JUDGE RULES NO-FLY LIST VIOLATES TRAVELERS’ RIGHTS
August 18, 2014
In late June, a federal judge in the U.S. District Court in Portland, Oregon ordered the government to revise its post-9/11 “no-fly” list, ruling the list violates Americans’ constitutional rights to travel freely and to effectively challenge being blacklisted because of alleged links to terrorism.
The case was initiated in 2010 when thirteen American Muslims filed suit after they were barred from boarding aircraft to or from the U.S. because their names were on the government’s secret no-fly list. Each of the plaintiffs, either a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, has denied any involvement with terrorism, and has not been charged with any crime. In each respective case, the individual had submitted an application to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) asking why his or her name was on the list, but DHS provided no explanations and would not say whether they would be allowed to fly in the future.
The Judge ruled that DHS’ process for challenging inclusion on the list “does not provide a meaningful mechanism for travelers who have been denied boarding to correct erroneous information in the government’s terrorism databases.” And, further that DHS must devise a “meaningful procedure” for disclosing how a person ended up on the list, because a traveler “who has not been given any indication of the information that may be in the record does not have any way to correct that information.” That, she wrote, violates due process guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.