FAA Says Drones May Be Used For Fun... But Not For Profit

Court Says The Process For Getting Off The No Fly List Is Unconstitutional

from the well-that's-a-big-deal dept

Wed, Jun 25th 2014 7:40am — Mike Masnick

We've had a few stories recently about legal challenges to the No Fly List in the United States. Just a couple months ago, for the first time, the US government was ordered to tell someone they were not on the No Fly List, though that person was still kept in various other terrorist watch lists/databases. Soon after that, we wrote about a new legal challenge to the No Fly List, involving some men who were basically harassed, with the FBI threatening to put them on the No Fly List if they didn't become informants.

However, in a very big ruling today, a district court judge in Oregon has basically found the process of getting off the No Fly List unconstitutional. According to the ACLU, who handled the case on behalf of 13 Americans who were on the list:

The judge ordered the government to create a new process that remedies these shortcomings, calling the current process “wholly ineffective” and a violation of the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of due process. The ruling also granted a key request in the lawsuit, ordering the government to tell the ACLU’s clients why they are on the No Fly List and give them the opportunity to challenge their inclusion on the list before the judge.

The full ruling is worth reading as it goes into significant detail and analysis, including digging into the Rahinah Ibrahim case we mentioned above. In the end, the court is pretty clear that putting someone on the No Fly List clearly deprives them of their rights:

In summary, on this record the Court concludes the DHS TRIP process presently carries with it a high risk of erroneous deprivation in light of the low evidentiary standard required for placement on the No-Fly List together with the lack of a meaningful opportunity for individuals on the No-Fly List to provide exculpatory evidence in an effort to be taken off of the List.

Of particular importance is the fact that people placed on the list are not told about it, let alone told why they've been put on the list. And when combined with the "low evidentiary standard" mentioned above, the court sees a problem:

Defendants' failure to provide any notice of the reasons for Plaintiffs' placement on the No-Fly List is especially important in light of the low evidentiary standard required to place an individual in the TSDB in the first place. When only an ex parte showing of reasonable suspicion supported by "articulable facts taken together with rational inferences" is necessary to place an individual in the TSDB, it is certainly possible, and probably likely, that "simple factual errors" with "potentially easy, ready, and persuasive explanations" could go uncorrected.

Given all that, the court has significant problems with the overall nature of the program:

As discussed herein at length, the DHS TRIP process does not provide a meaningful mechanism for travelers who have been denied boarding to correct erroneous information in the government's terrorism databases. 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. As a result, the DHS TRIP process "entirely fail[s] to consider an important aspect" of Congress's instructions with respect to travelers denied boarding because they are on the No-Fly List.

The Court doesn't toss out the program, but orders DHS to "remedy" the situation by coming up with a new process to guarantee that people on the No Fly List have due process to get off the list. There still are reasonable questions as to how such a general list could be legal at all in the first place, but this ruling would seem to take a big step towards at least allowing a real process to be in place to get people off the list. Of course, it's fairly likely that the US government will appeal this ruling, but at least this is a small bit of good news in the meantime.

No Fly List Ruling Latif v Holder 6 24 14 (PDF)No Fly List Ruling Latif v Holder 6 24 14 (Text)

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Filed Under: dhs, due process, homeland security, no fly list

20 Comments

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Michael, 25 Jun 2014 @ 7:46am

"articulable facts taken together with rational inferences"

Due process at it's finest right there...
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Chris-Mouse (profile), 25 Jun 2014 @ 8:05am

here's hoping the court expands that removal process to cover ALL watchlists. Otherwise someone will be on the no-fly list because they're on another terrorist watch list. They can get removed from the no-fly list any time, but since they can't get off that other watchlist, they get put right back on the no-fly list.
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Michael, 25 Jun 2014 @ 8:12am

Re:
Don't worry. The agencies involved are not organized enough to synchronize their lists.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Jun 2014 @ 8:28am

Re: Re:
Yet.
It will not take them long to cure that if it gets round some problem with courts requiring constitutional rights in relation to one list.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Jun 2014 @ 8:35am

Re: Re: Re:
Governments are terribly inefficiency except where your liberties and destruction is concerned. Those 2 items governments are overtly efficient at perpetrating upon people.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Jun 2014 @ 8:37am

The Government's Response
1. We're the FEDERAL government.

