her family over the last decade. Much of this will have to be proven in court with evidence, but it’s mostly uncontested.
Then come the legal arguments. These may be tough slogging on first read, but here’s what seem to be the meat of the allegations about what Dr. Ibrahim thinks DHS is doing wrong. Read More