Procedures For Inclusion On Terrorist Watch List Are Unconstitutional

In Elhady v. Kable, (ED VA, Sept. 4, 2019), a Virginia federal district court held that the procedures for including individuals in the U.S. government's Terrorist Screening Data Base ("Watchlist") violate plaintiffs' constitutional rights. The court held that plaintiffs' liberty interests are implicated by their inclusion in the Terrorist Watch List, and the process used to place a person on the list poses a substantial risk of erroneous deprivation of their rights to domestic and international travel, as well as interference with their reputational interests. RNS reporting on the decision notes that the case was brought by CAIR on behalf of 23 Muslim U.S. citizens who say they were wrongly placed on the list.