Supreme Court Says Muslim Men Can Sue The FBI For Placing Them On The No-Fly List For Refusing To Become Informants

from the faith-based-harassment dept

The FBI really enjoys its take on the War on Terror. Starting with the hassling of Muslims at airports and border entries, the FBI cultivates a large collection of confidential informants. These informants then find pliable individuals to target with extra attention, pushing them towards threatening to engage in violence. Then the FBI swoops in to arrest these supposed "terrorists" -- ones that often seem unable to stay gainfully employed, much less capable of carrying out terrorist attacks. The FBI's favorite targets are impressionable Muslim men with mental health issues -- ones its agents and informants radicalize right into jail cells.

It all starts at our nation's airports. If Muslims want to travel in and out of the United States (or just travel within the US), federal agents are always on hand to pressure them into becoming informants. Veiled threats are made and these targets are subjected to invasive searches and other harassment every time they set foot in an airport.

In some cases, Muslim men were placed on the "no fly" list simply for refusing to become government informants. A lawsuit filed in 2014 accused the FBI of retaliating against several Muslims who resisted the FBI's overtures. The district court ruled against the plaintiffs but the Second Circuit Court of Appeals revived the lawsuit in 2018, saying the men had sufficiently alleged violations of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). The government can't target people simply because of their chosen religion, but that's exactly what appears to be happening.

The case made its way to the Supreme Court and the nation's top court has sided [PDF] with the plaintiffs. The lawsuit can proceed and the FBI agents can be held accountable for violating the RFRA.

The government tried to argue the statute does not provide for lawsuits against federal officers in the personal capacity. Wrong, says the Supreme Court. The statute clearly states lawsuits can be brought against individuals, rather than their agency or the federal government as a whole.

We first have to determine if injured parties can sue Government officials in their personal capacities. RFRA’s text provides a clear answer: They can. Persons may sue and obtain relief “against a government,” §2000bb–1(c), which is defined to include “a branch, department, agency, instrumentality, and official (or other person acting under color of law) of the United States.” §2000bb–2(1) (emphasis added).

The Government urges us to limit lawsuits against officials to suits against them in their official, not personal, capacities. A lawsuit seeking damages from employees in their individual capacities, the Government argues, is not really “against a government” because relief “can be executed only against the official’s personal assets.” Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U. S. 159, 166 (1985).

The problem with this otherwise plausible argument is that Congress supplanted the ordinary meaning of “government” with a different, express definition. [...] A “government,” under RFRA, extends beyond the term’s plain meaning to include officials. And the term “official” does not refer solely to an office, but rather to the actual person “who is invested with an office.”

The Court then looks at whether or not damages can be pursued. This isn't a normal case alleging First or Fourth Amendment violations. The government argued this means damages can't be awarded. Again, the Supreme Court says the government is wrong.

A damages remedy is not just “appropriate” relief as viewed through the lens of suits against Government employees. It is also the only form of relief that can remedy some RFRA violations. For certain injuries, such as respondents’ wasted plane tickets, effective relief consists of damages, not an injunction. [...] it would be odd to construe RFRA in a manner that prevents courts from awarding such relief. Had Congress wished to limit the remedy to that degree, it knew how to do so.

If federal agencies want the law changed to shield them from accountability, they'll have to ask Congress to "fix" this perceived "wrong." The Court isn't going to get into the business of legislating from the bench (at least not in this case).

To be sure, there may be policy reasons why Congress may wish to shield Government employees from personal liability, and Congress is free to do so. But there are no constitutional reasons why we must do so in its stead.

It's an 8-0 shutout in favor of the plaintiffs who are now allowed -- six years after they filed their lawsuit -- to start holding the FBI accountable for its violation of their religious rights.

Filed Under: confidential informants, fbi, muslims, no fly list, scotus, supreme court

Arkansas Police Department Has Been Engaging In Illegal Drug Raids For Years

from the bogus-narratives-and-boilerplate dept

The War on Drugs seems to bring out the worst in law enforcement. Wiretap abuse, asset forfeiture, flashbang grenades tossed into toddlers' cribs, internal corruption… these are all aspects of law enforcement's drug-related police work.

