A Supreme Approach To Justice

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the Trump regime cannot choose to apply the Religious Freedom Act to just Christians, as in an 8-0 decision from Justice Clarence Thomas(!!!) the Court handed down a scathing ruling that Muslim men put on the no-fly list by the FBI after refusing to act as federal informants can indeed sue the pants off the US government.

 

The U.S. Supreme Court, in a unanimous opinion, ruled Thursday that Muslims put on the no-fly list after refusing to act as informants can sue federal officials for money damages under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

The case – Tanzin v Tanvir — involved three Muslim men who said their religious-freedom rights were violated when FBI agents tried to use the no-fly list to force them into becoming informants. None of the men was suspected of illegal activity themselves, and indeed, the Trump administration tried to head-off the suit by removing their names from the no-fly list just days before the case first went to court. It didn't work. The men refused to drop their case, and on Thursday the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in their favor.

"I feel extremely happy and content. All praise belongs to Allah. This is a great victory for every voiceless Muslim and non-Muslim against hate and oppression and ... I hope that this is a warning to FBI and other agencies that they will be held responsible for ... traumatizing people and ruining their lives," said Naveed Shinwari, one of the three men involved in the case.

Shinwari, a manufacturing contractor who came to the U.S. with his father from Afghanistan when he was 14, is a legal permanent resident. His presence on the no-fly list, he said, meant he could not do his contracting job because it required travel within the U.S. Nor could he visit his wife in Afghanistan. She is, however, now is in U.S. and the couple have three young children, two of them born in the United States.

Writing for the court, Justice Clarence Thomas noted that money damages have long been authorized in American law, dating back to the founding of the republic. And he pointed specifically to a post-Civil War statute that provides for damages against government officials who act "under color of state law" to deprive people of their constitutional rights. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, enacted in 1993, is in that tradition and uses the same terminology, he observed.

Thomas acknowledged that Congress is free to shield government agents from suit, but, "[w]e cannot manufacture" such a presumption 27 years later.

This is not the end of the line in the case. The three men now have the right to sue, but the government may wish to settle the case out of court, or in the alternative, it could invoke the doctrine of qualified immunity, and assert that the agents are immune from suit because they had no way of knowing their conduct would be illegal at the time.

 

It's that latter qualified immunity scenario that I'm worried about, but SCOTUS siding unanimously with Muslims is a big deal. It's still codifying religion as theocracy, but it least it's being applied where there is actual religious bigotry and discrimination.