If you've been around here for a lo-o-ong time, you might remember many posts about the U.S. government's various lists which barred passengers from airlines. After all, the E.P. and I were plaintiffs in one of the earliest of these. There came a moment when I could joke that, since we had embarrassed federal spooks for apparently having had us stopped at airports, we were among the very few U.S. flyers in 2006 who could be assured we were not on some list, once the feds were required by a judge to explain.
As in our episode, it seems that when Yonas Fikre, a U.S. citizen who previously resided in Sudan, sued to get removed from the list, the government rapidly removed him -- and expected that would make the whole thing go away.
The Supreme Court unanimously ruled Tuesday that a man’s challenge to his former placement on the No Fly List can move forward, finding the government failed to show his lawsuit is moot.
... The government later removed him from the list and signaled it was unlikely he would be readded. It then contended Fikre’s lawsuit was moot as a result and should be tossed.
The government warned that not declaring lawsuits like Fikre’s moot at the onset could require the government to disclose classified information. The Supreme Court rejected that assertion, enabling Fikre’s case to move ahead.
The ruling doesn't mean that Fikre will win his case, merely that the litigation can proceed. He claims the government tried to force him to be an informant by denying his right to fly.
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