Civil liberties

Civil rights activists claim that excessive security searches violate the constitutional rights of American citizens.

After the 9/11 attacks, it was inevitable that the US would respond with a host of security measures that would make air travel far more burdensome. Even allowing for that, however, it is clear that the Americans went too far. From strip searches to a ban on carrying liquids and a host of other measures, it is not clear if these invasive measures have made flying any safer or if all this security is mere theatre meant to make travellers feel safer rather than actually preventing possible terrorist acts. One of the more odious security features has been the no-fly list, which allows any person to be denied entry on an airplane but with no means of challenging that designation. Now a group of 15 American Muslims are fighting back by taking to the courts their demand that their names be removed from the list.

Their chances of success are slim. The judiciary has been entirely subservient to the executive when it comes to war-on-terror policies. A case filed by the American Civil Liberties Union — which is also handling this no-fly case — challenging the legality of drone attacks was dismissed because the government claimed that it could not even confirm the existence of drone attacks because of national security. Even though the government frequently leaks information to the media about these security measures when it wants to paint them in a positive light, it has adopted a stance of complete secrecy whenever challenged in the courts. The plaintiffs in this case deserve their day in court and deserve to enjoy the right to fly if proven innocent.

It has now become increasingly clear that the security measures instituted at airports need to be reformed. People as prominent as Cat Stevens and Shahrukh Khan have had to endure the indignity of deportation and security delays, to say nothing of the countless of innocent Muslims. Civil rights activists in the US have claimed that the excessive security searches violate the constitutional rights of American citizens. We do not even know how effective these measures are. Terrorists are more likely to innovate and find new ways of carrying out their attacks rather than repeating the tactics they employed on 9/11.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 13^th, 2012.