It is unlikely that WTTG FOX5 would have covered this lawsuit by the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) without learning about it from CAIR’s press release.
In fact, the CAIR lawyer’s statement looks like a part of a pre-recorded package prepared for TV stations. As a result, we primarily get CAIR’s version of events. WTTG gives us only the most cursory version of the Government’s side.
This is yet another example of CAIR trying its lawsuit on your local TV newscast. Notice that the vox populi is overwhelmingly in agreement with CAIR’s position. Reporter Katie Barlow shares with us an Intercept report that “you can be placed on the watch list for innocent behavior such as being related to someone on the no-fly list.”
Although the station makes this about whether the government can search your phone at the airport, CAIR has bigger fish to fry. This is part of their campaign to destroy the Terrorist Screening Database.
Unfortunately for us all, the watch list may be a necessary evil in this day and age.
Just a few weeks ago, we had the news that 81 people on the watch list were caught at the southern border. In May, Project Veritas reported that several of the Afghans brought to America as part of Operation Allies Welcome are in the Terrorist Screening Database and yet are roaming freely in the country. Also, this past May, the news broke that an agent of Hezbollah had for 20 years been surveying landmarks, stadiums, bridges, skyscrapers, etc., for possible destruction.
But keeping dangerous people out of the country is not a priority for CAIR representatives. Their only concerns seem to be that they look good on TV and that Muslims not be hassled at the airport.
The judge handling this case is Anthony Trenga. This is the same judge who ruled earlier that the Terrorist Screening Database was “unconstitutional.” This received enormous attention at the time.
But when Trenga’s decision was overturned and remanded, few paid any attention.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit told CAIR that inconvenience is not an issue of constitutional proportions.
As the website Lawfare put it:
The court suggested that plaintiffs might more successfully bring Fourth Amendment challenges against unreasonable searches or seizures in the course of undergoing enhanced security screening. Noting that a few of the plaintiffs had alleged more extreme and potentially violative encounters with law enforcement while traveling, the court explained that an individualized inquiry into whether a particular encounter violated the Fourth Amendment’s reasonableness requirement could prove more fruitful for such plaintiffs.
That is exactly what CAIR is doing with its latest lawsuit.
Judge Trenga may rule in CAIR’s favor, given his past record regarding CAIR. But it is hard to see what damages CAIR’s client has suffered, besides missing a connecting flight.
This may be just another case of someone simply being inconvenienced at the airport. Something we all must endure now, thanks to Islamic terror.
Welcome to the club, Abdulkadir Dur.
“Can the government search your phone at the airport?,” Fox 5 DC, September 21, 2022:
…Abdulkadir Dur is a naturalized U.S. citizen from Somalia. He’s suing the government after he was placed on a government watch list that subjects him to additional screening at the airport.
His lawyers say he got placed on the watch list after the government investigated a caravan of relief goods that were stolen from his company. Nur was cleared of any wrongdoing, but the effects of getting placed on the watch list have long outlasted the investigation.
“He was locked in a room. Officers, some who identified themselves and some who didn’t, would ask him questions, invasive questions. Eventually, he would stop responding to those questions as is his right,” says Justin Sadowsky, Council on American-Islamic Relations. “During the beginning, they did take his device and demand his password, and then they would just leave him in the room for several hours.”
The government disagrees with some characterizations of the seizures including the length of time Nur was detained. They emphasize that the government’s power is at its peak at the international border in order to protect national security.
The government also says customs officers have long been permitted to search devices without heightened suspicion, whether you’re on a watch list or not. Nur argues that the government violated his right against unreasonable search and seizure.
Although details about getting placed on the watch list are kept secret for national security reasons, FOX 5 learned from a leaked intercept report that you can be placed on the watch list for innocent behavior such as being related to someone on the no-fly list….
