CAIR Declares ‘Complete Victory’ After Judge Rules Terror Watchlist Violates Constitutional Rights By Patrick Goodenough for CNS News
GNN Note – If this doesn’t terrify you, you need to pay closer attention.
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The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has hailed as a “complete victory” a federal judge’s ruling that the U.S. government’s watchlist of “known or suspected terrorists” violates the constitutional rights of Americans named on it.
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Judge Anthony Trenga of the Eastern District of Virginia ruled Wednesday that the FBI-administered watchlist, formally known as the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB), “fails to provide constitutionally sufficient procedural due process.”
He has yet to order any remedies, but called for additional legal briefs from the parties within 30 days on “the outstanding issues to be resolved in this matter.”
The case was brought with CAIR’s help on behalf of 23 American Muslims who, in its words, “were unjustly labeled as suspected terrorists by their government, causing extensive harm to their families, careers, and ability to travel.”
CAIR, which calls itself the nation’s biggest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, plans a press conference at noon on Thursday “to outline the practical and constitutional implications” of the ruling.
Being listed on the TSDB does not in itself prevent a person from being allowed to fly – a consequence of being on the separate “no-fly list,” comprising a small subset of the broader TSDB – but, Trenga wrote, “does trigger a variety of other consequences, including restrictions on an individual’s ability to travel.”
Over the summer Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), together with nine other House Democrats, wrote to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, requesting information about how information from the TSDB is shared with foreign governments, including regimes with poor human rights records such as Saudi Arabia and China.
