Judge rebuffs feds' secret arguments on no-fly list

[Enrique]

http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2012/12/judge-rebuffs-feds-secret-arguments-on-nofly-list-152969.html#.UOHucy8SvFM.twitter

A federal judge in California has rejected the Obama administration's effort to use secret arguments and evidence to defeat a lawsuit relating to the so-called no-fly list designed to keep suspected terrorists off of airline flights.

U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup turned down a motion by the Justice Department to dismiss former Stanford student Rahinah Ibrahim's lawsuit against various federal government agencies over her reported inclusion on the no-fly list as well as an incident in September 2005 where she was barred from taking a flight from San Francisco and detained for a couple of hours.

Alsup, who sits in San Francisco, also refused the Justice Department's offer to show him affidavits from law enforcement officials which the government would not share with Ibrahim or her attorneys.

"Here the government seeks to affirmatively use allegedly privileged information to dispose of the case entirely without ever revealing to the other side what its secret evidence might be," Alsup wrote in an order filed last week (and posted here). "Only in the rarest of circumstances should a district judge, in his or her discretion, receive ex parte argument and evidence in secret from only one side aimed at winning or ending a case over the objection of the other side. Here, the government has not justified its sweeping proposal."

(...)

[PoliticAverse]

1. Has the US become a Kafka novel ? n/t

[hootinholler]

4. Pay attention much? n/t

[think]

2. Has the "No Fly List" ever caught a terrorist?

Or has it just become a tool to systematically discriminate and harass a select group of people



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Fly_List

[green for victory]

3. ^^^

U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup (Patriot-CA)

[MotherPetrie]

5. Good for the judge. I hope he doesn't suddenly drop dead...

[randr]

6. All Presidents since Nixon have had an "enemies list"

Denying the right to fly freely is a form of political punishment that even our revered Obama seems prone to keep in his arsenal.

[Dustlawyer]

7. They never purge the freaking list! I have a very common name and I have been on the list

since 12/2001. I am there, according to the FBI agent, b/c a terrorist from South Yemen used my name as an alias. It has caused missed flights, being surrounded by cops in the terminal, delays, harassment, you name it. Yet, for most of that time, I could drive my un-inspected truck out onto the tarmac and load luggage onto my bosses private jet and take off. A terrorist just had to lease a private jet to do his dirty work while we were still taking off our shoes!