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The ACLU faults the way the government, under orders by a federal judge in Portland, has redrafted the appeals process for Americans put on the no fly list.

( The Oregonian file)

A group of Americans on the U.S. no-fly list accuse the government of refusing to follow a judge's orders to give them solid reasons why.

A court motion filed Friday on behalf of six people suing Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. for their no-fly listing alleges that the government has failed to do what U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown ordered it to do.

"It has been nearly five years since plaintiffs on the no-fly list filed this case seeking a fair process by which to clear their names and regain a right that most other Americans take for granted," according to the motion by lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union in New York.

The government was supposed to provide notice to plaintiffs - including Mohamed Sheikh Abdirahman Kariye, imam of the Portland Islamic Center - that explained why they remained on the list.

But instead they received written summaries that were wholly inadequate, according to the ACLU lawyers, because they failed to provide evidence that might have helped Kariye and other plaintiffs get off the list.

"The government has information in its possession that undercuts its reasons for putting these people on the list," said ACLU lawyer Hina Shamsi.

The government outlined a new policy earlier in the week crafted a new policy for those prevented from boarding commercial airliners to petition the U.S. Transportation Security Administration for redress. People who are not allowed to fly will get a chance to review an unclassified response that tells them why. But the government acknowledges that in some cases, national security concerns prevent them from releasing information.

The government's letters of explanation, the ACLU alleges, failed to provide statements that the plaintiffs had made that landed them on the list. The letters also failed to confirm or deny whether government spying on Kariye and the others - lawful or otherwise - had caused them to be included on the no-fly list.

The plaintiffs say they pose no threat of committing acts of terrorism, they do not support or advocate violence, and they have no ties to terrorist organizations. For that reason, they say, they were put on the list erroneously, according to the motion.

Court-ordered improvements to the no-fly list challenge process have allowed seven of the original 13 plaintiffs in the lawsuit to fly again, the lawyers wrote. But the other six "who remain blacklisted still languish in limbo, stymied by a redress process that denies them their right to the basic requirements of due process."

The new procedures, which were supposed to help people learn precisely how they were put on the list, provides the plaintiffs with incomplete allegations -- shorn of important context - while denying them the means to rebut the allegations and correct the government's errors, the ACLU lawyers wrote.

Government lawyers are expected to defend the new redress process on the grounds that giving those on the no-fly list more information would endanger national security, according to the motion. But Shamsi said the government could have provided for a better process while preserving national security interests.

"The government had an opportunity to provide a fair process, but failed," Shamsi said. "So we're compelled to return to court."

-- Bryan Denson

bdenson@oregonian.com

503-294-7614; @Bryan_Denson