U.S. Supreme Court to hear Trump appeal in 'no-fly list' suit
Source: Reuters
U.S. Supreme Court to hear Trump appeal in 'no-fly list' suit
Andrew Chung
3 MIN READ
(Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a bid by President Donald Trump’s administration to shield FBI agents from a lawsuit by three American Muslim men who said they were placed on the government’s “no-fly list” for refusing to become informants.
The justices will take up the administration’s appeal of a lower court ruling allowing the men, all U.S. citizens or permanent residents who were born abroad, to sue under a 1993 federal law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
The law was aimed at ensuring that the government had compelling reasons to substantially burden any person’s exercise of religion. At issue is a part of the law that provides for “appropriate relief against a government,” without defining what type of relief may be appropriate.
The Manhattan-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2018 ruled that New York City residents Muhammad Tanvir and Jameel Algibhah and Connecticut resident Naveed Shinwari could pursue their lawsuit. They are seeking monetary damages, saying they were put on the no-fly list despite no evidence showing they threatened airline or passenger safety.
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Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-noflylist/u-s-supreme-court-to-hear-trump-appeal-in-no-fly-list-suit-idUSKBN1XW1WQ
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This is another example of the compound effects of over regulation coupled with justified citizen backlash against over zealous enforcement of laws and use/abuse of authorities law enforcement probably shouldn't have.
Senator Kennedy somehow found his way on to that list. Oh wait TSA said that actually he was 'misidentified as someone on that list.' So our government misidentified a person with one of the most recognizable faces in the country, someone who had been a US Senator for four decades.
These lists, invented by the Bush administration, IMO are like crutches to a man with no arms. We dropped the ball and now we've swung too far the other way. The patriot act, secret lists, no judicial oversight, compromising the 4A and 5A are things that need some attention. These allowed violations need to be fixed. Maybe I'm a little old fashioned but if we have a list of folks that we think might be terrorists, maybe we should spend some of the money we used ticketing people having too many yard sales and driving cars with expired stickers or building a wall at the border and allocate those resources to actually investigate people. Have we experienced any Mexican terrorists who were able kill even one person because they drove a car with an expired registration? The aim here should be to clear the list. Developing enough evidence to make an arrest or not and move on.
It's time to decide that freedom isn't just for those failing to be the targets some capricious decisions. 
So now we get to pay for this mistake and maybe hundreds of other mistakes arising from the same type of activities. We'll pay not just in dollars. We'll pay by sidetracking judges and prosecutors to deal with this.
Or maybe we won't pay that way. Maybe this whole issue will be buried by a decision blocking these people from recovering any damages. I'm sure there's folks that are hoping for that.
After all the rest of world will understand. It's not like there's folks that might see this as just another reason to hate the USA. 