DHS stalls no-fly list trial by putting witness on no-fly list

[Winehole23]

There’s been an argument on Twitter about whether we should have described the treatment of Dr. Rahinah Ibrahim — the plaintiff in the first lawsuit challenging a US government no-fly order to make it to trial — as “Orwellian” or “Kafkaesque”. We’re inclined to agree with those who say, “But it’s both.”



True to form, day three of the trial began with arguments over whether the court could take judicial notice of statements made by the defendant government agencies on their own “.gov” websites, and of news articles linked to from the government’s own press releases on those websites.


“I would expect that the defendants would not dispute the statements that are made on their own websites,” said Christine Peek, one of Dr. Ibrahim’s attorneys. Eventually the government’s lawyers agreed to allow their clients’ press releases, and the articles from other sources they had cited and linked to, to be entered into evidence – but not without first putting up a fight about their admissibility.


While the first two days of the trial focused on what had happened to Dr. Ibrahim (she was denied boarding a flight from San Francisco to Hawaii, falsely arrested and mistreated at the airport, and subsequently had her U.S. visa revoked), today’s testimony focused on why and how the U.S. government decided to take these actions against Dr. Ibrahim.


Testimony was presented in a variety of formats. Some witnesses appeared in person, others through excerpts from video recordings of depositions, and others through a surreal sort of stage play in which lawyers for the parties enacted portions of the depositions, using the transcripts as their script.


Perhaps the strangest moment came during one of these re-enactments for the record of Dr. Ibrahim’s deposition. The government’s lead counsel took the witness box to read Dr. Ibrahim’s lines from the transcript, while Dr. Ibrahim’s lead counsel played the role of the government’s lawyer cross-examining her client.


Dr. Ibrahim, of course, was the one witness who had no option of testifying in person at her own trial. The State Department’s witness today confirmed that Dr. Ibrahim applied for a U.S. visa in 2009 for the specific purpose of coming to San Francisco to be deposed in this case. Knowing that was the purpose for her trip, the State Department denied her application for a visa.


The government’s attorneys objected to questioning about why that visa application was denied, and most of those objections were sustained on the grounds that the reasons for the visa denial, like those for the “nomination” and placement of Dr. Ibrahim on the no-fly list by the FBI and its Terrorist Screening Center, were “state secrets.”

http://papersplease.org/wp/?s=Ibrahim

http://boingboing.net/2013/12/04/dhs...t-trial-b.html

[Winehole23]

Phil writes, "Edward Hasbrouck of the Iden y Project is doing a fantastic job of reporting on-site from Ibrahim v. DHS, the first legal challenge of United States government's no-fly list that has ever seen a courtroom. On the first day of trial, the judge learned that the plaintiff's daughter, scheduled to testify, was delayed because she had been denied boarding of her flight because she was put a Department of Homeland Security no-fly list. DHS staff deny this. The government's lawyers told the judge that the daughter is lying. The airline provided do entation of the DHS no-fly order. The subject matter of this trial is intense---restriction of movement based on blacklists---but there's no sign of an end to the jaw-dropping entertainment."

[Winehole23]

David Kravets of Wired has a good (in an infuriating way) write-up of the story of Rahinah Ibrahim (pictured at right), a woman who was placed on the no-fly list because of an FBI agent's clerical error. She spent nine years fighting to make the federal government acknowledge and correct its mistake, finally winning just last week. Reason has covered this case, including the vindictive inclusion of U.S. citizen Raihan Mustafa Kamal, Rahinah Ibrahim's daughter, on the no-fly list to prevent her from testifying in the case. Ultimately, the story is not just a tale of injustice, but an illustration of how dangerous it is to allow government officials to invoke "national security" as a cover for their actions. As we now know, in this case, they did so through two administrations simply to avoid being publicly embarrassed by their bureaucratic incompetence.

http://reason.com/blog/2014/02/12/tr...ss-because-gov

[Winehole23]

So, we already highlighted the key information revealed and the newly unredacted version of the court's ruling in the Rehinah Ibrahim "no fly list" case (namely: that the US has a "secret exception" by which it can put people into the terrorist screening database despite no "reasonable su ion" that they're a threat). However, seeing as we had noted some of the bizarre redactions in the original, and now that we have the unredacted version, I figured we could look at some of the more bizarre redactions now that they've been revealed. Let's start with what might have been the most hilarious redaction from the original


If you can't read it, it's:

Given the Kafkaesque [REDACTED] treatment imposed on Dr. Ibrahim, the government is further ordered expressly to tell Dr. Ibrahim [REDACTED] (always subject, of course, to future developments and evidence that might [REDACTED]). This relief is appropriate and warranted because of the confusion generated by the government's own mistake and the very real misapprehension on her part that the later visa denials are traceable to her erroneous 2004 placement on the no-fly list, suggesting (reasonably from her viewpoint) that she somehow remains on the no-fly list.

