Friday, December 6, 2013

The Department of Homeland Security lies in court


I was extremely angry to read of the shenanigans of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in a court case in San Francisco.  TechDirt reports:

... there's a trial going on here in San Francisco about the legality of the complete lack of any sort of due process concerning the US's "no fly" list.

. . .

... a Stanford University Ph.D. student named Rahinah Ibrahim was prevented from boarding a flight at San Francisco International Airport in 2005, and was handcuffed and detained by the police. Ultimately, she was allowed to fly to Malaysia, her home country, but she has been unable to return to the United States because the State Department revoked her student visa.

. . .

Apparently, one of the people set to testify in the case, Ibrahim's oldest daughter, Raihan Mustafa Kamal (an American citizen, born in the US), was blocked from boarding her flight to the US to appear at the trial, and told that she was on the no fly list as well. Kamal, a lawyer, was an eye witness to her mother being blocked from boarding her flight. The US knew that Kamal was set to testify and from all indications, in a move that appears extremely petty, appears to have purposely blocked her from flying to the US. Kamal was directly told by the airline that DHS had ordered them not to let Kamal to board. The airline even gave her a phone number for a Customs and Border Patrol office in Miami, telling her to call that concerning her not being able to board.

There's more at the link.  Infuriating, but recommended reading.  Fortunately, the judge appears to be standing up to DHS's bully-boy tactics and insisting that their obstructionism cease.

So, how can we arrange for all those DHS agents and bureaucrats who conspired to obstruct justice in this matter to be put behind bars?





Peter

1 comment:

tweell said...

Yes, the judge is pushing back a bit, but... Kamal lost the cost of that ticket because of DHS. He's ordering her to try again, she doesn't want to pay again and find out that DHS has (oopsie) kept her on that no-fly list. Hard to blame her.

Da judge isn't entering her no-fly evidence in because... she isn't there to do it in person. Hmm.