No-fly listFirst no-fly list case goes to trial

Rahinah Ibrahim, dean of the architecture and engineering school at the University of Malaysia, took to trial on Monday her claim against the U.S. government for wrongfully listing her on the government’s no-fly list. Ibrahim has sought to clear her name since January 2005, when she was arrested at San Francisco International Airport.

KTVU reports that similar lawsuits are pending across the country, but Ibrahim’s case is the first to go to trial. Ibrahim claims she was mistakenly placed on the no-fly list due to her national origin and Muslim faith.

Several details of the case, and reasons why Ibrahim was placed on the list, have not been disclosed owing  to the government’s state secret privilege, which allows it to refuse to release vital evidence if prosecutors can prove that releasing such evidence would threaten national security. Even Ibrahim’s lawyer is limited by court orders and national security provisions from investigating too deeply into the framework of the government’s no-fly list.

KTVU notes that federal prosecutor Lliy Farel told the judge that the government could not respond to Ibrahim’s claims due to national security interests. During the trial in a federal court in San Francisco, U.S. District Judge William Alsup ordered spectators to vacate the courtroom so authorities could discuss three slides containing classified information. Federal prosecutors also objected to several attempts by Ibrahim’s lawyer Elizabeth Pipkin to discuss details of how her client was placed on the no-fly list.

Ibrahim is barred from entering the United States to testify at her trial, and her involvement is limited to a video testimony recorded in London, shown to the judge on Monday.

Ibrahim recounts her experience with federal officials as beginning with a visit by two FBI agents on 23 December 2004 to her home near Stanford University, where she was pursuing a doctoral degree in architecture. The FBI agents told Ibrahim that Malaysia was blacklisted by the U.S. government and later asked whether she was familiar with the Malaysia-based terror group, Jemaah Islamiyah.

Ibrahim confirmed she knew of the group through news accounts, and upon the agents’ request she provided details about her involvement with the Muslim community in San Francisco. In January 2005 before her visit to Malaysia, Ibrahim was detained at San Francisco International Airport. The following day, Ibrahim took a plane to Malaysia and has been barred from entering the United States since.

Ibrahim’s lawyer claims she was placed on the no-fly list by mistake and that the U.S. authorities have refused to disclose their reasoning for placing her on the list.

“Once you’re in the system it’s almost impossible to get out,” Pipkin told the judge Monday during opening statements at the trial. Pipkin attributes Ibrahim’s placement on the no-fly list to inadequate training of list administrators and their bias to religious and national origin.

The government does not publish the names or number of people on the no-fly list. Names on the list are derived from the U.S. National Counter-Terrorism Center list of suspected terrorists. The list is estimated to contain roughly 875,000 names as of May 2013.