Now those redactions have been uncovered, and here's what we see (with the redacted portions in yellow):


And the text version, with redacted portions underlined:

Given the Kafkaesque on-off-on-list treatment imposed on Dr. Ibrahim, the government is further ordered expressly to tell Dr. Ibrahim that she is no longer on the no-fly list and has not been on it since 2005 (always subject, of course, to future developments and evidence that might warrant reinstating her to the list). This relief is appropriate and warranted because of the confusion generated by the government's own mistake and the very real misapprehension on her part that the later visa denials are traceable to her erroneous 2004 placement on the no-fly list, suggesting (reasonably from her viewpoint) that she somehow remains on the no-fly list.

Many people rightly mocked the original version as the Kafkaesque nature of the situation appeared to be increased by that particularly hilarious looking redaction. Of course, now having seen all the redactions, we can see the true reason behind it. It appears that, despite all of this, Ibrahim is still in the Terror Screening Database (TSDB), for some secret reason, even though everyone admits she's no threat. And that secret reason is apparently unrelated to the original mistake.


In other words, the purpose of all those original redactions was to misleadingly suggest that Ibrahim had been cleared from all lists, but the "on-off-on-list" aspect was actually hidden in the redacted version. Now that it's all been revealed, reading between the lines, we see that Ibrahim is only being cleared from some lists and databases, while remaining in others that likely prevent her from ever returning to the US. In other words, the redactions were created to mislead the public into believing that Ibrahim has been totally cleared, when the reality is she's still in the same basic position -- other than the fact that she now knows she's in the TSDB rather than the no fly list, which she was removed from all the way back in 2005.


Still, other redactions seem equally bizarre. Take this one:


The unredacted version says:

Government counsel has conceded at trial that Dr. Ibrahim is not a threat to our national security. She does not pose (and has not posed) a threat of committing an act of international or domestic terrorism with respect to an aircraft, a threat to airline passenger or civil aviation security, or a threat of domestic terrorism. This the government admits and this order finds.

Why was that redacted? Perhaps the government thought the reasons someone might be put on the list needed to be secret? But, did anyone doubt that any of the things listed above were considered reasons why you might be put on the no fly list or the terrorist screening database? This identical redaction was done later in the ruling as well, again enforcing the idea that the government sought to hide the fact that you have to be a threat to one of those three things to be placed on the lists. But it also hid the fact that even if you were not one of those things, you can still be placed in the Terrorist Screening Database for a "secret exception" to the reasonable su ion requirement.


Another bizarre one, concerning an attempt in 2006 to have her removed from all lists:


The unredacted version:

In a form dated February 10, 2006, an unidentified government agent requested that Dr. Ibrahim be "Remove[ d) From ALL Watchlisting Supported Systems (For terrorist subjects: due to closure of case AND no nexus to terrorism)" (TX 10). For the question "Is the individual qualified for placement on the no fly list," the "No" box was checked. For the question, "If no, is the individual qualified for placement on the selectee list," the "No" box was checked.

Can anyone explain why this was redacted? It makes no sense at all.


There is also a lengthy discussion of how the US blocked Ibrahim's daughter, Raihan Binti Mustafa Kamal, from flying to the US for the trial and then lied about it. We noted how bizarre it was that Judge William Alsup's entire discussion of what happened there was redacted. Now seeing the full version, it is, once again, entirely unclear why it was redacted in the first place. The unredacted parts do show more screwups by the US, in which Homeland Security falsely flagged Kamal based on rules that are not supposed to apply to US citizens, even though she is a US citizen. In fact, it notes that Customs and Border Patrol realized in six minutes that she was a US citizen, but then there was a series of other confusions that resulted in her not being allowed to board the flight.


Unfortunately, despite considerable anger on Judge Alsup's part, when all of this came out, it appears that, in the end, he did nothing about this, other than make sure that Kamal's own record in the TSDB was "updated... to reflect that she was a United States citizen."