Radley Balko has uncovered more abuse and Constitutional violations, this time stemming from the Little Rock PD's anti-drug efforts. The wrongs detailed in Balko's investigation include false statements on warrant requests, abuse of no-knock warrants, "reliable" confidential informants who are anything but reliable, and a handful of destroyed lives left in its wake.

It opens with the story of Roderick Talley, whose apartment was raided by a Little Rock (AR) SWAT team. The team used explosives to remove his door, sending it flying onto the couch where Talley was sleeping. The raid was predicated on an informant's supposed controlled buy. But Talley's own security cameras -- which also captured the raid itself -- showed the informant didn't do what police said he did.

The outside camera had recorded two odd incidents. First, a man whom Talley didn’t know approached the apartment while Talley wasn’t home. Looking anxious, the man knocked, waited a few moments and then left. A few days later, the camera picked up a police officer outside the door. The officer looked around, snapped a photo of Talley’s door with his cellphone, and left.

According to the search warrant affidavit, the CI had purchased drugs from Talley, with the swearing officer claiming he had actually witnessed this (nonexistent) purchase take place.

The detective wrote that he and two other detectives then watched as the informant approached Talley’s apartment. Importantly, the detective wrote that the officers “observed the door open” and witnessed the informant have “a conversation with someone inside the apartment.” Immediately after, they met up with the informant at a prearranged location. The informant said he had just purchased $100 worth of cocaine from two men in the apartment. One man took his money at the door, then an inside man handed the door man a small bag of cocaine.

If it hadn't been for his own cameras, it would have been Talley's word against the Little Rock PD's. The only drugs found during the no-knock raid was a misdemeanor amount of marijuana. Talley was then kicked out of his apartment by his landlord and billed for the damages caused by the SWAT team.

Talley isn't alone. Balko details a couple of other questionable raids that can be traced back to the same questionable informant.

Talley says the informant did speak to him, and when he confronted him about his own case, the informant admitted that he never bought cocaine that day. Furthermore, “his girlfriend told me that he’d get paid for each bust, so he’d just take the cops to the places of people he knew or had heard about, knock on the door, and then he’d just make small talk for a few minutes,” Talley says. “Then he’d go tell the cops that he’d bought whatever drug they were looking for.”

That jibes with the accounts of two other people who say they were recently raided because of the informant. Derrick Davis says that on Sept. 2, 2017, a few weeks after the raid on Talley, a strange man knocked on his door. “I’d never seen the guy before,” Davis says. “He just comes up, knocks and walks right in. Then he starts asking weird questions about my apartment, like whether I like living there, and how much the rent is. He stayed for a few minutes, then he thanked me and left. It was weird.”

Two weeks later, an LRPD raid team blew down Davis’s door. “I saw the video of what they did to Mr. Talley. It was exactly what they did to me,” he says. “They used explosives. It blew the door clean off. Then about 10 guys came in, all decked out in SWAT gear.”

What's most concerning about the LRPD's tactics is its reliance on "no knock" warrants. These warrants are supposed to be limited to cases where officers can demonstrate a sufficient need to enter a private residence unannounced. There's a higher bar than regular search warrants and are meant to the rare exception to the rule. For the Little Rock PD, the exception is the rule.

Of the 105 warrants, LRPD officers requested a no-knock raid in 103. Of those 103, Little Rock’s criminal court judges granted the request in at least 101. (The other two search warrants were missing the page that included the judge’s instructions on how the warrant should be served.)

The"neutral magistrate" -- the check against government power -- was, in these cases, the rubber stamp applied to PD boilerplate. Only eight warrant requests contained any specific details about the sought suspect. The other 90+ warrant requests were copy-pasted assertions about drug dealers and danger. As Balko points out, this isn't just lazy police work (and lazy adjudicating), it's actually illegal.

Some police agencies adapted to the Wilson ruling [on no-knock warrants] by simply deciding that all drug cases involve violent suspects and easily destroyable evidence. The Supreme Court rejected this approach two years later in the 1997 case Richards v. Wisconsin. The court ruled that to obtain a no-knock warrant, law enforcement officers must demonstrate specific exigent circumstances for each suspect for whom they’re trying to obtain a no-knock warrant. They can’t simply state that an entire class of crimes, such as drug crimes, presents de facto exigent circumstances.

