A Yemeni-American U.S. citizen sued the U.S. State Department today, asking a federal court in Michigan, where he lives, to order the State Department to issue him a U.S. passport. Ahmed Nagi was naturalized as a U.S. citizen twenty years ago. In May of 2013, after his previous U.S. passport expired, Mr. Nagi applied to […]
A Congressional hearing last week on the so-called “Secure Flight” system for “screening” domestic air travelers confirmed that the TSA has completed a shift from blacklist and whitelist matching to a comprehensive real-time pre-crime profiling system that assigns each air traveler a “risk assessment” score on the four-step scale we’ve previously described and which is […]
We’ve noticed a disturbing pattern in how the DHS, and specifically US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), has responded to people who have asked the DHS for its files about themselves. Eventually — typically months later than the statutory deadline for responding to a FOIA request — CBP has sent the requester a file of […]
Faced with a series of decisions by federal District Court judges that the procedures for putting names on the “no-fly” list lack the due process of law required by the Constitution, and with more no-fly and “watchlist” (blacklist) cases on track toward trial, the government is trying to claim that the basis (if any) for […]
The complete unredacted decision in favor of Dr.. Rahinah Ibrahim issued by U.S. District Judge William Alsup in January, following the first trial in any case challenging a US government “no-fly” order, was finally made public today by order of the court. (Unredacted version as unsealed; version with previously redacted portions highlighted.) The deadline for […]
Yesterday, in response to a court order, the FBI — the nominal “owner” of the US government’s “no-fly” list — sent the letter above to Dr. Rahinah Ibrahim, informing her that she isn’t on that list. This is the first time the US government has ever officially disclosed to an individual whether they are on […]
Do you think that if you are a U.S. citizen you have a right to return to your country, and don’t need “authorization” from the US government? Article 12, section 4 of the ICCPR (a treaty ratified by and binding on the US) provides that “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to […]
A month and half after the conclusion of the first trial in any case challenging the US government’s “no-fly” list, and more than a week after Judge William Alsup’s decision that the rights of the plaintiff in the case, Dr. Rahinah Ibrahim, were violated, the government has finally admitted explicitly and publicly that: Dr. Ibrahim […]
Post-trial briefing was to be completed this week in Ibrahim v. DHS, the first challenge to a “no-fly” order to make it to trial. After that, the case would have been in the hands of U.S. District Judge William Alsup, who conducted the week-long trial without a jury earlier this month in San Francisco, for […]
“Your Honor, we’ve confirmed that the defendants did nothing to deny plaintiff’s daughter boarding. It’s our understanding that she just simply missed her flight.” Neither the public, nor Dr. Rahinah Ibrahim, nor her daughter, Seattle-born U.S. citizen Raihan binti Mustafa Kamal, yet know why a U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officer sent the email message […]