In the end, the revelation of these redactions do reveal that Ibrahim still appears to be unable to come to the US, and also suggests that the US government tried to use redactions to hide this fact -- allowing the public to believe that Ibrahim had been entirely cleared, when she had not been. It also sought to hide, as mentioned in our earlier post, that the DOJ has some "secret exception" that allows them to basically destroy someone's life, even if there's no reasonable su ion that they're a terrorist threat of any kind.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...dactions.shtml

[Winehole23]

Federal court rules no-fly list uncons utional:

The U.S. government's no-fly list banning people accused of links to terrorism from commercial flights violates their cons utional rights because it gives them no meaningful way to contest that decision, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Anna Brown, ruling on a lawsuit filed in federal court in Oregon by 13 Muslim Americans who were branded with the no-fly status, ordered the government to come up with new procedures that allow people on the no-fly list to challenge that designation.


"The court concludes international travel is not a mere convenience or luxury in this modern world. Indeed, for many international travel is a necessary aspect of liberties sacred to members of a free society," Brown wrote in her 65-page ruling.
"Accordingly, on this record the court concludes plaintiffs inclusion on the no-fly list cons utes a significant deprivation of their liberty interests in international travel," Brown said.


The decision hands a major victory to the 13 plaintiffs - four of them veterans of the U.S. military - who deny they have links to terrorism and say they only learned of their no-fly status when they arrived at an airport and were blocked from boarding a flight.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...0EZ2EU20140624

[Winehole23]

Obama administration expands the definition of "terrorist" and the reach of the watchlist:

“Instead of a watchlist limited to actual, known terrorists, the government has built a vast system based on the unproven and flawed premise that it can predict if a person will commit a terrorist act in the future,” says Hina Shamsi, the head of the ACLU’s National Security Project. “On that dangerous theory, the government is secretly blacklisting people as suspected terrorists and giving them the impossible task of proving themselves innocent of a threat they haven’t carried out.” Shamsi, who reviewed the do ent, added, “These criteria should never have been kept secret.”


The do ent’s definition of “terrorist” activity includes actions that fall far short of bombing or hijacking. In addition to expected crimes, such as assassination or hostage-taking, the guidelines also define destruction of government property and damaging computers used by financial ins utions as activities meriting placement on a list. They also define as terrorism any act that is “dangerous” to property and intended to influence government policy through intimidation.


This combination—a broad definition of what cons utes terrorism and a low threshold for designating someone a terrorist—opens the way to ensnaring innocent people in secret government dragnets. It can also be counterproductive. When resources are devoted to tracking people who are not genuine risks to national security, the actual threats get fewer resources—and might go unnoticed.


“If reasonable su ion is the only standard you need to label somebody, then it’s a slippery slope we’re sliding down here, because then you can label anybody anything,” says David Gomez, a former senior FBI special agent with experience running high-profile terrorism investigations. “Because you appear on a telephone list of somebody doesn’t make you a terrorist. That’s the kind of information that gets put in there.”


The fallout is personal too. There are severe consequences for people unfairly labeled a terrorist by the U.S. government, which shares its watchlist data with local law enforcement, foreign governments, and “private en ies.” Once the U.S. government secretly labels you a terrorist or terrorist suspect, other ins utions tend to treat you as one. It can become difficult to get a job (or simply to stay out of jail). It can become burdensome—or impossible—to travel. And routine encounters with law enforcement can turn into ordeals.


In 2012 Tim Healy, the former director of the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center, described to CBS News how watchlists are used by police officers. “So if you are speeding, you get pulled over, they’ll query that name,” he said. “And if they are encountering a known or suspected terrorist, it will pop up and say call the Terrorist Screening Center…. So now the officer on the street knows he may be dealing with a known or suspected terrorist.” Of course, the problem is that the “known or suspected terrorist” might just be an ordinary citizen who should not be treated as a menace to public safety.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/a...3/blacklisted/

[Winehole23]

While the guidelines nominally prohibit nominations based on unreliable information, they explicitly regard “uncorroborated” Facebook or Twitter posts as sufficient grounds for putting an individual on one of the watchlists. “Single source information,” the guidelines state, “including but not limited to ‘walk-in,’ ‘write-in,’ or postings on social media sites, however, should not automatically be discounted … the NOMINATING AGENCY should evaluate the credibility of the source, as well as the nature and specificity of the information, and nominate even if that source is uncorroborated.”

same

[boutons_deux]

US terrorist database growing at rapid rate


http://news.yahoo.com/us-terrorist-d...223303875.html

[Winehole23]

There are a number of loopholes for putting people onto the watchlists even if reasonable su ion cannot be met.


One is clearly defined: The immediate family of suspected terrorists—their spouses, children, parents, or siblings—may be watchlisted without any su ion that they themselves are engaged in terrorist activity. But another loophole is quite broad—”associates” who have a defined relationship with a suspected terrorist, but whose involvement in terrorist activity is not known. A third loophole is broader still—individuals with “a possible nexus” to terrorism, but for whom there is not enough “derogatory information” to meet the reasonable su ion standard.