The Little Rock PD has been engaged in unconstitutional policing for who knows how many years. It just took a set of personal security cameras to catch them in the act. The resulting paper trail has exposed an assembly line for illegal SWAT raids and it's unlikely this Arkansas law enforcement agency is the only one in the nation using the War on Drugs as an excuse for violent behavior and rights violations.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, arkansas, confidential informants, little rock, little rock police department, no knock warrants, roderick talley, swat, war on drugs, warrants

Confidential Informants: Inherently Trustworthy Until They're Not

from the all-logic-and-consistency-must-be-ignored dept

The Tampa Police Department has suddenly been put in a very uncomfortable situation. On May 27, officers executed a raid on an alleged drug dealer. By the time it was done, one suspect had been killed by the SWAT team and only $2 worth of marijuana -- 0.2 grams -- had been recovered.

It was a righteous kill. Letting themselves in through an unlocked door after no one answered their knock, the SWAT team came across Jason Westcott in his bedroom. Westcott had a gun (a legally-owned one) which he raised when the cops came crashing through the door. He was shot multiple times. Open/shut. Officers in danger, suspect with weapon, etc.

The problem is Jason Westcott was no drug dealer. The miniscule amount of drugs recovered should have made that apparent. Of course, this was all after the fact. The house had already been raided and Westcott was already dead.

The confidential informant that tipped to the cops to Westcott's "drug dealing" outed himself after hearing about Westcott's death. Ryan "Bodie" Coogle approached the Tampa Bay Times to tell his story, apparently feeling responsible for Westcott being killed. He told the paper the "tip" he passed on to the Tampa PD was a lie. In fact, many of the tips he had passed on were lies.

A 50-year-old felon and drug addict, Coogle was the principal Tampa Police Department informer against at least five suspects this year. He conducted nine undercover operations. In their probable-cause affidavits, his handlers called him reliable. Even Tampa's police chief praised his "track record."

Coogle said they were all wrong. He said he repeatedly lied about suspects, stole drugs he bought on the public's dime and conspired to falsify drug deals.

Coogle's statements indicate he set the whole thing up to appease his handlers. Westcott was no dealer. He sold a bit here and there to friends but that wasn't enough for the PD, which was looking for high-profile busts. So, he cooked up a story about Westcott and a New York heroin connection. That he was unable to purchase any heroin from the non-dealer was of little concern to the police.

Coogle pointed out this was hardly unusual behavior. Other cases saw him falsifying the amount purchased to help officers justify the use of manpower. And everything Coogle offered was used in affidavits to secure search warrants, which were then deployed to bust dealers who weren't dealers.

Now, Coogle very definitely should not be trusted. He asserts that he routinely lied to the police but now is telling nothing but the truth when he discusses his prior lies. Other statements from those who have interacted with Coogle portray him as pathological.

And yet, the Tampa PD trusted him. It built cases using his depictions of drug purchases. Coogle was never made to wear a wire. Everything he told police was hearsay. But it was "truthful" enough. The cops trusted Coogle because he gave the cops what they wanted. They found him completely credible… right up until they didn't.

A CI turning on his handlers is unusual. And there's really no way for the department that portrayed him as a trustworthy source to distance itself without looking thoroughly hypocritical. But departments do it anyway, because the reputation of police officers is easily repaired, especially when it's continually patched by public deference, good faith exceptions and the ever-present benefit of a doubt. If a CI turns, he's swiftly burned to the ground.

The police playbook is simple, [Scott] Greenfield said: Disavow the snitch. He said cops typically prevail because of informers' endemic credibility problems, even when the spectacle of officers attacking their own snitches' truthfulness looks incongruous.

"These are the same guys who are so very truthful that we put other people in life-threatening situations based on what they say," Greenfield said, describing the typical police response. "When the snitch turns, they're a pathological liar and we shouldn't pay attention."

The Tampa PD followed the playbook completely. This CI, who was so instrumental in previous drug cases thanks to his "honest" undercover work, is suddenly a pathological liar who just now began lying pathologically.

In an interview with the Times several weeks after Coogle met with federal investigators, Castor and her chief spokeswoman, McElroy, savaged the credibility of their one-time "reliable informant." But only to a point.

They said they still believed the information he had fed to narcotics detectives about Westcott. They said it was only his recantation and accusations against his handlers that were untrue.

