'Good faith' law promotes terrorism vigilance by fellow travelers
Andrew Compart, Travel Weekly, 8/20/2007
A new federal law grants immunity to people who "in good faith" report suspected terrorist activity or other "suspicious behavior" on the part of fellow travelers.
The law was made retroactive to cover a lawsuit-triggering incident in which six imams, Islamic religious leaders, were removed from a US Airways flight nine months ago.
The protection is part of legislation Congress approved last month primarily to implement more of the homeland security recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.
Under the law, retroactive to October 2006, any person who "in good faith" reports suspected terrorist activity or "suspicious behavior" that could threaten transportation safety or security is immune from civil liability. The legislation applies to airlines, trains, cruise ships and buses.
The law also gives immunity to "any authorized official who observes or receives a report of covered activity and takes reasonable action in good faith to respond to such activity."
The immunity would not apply to people who make reports they know to be false or "with reckless disregard for the truth."
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the Senate's Homeland Security Committee, co-authored the provision. They said it was needed to encourage citizen involvement in fighting terrorism.
"People acting in good faith to avert what they believe may be terrorist activity should not be punished for their vigilance" or have to fear "being sued for their life savings," Lieberman said.
The American Civil Liberties Union, however, believes the law is an overreaction to the imam lawsuit and expressed concern that the immunity will create conditions for more discriminatory actions against travelers. The Transportation Department received 47 complaints about airline discrimination in the first half of 2007.
"We're concerned it will promote a kind of reckless disregard for looking at whether [travelers] are really suspicious in their behavior versus their ethnicity or national origin," said Jesselyn McCurdy, legislative counsel for the ACLU in Washington.
McCurdy also questioned the effectiveness of the exclusions of immunity for false or reckless reports.
"A lot of cases deal with people's perceptions more so than suspicious behavior," she said, citing an ACLU lawsuit filed this month alleging that JetBlue and the Transportation Security Administration denied boarding to U.S. resident Raed Jarrar last August until he covered up his T-shirt, which read "We will not be silent" in English and Arabic.
"The law does give this blanket immunity, and people will even more so buy into those types of stereotypes," she said. "On the surface, why would you believe praying would be a criminally suspicious activity?"
McCurdy was alluding to the US Airways incident in Minneapolis/St. Paul on Nov. 20, in which the airline removed six imams from a flight.
They were then handcuffed, searched and held in custody by airport police before it was determined they did not pose a threat.
The suspicions were based, in part, on the imams having prayed in public view at the airport. Also cited as suspicious were the imams' onboard conversations in Arabic, purported comments in English regarding U.S. involvement with Saddam Hussein, purported one-way tickets, their seating pattern and requests by some of them for seat belt extensions.
The imams actually had roundtrip tickets and said they took the seats pre-assigned to them. The imams also said two of them requested extensions because of their girth, not for use as weapons.
In spite of the new law, the imams' lawsuit is continuing. Their attorney recently dropped passengers from the lawsuit and, in an amended complaint, is targeting only US Airways and the airport authority for having no "legitimate non-discriminatory reason to justify their treatment of the plaintiffs."
