Four American men have sued the FBI and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder for violating their first amendment rights by banning them from airline travel for not agreeing to act as informants, NY Daily News reported.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday night in New York federal court, made allegations that the FBI placed the plaintiffs on the federal no-fly list either to intimidate them into informing or to retaliate against them for refusing.
Seeking the removal of their names from the controversial list and demanding establishment of a clear legal process to appeal being put under the travel ban, the plaintiffs identities' were established after the terror attacks of Sept. 11.
"Naveed Shinwari, 30, who has lived in the U.S. since he was 14, alleges he was approached multiple times by the FBI because he traveled to Afghanistan in 2012 to get married," NY Daily News reported. "After being questioned, Shinwari said he bought a ticket from Nebraska, where he then lived, to Connecticut for a temporary job."
But he was denied a boarding pass the next time he went to the airport. In the lawsuit, he claims that he was informed about being on the no-fly list.
Following the rejection, the FBI visited him again to make enquiries. Agents told him "the more you help us, the more we help you," the suit claims.
After Shinwari refused to spy on other Muslims and members of his mosque, he never got his name removed from the list, he said.
Ramzi Kassem, associate professor of law at the City University of New York and supervisor of the Creating Law Enforcement and Responsibility Project, said this is a major constitutional issue.
"If they don't want to work for the FBI, they have a right to do that. If they don't want to go into their communities, pretending to be something they are not, as informants, they have a right to decline to become informants. And if they believe that their religion prohibits them from spying on innocent people, as our clients do, they have a right to," said Kassem.
Kassem told Voice of America about how the FBI allegedly approached each plaintiff individually. One plaintiff said he was offered U.S. citizenship and compensation for becoming an informant.
"Some of our clients were approached for questioning by the FBI. Those FBI agents would come ask them questions about their communities, not related to any specific crime. Then they would offer them the opportunity to work for the FBI as informants. Our clients would refuse and the next thing they knew they were placed on the no-fly list. The no-fly list is supposed to be about aviation safety. That is the reason the U.S. government has said it has created that list. But what we are seeing here essentially borders on extortion.," he said.