"You really think that this guy is in a position to question the integrity of police officers?" McElroy said. "A C.I.? Really? I mean, come on, C.I.'s are not upstanding citizens. It's a joke."

And yet, the police had no problem granting this non-upstanding citizen credibility when it was useful to them.

When can CI's no longer be trusted? Well, it's apparently when their lies no longer aid the officers they work for. Cue cop spokesperson statement comprised of hubris, obtuseness and hypocrisy.

"A C.I. is credible, and their information is verifiable, until they no longer are," McElroy said.

Astounding. Honest when useful. Dishonest when not. If the PD wants to treat Coogle as though he were the most honest man who ever snitched right up until he started talking to the local newspaper, fine. But it should be willing to open up the files of every investigation completed with his assistance to the public -- especially those convicted using information provided by Coogle.

The department resolutely maintains its dissonant stance on Coogle's honesty. Despite predicating the raid on Coogle's apparently bogus assertions that Jason Westcott not only sold heroin but carried a gun at all times, the department still claims the results -- 0.2 grams of pot and a legally-purchased handgun -- confirm every wild claim Coogle made.

The Tampa PD refuses to discuss Coogle or his statements any further. He's now just a self-serving liar, something he apparently wasn't during the years he spent turning in alleged dealers in exchange for money or get-out-of-jail-free cards. This has been the problem with CI programs for years: people normally considered by cops to be inveterate liars who would sell out their own mothers to stay out of jail are suddenly treated as truth personified when passing tips and performing drug buys for investigators. And when the whole facade collapses, law enforcement agencies just walk away from the informant and the collateral damage, never once appearing concerned that their CI programs are reliant on the least-reliable members of society.

Filed Under: confidential informants, jason westcott, ryan coogle, tampa, tampa police department

Sheriff's Department Swears Informants Are Trustworthy, Reliable Despite Entirely Random ID Number Scheme

from the this-guy's-a-good-guy-whoever-the-hell-he-is dept

Cops don't believe much of what criminals say -- even those who are still just "suspects" or "persons of interest." They'll say anything they can to stay out of jail. Perps are liars. Except when they're not.

When these perps become confidential informants, they're suddenly considered George Washington of the underworld -- paragons of truth and reliability. Affidavits and courtroom statements play up their honesty and integrity in a way only cops can: "CI-22 made several controlled purchases and said he saw weapons in the house." "CI-4130 has worked closely with Drug Interdiction over the past three years, leading to multiple arrests." And so on.

Confidential informants are given numbers rather than names to ensure those they've helped arrest don't come after them when they're released. A CI's "pedigree" is provided to magistrates in warrant applications and presented to trial judges as evidence of the informant's trustworthiness. All of these are sworn statements -- statements that rely on the confidential informant being not only who the officer says he/she is, but that this CI has proven trustworthy in the past. But all the courts -- and the defense -- see is a number.

In the [Richard] Graf affidavit, [Somerset Sheriff's Deputy Carl] Gottardi attested he had probable cause to believe Graf was hiding marijuana and other drug accoutrements in his home, based on information Gottardi received from a confidential informant called "11-25." 11-25 "ha[d] been a very reliable informant . . . for the past several years," and had helped "obtain[] numerous drug search warrants, . . . with numerous persons being charged and convicted of various . . . drug offenses," Gottardi swore. 11-25 had "also provided other law enforcement officials with reliable drug related information in the past." Specific to this case, Gottardi also wrote in the affidavit that 11-25 relayed his personal knowledge that "for several years [] Graf has continually sold large amounts of marijuana," describing the location of the "camp type residence" where Graf sold his "high grade, commercial type" stuff.

Relying on Gottardi's affidavit, a state Justice of the Peace signed off on the warrant, and during the search of Graf's home, police found marijuana plants and an unregistered short-barreled shotgun. Not surprisingly, Graf was indicted on federal firearms possession and drug charges.

CI 11-25: useful, honest and reliable. The sworn statements say "You can trust CI 11-25. He's never steered us wrong." Except that CI 11-25 could be literally anyone.

When Graf challenged these CI statements, he uncovered something that indicated the numbering system was worthless, and by extension, so was every sworn statement averring to the reliability of CI 11-25. Because there was no single "CI 11-25."

