Supreme Court Says Muslim Men Can Sue FBI Agents In No-Fly List Case
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that Muslim individuals placed on the no-fly list because they refused to become informants for the FBI can sue federal agents for money damages under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The vote was unanimous. NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg reports.
NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: The case began after three Muslim men refused to become informants for the FBI - one was a naturalized U.S. citizen; the other two legal permanent residents.
NAVEED SHINWARI: FBI agents repeatedly tried to recruit me, to coerce me to become an informant for them.
TOTENBERG: Naveed Shinwari said his reasons for refusing were both religious and personal.
SHINWARI: In the holy Quran, a law prohibits us from spying on one another. And secondly, I didn't see anyone doing anything wrong.
TOTENBERG: Shinwari, who immigrated to the U.S. with his father when he was 14, says the agents put him on the no-fly list to pressure him to cooperate. Not being able to fly meant he couldn't do his job, which required lots of travel within the U.S., and he couldn't visit relatives outside the U.S., including his wife in Afghanistan. Neither he nor the other two men were suspected of illegal activity themselves. Indeed, the government tried to head off the suit by removing their names from the no-fly list just days before the case first went to court. It didn't work. The men refused to drop their case. And today the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in their favor.
It was the latest example of the court's increased willingness to put religious interests first among equals in conflicts with the government. Writing for the court, Justice Clarence Thomas noted that money damages have long been authorized in American law, and he pointed specifically to a post-Civil War statute that provides for damage suits against government officials who, quote, "act under color of state law to deprive people of their constitutional rights." The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, passed by Congress in 1993, is in that tradition, Thomas said, and uses the same terminology.
True, Congress is free to shield government agents from suit, he said, but we cannot manufacture such a presumption 27 years later. Today's decision is not the end of the case. The men now have the right to sue, but the government may wish to settle the case out of court, or it could try to invoke the doctrine of qualified immunity and assert that the agents are immune from suit because they had no way of knowing until now that their conduct was illegal. Lawyers for the men say there are more than 80,000 people who have been placed on the no-fly list, but they contend that today's ruling will not result in a flood of lawsuits because the vast majority of those on the no-fly list are residents of another country.
As for the three men who prevailed in today's case, they were elated. Naveed Shinwari said he was surprised in light of other Supreme Court decisions upholding Trump administration actions hostile to Muslim immigrants.
SHINWARI: I feel extremely happy and content. All praise belongs to Allah. This is a great victory for every voiceless Muslim and non-Muslim against hate and oppression. And I hope that this is a warning to FBI and other agencies that they will be held responsible for traumatizing people and ruining their lives.
TOTENBERG: Though today's decision was unanimous, new Justice Amy Coney Barrett did not participate because she was not yet on the court when the justices heard the case argued.
Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF EL TEN ELEVEN'S "MY ONLY SWERVING")
Copyright © 2020 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.