Muslim Group Files Lawsuit Against US Terror Watch List

A Muslim civil rights group filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court on behalf of thousands of U.S. citizens who it argues have been wrongfully placed on the government's terror watch list.

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The lawsuit filed Tuesday by the Council on American-Islamic Relations seeks unspecified monetary compensation for those put on the watch list and alleges that placement on the list is motivated by religious profiling rather than any real security threat.

"Through extra-judicial and secret means the federal government is ensnaring individuals into an invisible web of consequences that are imposed indefinitely and without recourse as a result of the shockingly large federal watch list that now includes hundreds of thousands of individuals," the complaint alleges.

Among the 18 plaintiffs is "Baby John Doe," a four-year old from Alameda County, California, who has been on the watchlist since he was seven months old.

The document names 14 current and former high-ranking employees of the Terrorist Screening Center as defendants as well as three unidentified FBI agents.

The lawsuit also claims that there have been more than 1.5 million nominations to the federal watch list since 2009, and that a high proportion of those nominations have been added.

A number of those on the list are barred from boarding any commercial aircraft in or out of the United States although the ruling has been the subject of numerous lawsuits, which have been successful to varying degrees.

"The government has engaged in a decade-long delusion that being placed on a watch list is not a big deal," said Gadeir Abbas, one of the lawyers who filed the lawsuit. "The goal is for the watch-listing to affect every aspect of these people's lives."

Many of the plaintiffs named in the lawsuit are residents of Dearborn, Michigan, which has a large Arab population and has been subjected to aggressive watch-listing tactics by federal agents, said Lena Masri, a CAIR attorney.

For Yaseen Kadura, a U.S. citizen of Libyan descent, was placed on the list after travelling to Libya 2011 to help journalists covering the country’s uprising.

After a brief trip to Canada Kadura was handcuffed and had guns pointed at him by U.S. police.