The Daily Fix: Muslim Wrongly Put on Terror Watch Lists Becomes First to Clear Name, Drug Lord Drones, and Doogie Does Drag

Wed, 23 Apr 2014 10:33:19 PDT

Dr. Rahinah Ibrahim isn't a terrorist. But the Malaysian architectural scholar spent eight years fighting to get off the no-fly list and terror watch lists in a court battle that has shone a light on how Muslims were watched and, in cases like Ibrahim's, wrongly demonized after 9/11.

Revealed in the case was that "the White House has created at least one 'secret exception' to the legal standard that federal authorities use to place people on such lists," as VICE News reported. What is that exception? No one knows—just hope it doesn't apply to you.

For Ibrahim, that possible violation of due process came after federal officials reassured the public that landing on the no-fly list meant the person had met "a reasonable suspicion standard."  

Ibrahim is a practicing Muslim who wears the hijab; she is dean of architecture at the University Putra Malaysia. The 48-year-old landed on the no-fly list 10 years ago in what is believed to have been a clerical error.

It's possible federal agents mistook the women's economic organization she belongs to, Jamaa Islah Malaysia, with the terror group Jemaah Islamiyah. It's also possible someone just ticked the wrong box when filling out forms about what lists she should be on. 

Whatever happened, even after she was taken off the no-fly list, she was arrested at San Francisco International Airport while a Ph.D. student at Stanford University. Though she wasn't charged with any crime (tough to do when none was committed), her student visa was revoked, and she was refused new ones, leading to nearly a decade in court.

She won her case earlier this year, making her the first person to ever get off those lists.

Ibrahim sought only to clear her name.

In other news...

In a Vice: Simon Ostrovsky, a journalist for VICE News, is being held in eastern Ukraine by Russian separatists, the latest attack on reporters covering the region. Meanwhile, Russia is warning Ukraine of military action. (via Committee to Protect Journalists)
  End of TV as You Knew It: An online television service called Aereo is fighting in the U.S. Supreme Court to shake up television broadcasters by allowing users to stream live broadcasts of channels for a low monthly fee. Aereo is available in 11 cities, but cable providers and broadcasters hate it because they're getting cut out of the profits. (via Reuters)
  Origin of Love: Hedwig and the Angry Inch has opened on Broadway, with Neil Patrick Harris starring in the title role as a "slip of a girlboy." Here's hoping his shiny brand of celebrity will inspire every single person who watched the schlocky sitcom How I Met Your Mother to go see John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask's truly wonderful opus about the life of a transgender rock star. (via The New York Times
  Situation in South Sudan Goes South: Ethnic killings are spiraling out of control in the towns of Bor and Bentiu, where horrific attacks on civilians are being reported by Human Rights Watch
  Drug Lords Use Drones Too:  British "ganja gangsters" are using drones to conduct hostile takeovers of pot crops—crimes that, for obvious reasons, aren't ever reported to authorities. (via The Independent)
  Freedom, Revised: The Justice Department says thousands of federal inmates are eligible for early release under revised drug crime sentences that are more lax, but the process may take some time. (via The Washington Post)

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Original article from TakePart