A Paterson man's inclusion on the no-fly list upended his life; now he's suing

Adis Kovac moved from the Chicago suburbs to Paterson last year, packing up his belongings and making the 800-mile trip by car, since he’s been barred from air travel by the federal government since at least 2014.

A married father of three, Kovac, 28, is one of many Americans who claim they have wrongly been placed on a federal terror watch list and have been denied answers or information about their inclusion on it.

Kovac, who declined an interview request, and four other American citizens filed a federal lawsuit in Dallas last month alleging that their rights were violated when they were put on the list without notice and without any meaningful way to challenge the designation. They say they have never been arrested or charged with or convicted of a crime, and that they’ve been stigmatized by their placement on a registry of known or suspected terrorists.

“In order to go to weddings and funerals and visit family overseas, you need to be able to fly,” said Gadeir Abbas, an attorney at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, who is representing Kovac and the other plaintiffs in his lawsuit. “People on the no-fly list can’t do that. It shrinks your world. It forces you to live your life in a pre-modern way where your world is confined to places that are readily accessible by car.”

The lives of those on the list have been upended in other ways, too; some have had difficulty opening bank accounts, applying for immigration benefits or crossing the border with Canada, while others have been subjected to lengthy searches and interrogations at airports, at home and in coffee shops.

They could face more hurdles under a bill proposed by Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-Wyckoff, that calls for businesses that rent or sell trucks and commercial vans to report customer information to the FBI.

The bill is aimed at preventing vehicular attacks, like the one carried out on Oct. 31 in New York City, killing eight people including a New Milford native, Darren Drake. Sayfullo Saipov, who lived in Paterson and faces murder and terror charges in connection with the Halloween attack, allegedly rented the truck from a Home Depot store in Passaic.

But Saipov was not on the federal watch list, which some critics say has been ineffective at netting actual terrorists.

“Not a single person — not Saipov, not the San Bernardino shooters, not the underwear bomber, not the Pulse nightclub shooter, nor any other actual terrorist — was on the no-fly list when they committed their despicable attacks,” Abbas said.

“Literally, the no-fly list has been wrong 100 percent of the time. This proposal is more about sounding tough than enhancing our security.”

Grounded from travel

In October 2014, Kovac was stopped at a gate at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago while waiting for a plane to Turkey. He was interrogated in front of other passengers and his baggage was searched. He was eventually cleared, but he missed his flight.

He rebooked for the following day, but after returning to the airport, he was again interrogated, searched and had his phone data downloaded. He was questioned about his travel plans, his religious views, his life, family, friends and work. This time, he was barred from flying and lost the money he spent on his ticket. FBI agents later searched his home and electronics and questioned his parents.

A week later, agents questioned him again about his religious and political beliefs at a Starbucks near his home in the Chicago suburbs. On other occasions, he was questioned at a Dunkin' Donuts and at an FBI field office.

Last June, he was prevented from flying from Chicago to Newark. Still, he said he does not know why his name was included on the list.

“At no time was Mr. Kovac given notice of the factual basis for his placement on the federal terror watch list, and at no time was he offered a meaningful opportunity to contest his designation,” his lawsuit states.

In January, Kovac sued the directors of the FBI, the Terrorist Screening Center, the Transportation Security Administration and the National Counterterrorism Center.

Four Texas residents who are also on the terror watch list — Bashar Aljame, Abraham Sbyti, Suhaib Allababidi and Fadumo Warsame — joined Kovac in the lawsuit. The four say they are on the “selectee” list, which means they face extra screening at airports and land border crossings.

How the list works

The federal government keeps information about people it suspects of terrorism-related activity in its Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, a database that was created after the 9/11 terror attacks to facilitate the sharing of information among intelligence agencies. Around 1.6 million people, including 16,000 Americans, were listed in the database as of February 2017.

This list feeds the FBI's Terrorist Screening Database, commonly called the terror watch list, which has about 1 million names, including those of nearly 5,000 Americans, the FBI told Congress in 2016. Intelligence and law enforcement agencies also nominate names for the watch list.

Of those individuals, around 81,000 are on the no-fly list, including 1,000 Americans, who are routinely barred from air travel.

Another 28,000 people, including about 1,700 Americans, are on the “selectee” list, and face extra layers of screening at airports that, in some cases, has lasted hours and caused them to miss flights.

People can file challenges under the Traveler Redress Inquiry Program, but attorneys in a number of cases say their clients — including the ones who filed last month in Texas — have gotten no reprieve. The government won’t disclose information about why a traveler has been included on its watch lists for fear that it would reveal sensitive national security information.

Gottheimer’s proposed bill would require businesses that rent or sell trucks or commercial vans to report to federal authorities so they can cross-reference customer names with terror watch lists.

His call comes as national security officials have raised alarms about the risk of vehicular attacks like the one in which Darren Drake and seven others were killed on Manhattan's west side last year and another that killed 86 people in Nice, France, in 2016. The Islamic State group has encouraged and given instructions for "lone-wolf" terrorists to carry out such attacks.

Saipov had rented a truck on the day of the Manhattan attack and another nine days earlier to practice making turns. The men behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing used a rented van, Gottheimer noted when he announced the bill alongside Drake’s parents.

“We knew they could pose a threat," Gottheimer said. "And yet, they could easily walk in and acquire a weapon to murder our friends and family. There should be a better way."

Controversy around listing

Civil liberties advocates say people have ended up on the terror watch lists — including the no-fly and selectee lists — because of where they've traveled and who they know or have encountered, and in some cases because of a spelling or clerical error. Others claim they were placed on the list after they refused to be informants for law enforcement.

Republicans also publicly criticized the no-fly list in 2015 when President Barack Obama and other Democrats wanted to bar people on the list from purchasing guns. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Jeb Bush, the state's former governor, both of whom were seeking the Republican presidential nomination at the time, claimed that too many innocent people were on the list.

CAIR said in its lawsuit that the watch list is motivated by religious and ethnic profiling or guilt by association, noting the disproportionate representation of Muslims on the list.

The Department of Justice did not respond to request for comment. But in testimony, federal authorities have said that names are vetted and that nominations must be supported by facts and “rational inferences.”

Christopher Piehota, director of the Terrorist Screening Center, told Congress in 2014 that nominations couldn’t be based solely on race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation or activity protected under the First Amendment.

“Mere guesses or inarticulate ‘hunches’ are not enough to constitute reasonable suspicion,” he said.

Federal officials say they regularly review the lists and that names are added and removed as result. In fact, Omar Mateen had been on the terrorist watch list for 10 months, but was taken off before he killed 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in June 2016.

Lawsuits have been filed in federal courthouses across the country over the lists, including a number filed by CAIR and others by the American Civil Liberties Union. In response to one class-action lawsuit, federal authorities agreed to improve the process for travelers to challenge their inclusion on the lists, but critics say the system remains stacked against travelers.

Abbas said he personally has represented more than 100 people since 2010 challenging their place on the lists. In nearly every case, he said, the federal government has removed the person’s name. Federal officials, he said, would rather not put themselves in the position of having to defend the legality of the list in courts.

“For the most part, it’s because the watch list is on such shaky legal ground,” he said. “There’s never been anything like this in American history ever.”

Email: adely@northjersey.com