I Was Arrested for Learning a Foreign Language. Today, I Have Some Closure. [View all]

[friendly_iconoclast]

https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech-national-security-technology-and-liberty/i-was-arrested-learning-foreign-language-t

I Was Arrested for Learning a Foreign Language. Today, I Have Some Closure.
January 23, 2015
By Nick George at 11:14am

Five years ago, the Philadelphia police thought that carrying Arabic-language flashcards was enough to warrant the arrest of an innocent traveler. A settlement reached today in a lawsuit I brought against the police department makes it clear that it is not...

...It's that attitude that is so problematic. Even after searching my luggage without probable cause of a crime and finding nothing out of the ordinary, TSA agents and the police felt they had the authority to detain and then arrest me, purely on ignorant assumptions about a language spoken by 295 million people worldwide.

That's why this lawsuit is important: to make it clear that arbitrary arrests are illegal, even at the airport. In addition to some modest damages, the settlement we signed requires the Philadelphia Police Department to amend its policies to make this clear. As law enforcement officers, they will be periodically instructed that they have an independent duty to establish probable cause before arrest, and cannot simply clap in cuffs anyone the TSA calls suspicious.