How a Pointless Lawsuit Took Off
An error put Rahinah Ibrahim on the no-fly list. The government fought her for 14 years.
Imagine going to board a flight and getting arrested instead. You are released a few hours later but told that your name appears on the government’s no-fly list: You are barred from U.S. airlines and airspace for as long as you live. Can you find out why? Can you challenge the decision? Can you show they made a mistake? No.
It happened in 2005 to Rahinah Ibrahim, a Malaysian national and Stanford doctoral candidate in construction engineering. After trying in vain for a year to get off the no-fly list, she filed a lawsuit in...