Mayor Mohamed Khairullah, a Muslim American, has filed a lawsuit against several U.S. government agencies including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Secret Service. This action came after he was precluded from attending a White House event — Eid al-Fitr, to which he was initially invited.
Mayor Khairullah speculates his exclusion may be attributable to his past erroneous listing in the Federal Terrorist Screening Dataset (FTSD) from 2019 to 2022. The Secret Service has, however, not expressly stated the reason for this barring.
The lawsuit against the FTSD was lodged by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) representing Mayor Khairullah and other plaintiffs. The suit argues that the FTSD is prejudiced, primarily against Muslims, infringing upon their Fifth Amendment right to due process. The plaintiffs contend that the Algorithm-driven No Fly List and other components of FTSD are disproportionately and capriciously composed, paying excessive attention on Muslims based on their race, ethnicity, and religion. They further argue that these lists have no substantial connection to real threats to aviation.
The FTSD, according to the suit, also breaches the equal protection clause of the Fifth Amendment by systemically considering factors like origin from Muslim-majority nations, involvement in mosque activities, donations to Muslim charities, Muslim-sounding names, frequency of Muslim prayer, adherence to Islamic religious practices and more as “derogatory information” indicating reasonable suspicion.
The lawsuit calls for the discontinuation of FTSD and purging of all records that indicate plaintiffs were once on this list. Nihad Awad, CAIR’s Executive Director, remarked on the filing of the lawsuit stating, “This system has caused great harm to the lives of thousands of innocent people. As this litigation moves forward, we again call on the federal government to dismantle the watchlist.”
Established in the post 9/11 period, the FTSD is a contentious measure that lists around 1.5 million suspected terrorists. It is divided into several categories like the No Fly List and the Selectee List. The former hosts over 80,000 names of individuals barred from travelling to, or within, the US. The latter contains those who can fly but must undergo additional screenings at airports. The lawsuit alleges that despite being taken off the FTSD, the system retains a record showing an individual was once part of the list, leading to enduring discrimination.