Americans and foreigners can be nominated for the watchlists if they are associated with a terrorist group, even if that group has not been designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. They can also be treated as “representatives” of a terrorist group even if they have “neither membership in nor association with the organization.” The guidelines do helpfully note that certain associations, such as providing janitorial services or delivering packages, are not grounds for being watchlisted.

same

[boutons_deux]

Here's One Way to Land on the NSA's Watch List

Last week, German journalistsrevealed that the National Security Agency has a program to collect information about people who use privacy-protecting services, including popular anonymizing software called Tor. But it's not clear how many users have been affected.

So we did a little sleuthing, and found that the NSA's targeting list corresponds with the list of directory servers used by Tor between December 2010 and February 2012 – including two servers at the Massachusetts Ins ute of Technology. Tor users connect to the directory servers when they first launch the Tor service.

That means that if you downloaded Tor during 2011, the NSA may have scooped up your computer's IP address and flagged you for further monitoring. The Tor Project is a nonprofit that receives significant funding from the U.S. government.

http://truth-out.org/news/item/24885...sas-watch-list

[Winehole23]

The nomination system appears to lack meaningful checks and balances. Although government officials have repeatedly said there is a rigorous process for making sure no one is unfairly placed in the databases, the guidelines acknowledge that all nominations of “known terrorists” are considered justified unless the National Counterterrorism Center has evidence to the contrary. In a recent court filing, the government disclosed that there were 468,749 KST nominations in 2013, of which only 4,915 were rejected–a rate of about one percent. The rulebook appears to invert the legal principle of due process, defining nominations as “presumptively valid.”

no way there are 450,000 domestic terrorists running around. what a waste of manpower and resources.

[boutons_deux]

Photographer Reportedly Lands on FBI Terrorism Watchlist for Taking a Photo of Public Art

http://www.popphoto.com/news/2014/07...oto-public-art

[boutons_deux]

Woman With Allergies Arrested and Imprisoned for Buying Sudafed

http://www.alternet.org/woman-allerg...er1012523&t=23

[boutons_deux]

Report: All But Four Of The High-Profile Domestic Terrorism Plots In The Last Decade Were Crafted From The Ground Up By The FBI

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...d-up-fbi.shtml

[Winehole23]

no fly list used by the FBI to coerce people to become informants?

The 36-year-old Eritrean-born American was finally back in Portland at the end of a five-year odyssey that began with a simple business trip but landed him in an Arab prison where he alleges he was tortured at the behest of US anti-terrorism officials because he refused to become an informant at his mosque in Oregon.


Fikre is suing the FBI, two of its agents and other American officials for allegedly putting him on the US’s no-fly list – a roster of suspected terrorists barred from taking commercial flights – to pressure him to collaborate. When that failed, the lawsuit said, the FBI had him arrested, interrogated and tortured for 106 days in the United Arab Emirates.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2...-behest-of-fbi

[Winehole23]

“The no-fly list gives the FBI an extrajudicial tool to coerce Muslims to become informants,” said Gadeir Abbas, a lawyer who represents other clients on the list. “There’s definitely a cluster of cases like this at the FBI’s Portland office.”


They include Jamal Tarhuni, a 58 year-old Portland businessman who travelled to Libya with a Christian charity, Medical Teams International, in 2012. He was blocked from flying back to the US and interrogated by an FBI agent who pressed him to sign a do ent waiving his cons utional rights.

[Winehole23]

Air Force veteran repeatedly listed, languishes in Turkish custody awaiting deportation while US consulate tries to wangle him a plane ticket:

A RIGHT-WING BLOG called “Pajamas Media” published an article on November 24 claiming that Saadiq Long, a Muslim American veteran of the U.S. Air Force, was arrested in Turkey for being an ISIS operative. Written by Patrick Poole, a professional anti-Muslim activist and close associate of Frank Gaffney, the article asserted that Long “finds himself and several family members sitting in a Turkish prison — arrested earlier this month near the Turkey-Syria border as members of an ISIS cell.” Its only claimed sources were anonymous: “U.S. and Turkish officials confirmed Long’s arrest to PJ Media, saying that he was arrested along with eight others operating along the Turkish-Syrian border. So far, no U.S. media outlet has reported on his arrest.”


Long’s purported arrest as an ISIS operative was then widely cited across the internet by Fox News as well as right-wing and even non-ideological news sites. Predictably, the story was uncritically hailed by the most virulent anti-Muslim polemicists: Pam Geller, Robert Spencer, Ann Coulter, and Sam Harris. Worst of all, it was blasted as a major news story by network TV affiliates and other local media outlets in Oklahoma, where Long is from and where his family — including his sister and ailing mother — still reside.


