No Fly ListCourt: Malaysian woman can sue DHS over No-Fly List
A U.S. appeals court has cleared the way for a Malaysian woman to file a lawsuit against DHS and the FBI for mistakenly placing her on the No-Fly List and arresting her at San Francisco International Airport in 2005; Rahinah Ibrahim, who has never been accused of any crimes, was arrested and placed in a holding cell for two hours
DHS will be defendant against Malaysian woman over No-Fly list // Source: gopetition.com
A U.S. appeals court has clearedthe way for a Malaysian woman to file a lawsuit against DHS and the FBI for mistakenly placing her on the “No-Fly List” and arresting her at San Francisco International Airport in 2005.
On Wednesday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Rahinah Ibrahim, who graduated from Stanford University with a Ph.D. in 2005, had enough connection to the United States to allow her to sue in an American court.
“She has established a substantial voluntary connection with the United States through her Ph.D. studies at a distinguished American university, and she wishes to maintain that connection,” wrote Judge William Fletcher in his opinion.
In 2005 Ibrahim was planning to fly to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to present her research at a conference, but she was never allowed on her flight. When she arrived at the airport, wearing a headscarf, in a wheelchair, and with her fourteen-year old daughter, a United Airlines employee noticed her name was on the No-Fly List and alerted authorities.
Ibrahim, who has never been accused of any crimes, was arrested and placed in a holding cell for two hours. Eventually she was released and an unidentified person told her she was no longer on the No-Fly List. When Ibrahim attempted to fly to Kuala Lumpur the following day, she was told that she was still on the list, but was eventually allowed to fly after being subjected to additional screening.
Once in Malaysia, she was not allowed to return to the United States. Ibrahim sought to clear her name by filing a request with the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) passenger identity verification program in March 2005. She did not receive a response until she filed a lawsuit in 2006 seeking to learn why she was placed on the No-Fly List and if she could be cleared from it so she could return to the United States for conferences and research projects.
TSA’s response was simply a form letter stating that if a correction needed to be made, it had already been done. The letter did not mention why she was on the No-Fly List and did not acknowledge that she had been on any lists.
During this time her student visa was cancelled on the grounds that she was suspected of being a terrorist and she her application for another was denied in 2009 for the same reason.
Mawa Elzankaly, one of Ibrahim’s lawyers, is unaware of any reason why her client would have been placed on the No-Fly List or why she was suspected of terrorism.
Elzankaly did note that the appeals court acknowledged that mistakes on the watch lists are common and that Ibrahim’s claim that she was erroneously listed “is not implausible, given the frequent mistakes the government has made in placing names on these lists.”
In the latest ruling, the 3-judge panel ruled two-to-one in favor of Ibrahim, overturning a 2009 ruling that dismissed her case against DHS and several other federal agencies.