[H]is new lawyer decided to get to the bottom of things himself by digging up all the warrant applications filed by the Somerset County Sheriff's Department from April 2009 through April 2012 and searching for all references to "11-25." Turns out, there were none, that is, no warrant applications filed prior to April 2011 (which was when Gottardi got the warrant to search Graf's home) naming "11-25" as an informant. "11-25" did appear, however, in two of the warrant applications filed after Graf's, but in each of the three affidavits where "11- 25" was mentioned, the informant's background and history as a tipster were described a little differently.

It gets worse. The government's response completely undermined any previous claims of reliability -- not just for CI 11-25 -- but for any CI it had used to obtain warrants in the past.

The government fired off an explanation, though, and in support of its opposition to the motion, submitted a supplemental affidavit from Gottardi describing his "practice to periodically change the identifying numbers assigned to confidential informants." Gottardi also claimed that "the person designated CI 11-25 in the Graf search warrant has been assigned four identifying numbers during the course of" his work with Gottardi. In addition, "[o]ccasionally, identifying numbers will be re-used for different persons," Gottardi swore.

Graf shot back with the obvious: if the numbers have no underlying structure and are applied to any number of confidential informants, there's no way to verify the veracity of the officers' assertions on warrant requests. Just because one CI 11-25 was useful and honest doesn't mean the CI 11-25 in Graf's case was. CI 11-25 is no one. CI 11-25 is everyone. Sworn statements linking back to a group of informants all periodically using the same identifying number are what laypeople call "lies." It may not have seemed like a lie when the warrant application was filled out, but Graf's research shows that the CI 11-25 who helped generate probable cause either wasn't the person sporting the number when the warrant was obtained, or wasn't as reliable as the swearing officer portrayed him or her.

Gottardi's unconventional practice, Graf urged, "is meant to enhance the credibility of the [informant] whose number repeatedly appeared before the same [reviewing official], even though, according to Gottardi, they are different people."

The lower court was similarly nonplussed.

The court noted that "assigning the same numerical identifier to three different confidential informants within a relatively brief timespan" was a "surprising revelation about what seems . . . a highly irregular, ill-advised, and potentially misleading procedure."

Unfortunately, the judge chose to turn examination of this system and the randomly-numbered CI over to the ATF. The ATF looked it over and declared everything to be perfectly normal and CI 11-25 (who wasn't CI 11-25 at the time the warrants were obtained) just as honest and trustworthy as Gottardi had portrayed him in warrant applications. Graf's attempt to suppress the evidence was shut down.

The appeals court similarly found that the discrepancies between described informants -- combined with the "irregular" numbering system -- wasn't enough to call for the suppression of evidence. The leeway given to law enforcement by courts again makes an appearance, as even a numbering "system" that completely undercuts the alleged "pedigrees" of Gottardi's confidential informants isn't enough to show that he deliberately misled the magistrate when seeking warrants.

As we have acknowledged in the past, making a substantial preliminary showing is no easy feat, particularly when law enforcement relies on tips from unnamed confidential informants. See United States v. Higgins, 995 F.2d 1, 3 (1st Cir. 1993) ("When the government obtains a search warrant based on information provided by a confidential informant, defendants often lack the information required to meet the exacting standards of Franks."). Graf, like many other defendants in the same boat, has simply failed to meet his burden of making a substantial preliminary showing -- particularly under the deferential clear error standard of review we afford to a court's denial of a Franks hearing.

Second-hand statements that can't even be attributed to a fixed number are still trustworthy enough to secure search warrants, apparently. And the courts will back up this irresponsible (to say the least…) behavior because just writing down whatever identification number comes to mind in the affidavit isn't considered too misleading. This numbering system could be deployed to cover up all sorts of unconstitutional activity -- like warrantless searches, Stingray use, intercepted communications, etc. In each case, the fruits of these searches could be attributed to statements made by an unverifiable confidential informant. Even better, the informant never need exist. Cops could approach magistrates with supporting statements from CI-whatever because there's absolutely no way to establish the CI's existence, much less his or her "pedigree."

Yes, a coherent and consistent numbering system would slightly increase the chances of the CI being identified, but it also provides a modicum of proof that this person exists, rather than just being a string of numbers entirely unrelated to any singular person.

Filed Under: carl gottardi, confidential informants, false history, informants, misleading, police, richard graf, somerset police, somerset sheriff's department