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Dear Friends,
 NRCAT applauds a ruling that could have implications for the very existence of an FBI-maintained watchlist of “known or suspected terrorists.” Last week a federal judge, Judge Anthony Trengas, ruled that the list violates the constitutional rights of those who are on the list. The Terrorist Screening Database has grown to 1.2 million people, many of whom are Muslim, and includes 4,600 U.S. citizens.
There have been past rulings on a subset of the list, the “No Fly List,” that have protected the rights of U.S. citizens from being denied boarding or subject to searches in airports, but this ruling is much broader and gets to the vague and secret criteria for the list, as well as its uselessness.
The challenge to the list, on behalf of American Muslims who were wrongly placed on the list, was filed in the courts by a long-time NRCAT partner, the Council on American Islamic Relations.
The list isn’t just about who gets on an airplane. Past court proceedings have forced government lawyers to admit that the list is shared with more than 500 private entities, including hospitals and universities, as well as 18,000 law enforcement agencies and 60 countries.
At the international level, the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this year passed an amendment to the Intelligence Authorization Act, sponsored by Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, seeking to force the Trump Administration to disclose ways in which the list is shared with foreign governments.
Since the attacks of 9/11, there has long been an unfounded connection held by the U.S. government between Muslims and terrorism. This terrorist watchlist, which some have described as nothing more than a Muslim registry, is just one of its more recent manifestations, and we look forward to the remedies that will be proposed by Judge Trengas.
Sincerely,
Rev. Ron Stief
Executive Director
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