But the story is entirely false: a fabrication. Neither Long nor his wife or daughter have been arrested on charges that he joined ISIS. He faces no criminal charges of any kind in Turkey.
Instead, he and his family are being detained at the Geri Gonderme Merkezi deportation center in Erzurum, Turkey, evidently because he was placed years ago by the U.S. on its no-fly list. And the U.S. Embassy in Ankara has been working continually with Long’s family to secure his release, and, if he chooses, his return to the U.S.


A press officer with the Bureau of Consular Affairs, who asked to be identified only as “a State Department official,” contradicted the Pajamas Media claim. “We are aware of Mr. Long’s case and are providing consular assistance. At this time, we are not aware that he has been formally charged with a crime,” the official told The Intercept.

https://theintercept.com/2015/12/10/...-isis-charges/

[Winehole23]

no fly list used by the FBI to coerce people to become informants?

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2...-behest-of-fbi

Second Circuit court revives the lawsuit: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...formants.shtml

[Winehole23]

In this case, the lead plaintiff, Muhammad Tanvir, claims the FBI pursued him for months. The effort to convert Tanvir into an informant led to him being detained for hours any time he tried to fly, as well as being subjected to periodic visits from FBI agents at his workplace. Despite being a lawful resident, Tanvir was threatened with arrest and deportation for refusing to submit to a polygraph test. After returning from a trip to Pakistan to visit his family, Tanvir was detained for five hours by federal agents and his passport confiscated for six months. This confiscation was leveraged against Tanvir, with agents telling him he would be deported if he did not cooperate.

These tactics are expressly forbidden by the DOJ and yet, they appear to be in common use. Tanvir's experience with the FBI roughly aligns with that of his co-litigants. They sued the FBI agents who harassed and threatened them, claiming the tactics violated their religious freedom. In the plaintiffs' view, becoming an informant meant violating their religious beliefs. The district court ruled they could not pursue these claims against the federal agents under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).

The Appeals Court disagrees [PDF]. Violations and damages alleged by Tanvir -- including the inability to travel by air, which resulted in the loss of his job as well as prevented him from visiting his family in Pakistan -- can be recouped from the agents responsible.

[Winehole23]

This is far from a victory for the plaintiffs but it does open the door for similar lawsuits against federal officers for harassment and intimidation tactics deployed in hopes of turning lawful residents and visitors into government informants. Raising the possibility of a successful lawsuit above the previously-presumed zero percent should hopefully act as a minor deterrent against future abuses of power.

[boutons_deux]

How many of these LE gestapo think they are still in Iraq or Afghanistan, bringing the GWOT tactics home.

The US military, the vets, the MIC have really ed up AmeriKKKa. $700B / year for ing what?

[Winehole23]

SCOTUS: Muslim men placed on no-fly list can sue FBI agents for damages under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Thursday that three Muslim men who say that they were put on the “no fly” list after they refused to become FBI informants can sue the FBI agents who put them there for money damages. The decision was a significant one not only for the plaintiffs but also for cases involving violations of religious rights more broadly.


The three men – Muhummad Tanvir, Jameel Algibhah and Naveed Shinwari – are all U.S. citizens or green card holders. They filed the lawsuit that led to Thursday’s decision after they were placed on the “no fly” list, which barred them from boarding commercial flights in the United States. They claimed that their placement on the list violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a federal law that prohibits the government from placing a “substantial burden” on an individual’s exercise of religion unless the burden advances a compelling government interest and there is not a less restrictive way to achieve that interest. They asked the court to order the government to remove their names from the “no fly” list, and they sought compensation for the violation of their rights, including money for airline tickets that they could not use and income that they lost when they were unavailable to take advantage of job opportunities.

https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/12/o...money-damages/

[Winehole23]

All this war on terrah stuff is going to get internalized. It's going to be used on Americans, like it has been the whole way. Only this time a few allegedly otherwise respectable Republicans will get snagged.

Smash the state, face the consequences.

Arrest and and no-fly listing are historically mild outcomes for insurrectionists.

[DMC]

All this war on terrah stuff is going to get internalized. It's going to be used on Americans, like it has been the whole way. Only this time a few allegedly otherwise respectable Republicans will get snagged.

Smash the state, face the consequences.

Arrest and and no-fly listing are historically mild outcomes for insurrectionists.

The only good Republican is a dead Republican

[DarrinS]