2. Oregon is a just backwater state and all its citizens - including judges - are inbred hillbillies.

3. You can't possibly understand what us FEDERALS have to go through to protect your worthless asses.

4. So fuck you.
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John Fenderson (profile), 25 Jun 2014 @ 8:38am

Re: The Government's Response
Oregon also happens to have a substantial spy community presence. I wonder if that has anything to do with it.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Jun 2014 @ 8:40am

Re: Re: The Government's Response
I don't remember any of that spy shit in the "Oregon Trail" games.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Jun 2014 @ 8:52am

Hahaha Aereo
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Jun 2014 @ 8:56am

Re: Re: Re: The Government's Response
That certainly would have been annoying... "The ferry operator takes your money but refuses to grant passage since you are on the 'No-Ferry' list. Would you like to travel to the nearest fort to try to get removed from the list, attempt to ford the river, caulk your wagon and float it across, or just give up and go back to Missouri?"
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Trevor, 25 Jun 2014 @ 8:57am

That judge is soooooooo on a no fly list now.
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slick8086, 25 Jun 2014 @ 8:59am

"the government's terrorism databases"

As an American, that such a thing exists disgusts me.
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Trevor, 25 Jun 2014 @ 9:00am

Re: Re: Re: The Government's Response
"You have died of [REDACTED]"
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Jun 2014 @ 9:01am

not enough
The Court doesn't toss out the program, but orders DHS to "remedy" the situation by coming up with a new process to guarantee that people on the No Fly List have due process to get off the list.

How about due process to get ON the list? There ought to be notification, an adversarial hearing and a finding by a judge( or jury?) before one gets put on a list. The way I read the 5th amendment is that due process is necessary BEFORE one is deprived of liberties, not after.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Jun 2014 @ 9:25am

"The judge ordered the government to create a new process that remedies these shortcomings, calling the current process �wholly ineffective� and a violation of the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of due process."

"[W]e wrote about a new legal challenge to the No Fly List, involving some men who were basically harassed, with the FBI threatening to put them on the No Fly List if they didn't become informants."

Sounds to me like the process of getting off the no fly list isn't the only corrupt one. Maybe the process of how people get on the list should be examined too.
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Tom Mink (profile), 25 Jun 2014 @ 9:44am

I know it's natural for the Supremes to imagine only sparkly unicorn farts can result from the majesty of the adversarial legal process, but giving people due process rights to individually challenge their inclusion on a secret government enemies list, but not until they've already been subject to denial of travel and possible detainment... kinda minimally warm and fuzzy about this one.
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Coyne Tibbets (profile), 25 Jun 2014 @ 10:38am

No problem
You are hereby informed that you have been placed on the no fly list because you [XXXXXRedactedXXXXX] and [XXXRedactedXXX] [Redacted] and because of your actions related to [XXXXXRedactedXXXXX] and [XXXRedactedXXX].

All you have to do is provide a satisfactory reason why the above does not prove beyond the slightest doubt that you are a terrorist and we'll definitely seriously consider finding additional reasons to keep you on the no fly list.

Your loving government...
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Rekrul, 25 Jun 2014 @ 5:52pm

Aww, isn't that cute! There are still some judges left who actually believe that the US government cares what the courts say. Precious!
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Jun 2014 @ 7:15pm

This shows how corrupt the judiciary has become. You need a dacade+ to rule the obvious. Makes you wonder what kind of a dirt NSA has on this "judge".
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GEMont (profile), 26 Jun 2014 @ 10:18pm

NoFlyList_V1.1
" Of course, it's fairly likely that the US government will appeal this ruling, but at least this is a small bit of good news in the meantime."

More likely they'll just start up a new secret No-Fly List and transfer everyone to the new list and then do a public lip-service routine on all those people, letting them all think they've managed to become free of the list.

But as we all know, nobody can hide from the inquisition.
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