How Obama Officials Cried ‘Terrorism’ to Cover Up a Paperwork Error

[dixiegrrrrl]

After seven years of litigation, two trips to a federal appeals court and $3.8 million worth of lawyer time, the public has finally learned why a wheelchair-bound Stanford University scholar was cuffed, detained and denied a flight from San Francisco to Hawaii: FBI human error.

FBI agent Kevin Kelley was investigating Muslims in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2004 when he checked the wrong box on a terrorism form, erroneously placing Rahinah Ibrahim on the no-fly list.

What happened next was the real shame. Instead of admitting to the error, high-ranking President Barack Obama administration officials spent years covering it up. Attorney General Eric Holder, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and a litany of other government officials claimed repeatedly that disclosing the reason Ibrahim was detained, or even acknowledging that she’d been placed on a watch list, would cause serious damage to the U.S. national security. Again and again they asserted the so-called “state secrets privilege” to block the 48-year-old woman’s lawsuit, which sought only to clear her name.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2014/02/no-fly-coverup/

amazing how grown men are so invested in maintaining the lies and illusions of "terror"...simply amazing.

[ForgoTheConsequence]

1. This is fucked up.

I expected more from this administration.

[okaawhatever]

2. This article is complete crap writing. The author wrote the same story a few days earlier, but you

would never know it by the information it contained. The original version is a more honest appraisal of a few of the events, but still fails to tell the truth about the situation. At least in the original piece he admits she flew out the next day and was only detained two hours before being given a letter clearing herself and an explanation that it was an error. This is a complete hit piece written for right wing or foreign interests and should be labeled as advertising.

Here's his original piece:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2014/02/no-fly-list-bungle/

[Luminous Animal]

3. Yes, she flew out but she has never been allowed to fly back in. For 9 years.

For nine years, the U.S. government refused to let a Stanford PhD student named Rahinah Ibrahim back in the country after putting her on the no-fly list for no apparent reason. For eight years, U.S. government lawyers fought Ibrahim’s request that she be told why. Last April, despite his promise in 2009 to do so only in only the most extreme cases, Attorney General Eric Holder tried to block Ibrahim’s case by asserting the state secrets privilege, declaring under penalty of perjury that the information she wanted “could reasonably be expected to cause significant harm to national security.”

Last week, a federal judge publicly revealed the government’s explanation for Ibrahim’s long ordeal: an FBI agent had “checked the wrong box,” resulting in her falling under suspicion as a terrorist. Even when the government found and corrected the error years later, they still refused to allow Ibrahim to return to the country or learn on what grounds she had been banned in the first place.

Holder, in his April declaration, restated his own new state secrets policy, that “[t]he Department will not defend an invocation of the privilege in order to: (i) conceal violations of the law, inefficiency, or administrative error; (ii) prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency of the United States Government”.

Then he did exactly what he had said he wouldn’t do.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/14/ongoing-abuse-state-secrets-privilege/

[okaawhatever]

4. She has not been refused entry because she's still on the no-fly list. She's been refused

entry because of her visa. When she attempted to return from Malaysia her visa was suspended. She was told to contact the Embassy to clear the matter up. (she had been given the clearance letter from the fbi when she flew out). She never did that. Does that change your mind about her story? It should. The ruling itself stated that one of the issues was that there wasn't a universal way of removing people from the no-fly list when someone had been placed on it. In her case, she was removed from the airline computers but not the Embassy computers.
Also, the dept of homeland security has given people who have the same name as someone on the no-fly list a seven digit pin code that they can enter when they book flights to clear the matter up.

I have big issues with the no-fly list. Clearly things need to be addressed legally and legislatively, but this woman's case was about the program itself and not her being on the no-fly list for all those years. Additionally, she was on a student visa and wasn't an American citizen so many of the Constitutional issues weren't even addressed.

[Luminous Animal]

5. She was on a terror watch list. She was not allowed to fly into the U.S. because she was on a terror

watch list. That was the basis of her lawsuit. Which she won.

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2014/02/ibraruling.pdf

Her student visa was REVOKED because she was on the terror watch list.

[okaawhatever]

6. Yes, the terror watch list they're referring to is the no-fly list she was removed from the day she

went to the airport. I've actually read the legal case she filed. Believe me, if you read all the stories and legal documents you'll learn that there wasn't any claim that she applied for a new visa, or tried to clear up the issue at the embassy after the first day at the airport. They all imply it, but if you read enough info you'll learn that she was turned away in Malaysia but was given a number for the Embassy and told to clear it up with them. (Remember she had the clearance letter from the FBI). The legal case is based on the fact that she doesn't know she's off the no-fly list because the government won't confirm who is and isn't on it.

There is all kinds of hyperbole and half=answered questions in the press about this, but if you actually read the legal documents you'll find that she: Was stopped in SF due to a flag on their system. (that was from the FBI agent's error). She was taken to a police sub-station. She was detained there for just over two hours. During that time the local police contacted the FBI. The FBI/DHS agent realized the error and gave her a "clearance letter" that allowed her to book a flight the next day. (I think that was the next available flight). When the gave her the clearance letter they admitted it was a mistake that her name was on the list. She flew home. When she attempted to return she was still flagged, and that is when the airline in Malaysia gave her the phone number of the Embassy and told her they would need to correct the error. SHE DIDN"T DO ANYTHING AFTER THAT. Read the reports about her not being allowed to return for the trial. Read between the lines and you'll noticed none of the stories says that she was refused entry due to being turned down after re-applying for a visa or even trying to get the visa revocation overturned. That is what is really suspicious to me. I wouldn't put it past the Bush/Cheney regime to do that to keep her from pursuing the legal case. I looked very hard for any information that Bush/Cheney had denied the visa in retaliation for her filing the lawsuit but you can't find the info because she didn't ever re-file. Had she re-filed and been denied there wold have been a smoking gun to prove Bush/Cheney did it out of retaliation. Believe me, I wish we had the proof, but if it exists it isn't anywhere on her court filings.

[Marr]

7. Pretty indicative, I think, of what government secrecy is actually, usually, used for.

They classify things that will make them look bad; either because they're illegal, blatantly immoral, or just examples of simple incompetence.