ACLU - Using the No Fly List to Pressure Americans Abroad to Become Informants lyrics

Several audits by the GAO and agency IGs have documented the government's mismanagement of its terrorist watch lists over many years.283 A 2009 DOJ IG audit found: ...the FBI failed to nominate many subjects in the terrorism investigations that we sampled, did not nominate many others in a timely fashion, and did not update or remove watchlist records as required...We also found that 78 percent of the initial watchlist nominations we reviewed were not processed in established FBI timeframes.284 But rather than narrow and reform its many watch lists, or provide constitutionally-adequate and effective post-deprivation redress procedures so people improperly placed on these lists could remove their names, the FBI appears to be aggressively exploiting these lists in a manner that further violates Americans' civil rights. This is particularly true for the No Fly List, which is the smallest subset of the FBI's ma**ive Terrorist Screening Center watch list (affecting about 21,000 of the 875,000 people on the larger list), but also the most liberty infringing because it bars air travel to or within the U.S.285 The GAO reported in 2012 that the number of U.S. persons on the No Fly List has more than doubled since December 2009.286 In many cases, U.S. citizens and permanent residents only find out that their government is prohibiting them from flying while they are travelling abroad, which all but forces them to interact with the U.S. government from a position of extreme vulnerability, often without easy access to counsel. Many of those prevented from flying home have been subjected to FBI interviews while they sought a**istance from U.S. Emba**ies to return.287 In several documented incidents, the FBI agents offered to take them off the No Fly List if they agreed to become an FBI informant. For example, Nagib Ali Ghaleb, a naturalized U.S. citizen residing in San Francisco, traveled to Yemen in 2010 to visit his wife and children and meet with U.S. consular officials concerning delays in his family's previously-approved visa applications.288 At the airport in Frankfurt, Germany, as he was getting ready to board the last leg of his flight home from Yemen, airline officials delayed his boarding until an FBI agent arrived at the airport and told Mr. Ghaleb that he would not be allowed to fly back to the U.S. Ghaleb returned to Yemen and sought a**istance at U.S. Emba**y. He was directed to submit to an interview with FBI agents, who questioned him about his mosque and the San Francisco Yemeni community. The FBI agents asked him to become an informant for the FBI in California, but Mr. Ghaleb said he did not know any dangerous people and would not spy on innocent people in mosques. The FBI agents threatened to have Mr. Ghaleb arrested by the Yemeni government if he did not cooperate. In 2010, the ACLU and its affiliates filed a lawsuit on behalf of Mr. Ghaleb and other American citizens and permanent residents, including several U.S. military veterans, seven of whom were prevented from returning to the U.S. from abroad, arguing that barring them from flying without due process was unconstitutional.289 The ACLU sought preliminary relief for those stranded overseas so they could return to the U.S., and the government allowed those Americans to board returning flights without explaining why they were put on the list, or whether they would be barred from flying in the future. The government has now put in place an informal process for U.S. citizens apparently placed on the No Fly List to secure a one-time waiver to fly home, but the constitutional issues in the case remain under litigation. None of the plaintiffs, some of whom are U.S. military veterans, have been charged with a crime, told why they are barred from flying, or given an opportunity to challenge their inclusion on the No Fly List. Many cannot pursue business opportunities or be with friends and family abroad, and U.S. Customs officials even prevented one ACLU client, Abdullatif Muthanna, from boarding a boat in Philadelphia in a failed attempt to travel to see family members living overseas.290 The ACLU clients are not the only victims of this practice. In a lawsuit filed in May 2013, American citizen Yonas Fikre alleges that FBI agents from his hometown of Portland, Ore., lured him to the U.S. Emba**y in Khartoum under false pretenses while he was travelling in Sudan on business and coerced him into submitting to an interview.291 The complaint states that the agents denied Fikre's request for counsel, told him he was on the No Fly List, and interrogated him about the mosque he attended in Portland and the people who went there. They asked him to become an informant for the FBI in Portland, offering to take him off the No Fly List and provide financial compensation if he accepted. He refused. Fikre later traveled to the U.A.E., where in 2011 he was arrested and tortured by security officials. In the lawsuit, Fikre charges that his arrest and interrogation were undertaken at the request of the FBI. U.A.E. officials released Fikre without charge after three months, but were unable to deport him back to Portland because the U.S. still included him on the No Fly List. He applied for political asylum in Sweden.292 In 2012, the U.S. charged Fikre with conspiring to evade financial reporting requirements regarding wire transfers to the Sudan, but made no terrorism allegations against him.293 And in a more recent case described in The Huffington Post, Kevin Iraniha, an American citizen born and raised in San Diego, says he was barred from flying home after graduating with a master's degree in international law from the University of Peace in Costa Rica in June 2012.294 Iraniha submitted to an interview with an FBI agent at the U.S. Emba**y, but was told that he would not be allowed to fly into the U.S. and would have to drive or take a boat. Iraniha flew to Tijuana, Mexico, and walked across the border.295 The FBI should not be allowed to use the No Fly List as a lever to coerce Americans into submitting to FBI interviews or becoming informants. Congress should require the administration to establish a redress process that comports with constitutionally required procedural due process so that persons prohibited from flying can correct government errors and effectively defend themselves against the government's decision to place them on the No Fly List.