TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABLITY????-------APPARENTLY ONLY TO BE FOUND IN SPEECHES, NOT IN SUBSTANCE...... For nine years, the U.S. government refused to let a Stanford PhD student named Rahinah Ibrahim back in the country after putting her on the no-fly list for no apparent reason. For eight years, U.S. government lawyers fought Ibrahim’s request that she be told why. Last April, despite his promise in 2009 to do so only in only the most extreme cases, Attorney General Eric Holder tried to block Ibrahim’s case by asserting the state secrets privilege, declaring under penalty of perjury that the information she wanted “could reasonably be expected to cause significant harm to national security.”President Barack Obama at the National Defense University in May 2013. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) Last week, a federal judge publicly revealed the government’s explanation for Ibrahim’s long ordeal: an FBI agent had “checked the wrong box,” resulting in her falling under suspicion as a terrorist. Even when the government found and corrected the error years later, they still refused to allow Ibrahim to return to the country or learn on what grounds she had been banned in the first place.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Feb 2014 20:49:21 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015