The Rule of Law Finally Prevails Over U.S. ‘Watch List’
History will someday find it outrageous that it took 18 years to protect people’s right to travel unmolested.
There is a list.
Photographer: Alex Wong/Getty Images
In an important constitutional decision, a federal district court in Virginia has held that the government must give people on the Terrorist Screening Database, better known as the “watch list,” the opportunity to challenge the evidence that put them there.
History will someday find it astonishing and outrageous that it took 18 years after the Sept. 11 attacks to restore this kind of procedural protection of people’s right to travel unmolested. Yet, late as it is, the decision also demonstrates that careful constitutional reasoning can reach common-sense conclusions — and make the government comply.