The No-Fly List: Where the FBI Goes Fishing for Informants

[friendly_iconoclast]

https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/no-fly-list-where-fbi-goes-fishing-informants

The No-Fly List: Where the FBI Goes Fishing for Informants

By Nusrat Choudhury, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 10:21am

Over the last three years, the FBI has dramatically expanded its No-Fly List of suspected terrorists, including blacklisting innocent Americans who present no threat to security.

The Americans we represent in Latif v. Holder, the ACLU's challenge to the government's No-Fly List procedures, provide a prime example. They were each denied boarding on planes, deprived of their right to travel, and smeared as suspected terrorists. Yet the government continues to deny them any after-the-fact explanation for their blacklisting or any meaningful chance to clear their names...

...FBI agents put this pressure on ACLU clients Abe Mashal, a Marine veteran; Amir Meshal; and Nagib Ali Ghaleb. Each of these Americans spoke to FBI agents to learn why they were suddenly banned from flying and to clear up the errors that led to that decision. Instead of providing that explanation or opportunity, FBI agents offered to help them get off the No-Fly List—but only in exchange for serving as informants in their communities.Our clients refused.

The ACLU's report,Unleashed and Unaccountable: The FBI's Unchecked Abuse of Authority, explains what happened to Nagib Ali Ghaleb. Nagib was denied boarding when trying to fly home to San Francisco after a trip to visit family in Yemen. Stranded abroad and desperate to return home, Nagib sought help from the U.S. embassy in Yemen and was asked to submit to an FBI interview. FBI agents offered to arrange for Nagib to fly back immediately to the United States if he would agree to tell the agents who the "bad guys" were in Yemen and San Francisco. The agents insisted that Nagib could provide the names of people from his mosque and the San Francisco Yemeni community. The agents said they would have Nagib arrested and jailed in Yemen if he did not cooperate, and that Nagib should "think about it." Nagib, however, did not know any "bad guys" and therefore refused to spy on innocent people in exchange for a flight home.

The complete ACLU report is available as a *pdf file here:

https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/unleashed-and-unaccountable-fbi-report.pdf

[Downwinder]

1. In the best of totalitarian traditions.

[DirkGently]

2. "... and we'll send you somewhere to be tortured."

Nice. Because that is exactly what the morally upright country we claim to be would do.

[nashville_brook]

3. k and r -- this is not okay.

[bvar22]

4. Are we there yet?

Surely, even those who answer "NO" must admit that we are moving in that direction with Bi-Partisan Consensus & Approval in Washington.



"Well what can a Poor Boy do?"

[leveymg]

5. You are now entering the American Sector.

Carrying weapons off-duty forbidden. Obey traffic rules - Stasi 2.0

[jsr]

6. Recommend

[cantbeserious]

7. The FBI - The Oligarch And Corporate Enforcers Of Totalitarianism

eom

[JDPriestly]

8. I bookmarked the report. When people accuse me of having my hair on fire over the surveillance

by the NSA, I will refer them to that article.

Lots of reasons to have our hair on fire when it comes to NSA/FBI surveillance.

It's way over the top. And too much money is spent on it.