The Associated Press
NEW YORK — A federal judge has ruled that ethnicity is not a valid factor in making an arrest, handing a victory to two Egyptian-born men who sued the government after they were detained at New York’s Kennedy Airport.
The government had sought to convince U.S. District Judge Frederic Block in Brooklyn that a person’s ethnic background was a valid consideration in light of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Immediately after 9/11, hundreds of Muslims and Arabs were detained, deported and monitored as the government urgently sought information that could prevent another attack.
In a ruling Monday, the judge disagreed with the government’s argument to throw out the civil rights lawsuit, saying the attacks did not justify tampering with Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.
“Fear cannot be a factor for the evisceration of the bedrock principle of our Constitution that no one can be arrested without probable cause that a crime has been committed,” he added.
The judge called his ruling “the first post-9/11 case to address whether race may be used to establish criminal propensity under the Fourth Amendment.”
Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, applauded the decision, saying it would discourage racial profiling.
“It’s an important ruling for equal justice because it squarely rejects the notion that an individual who’s not engaged in suspicious activity suddenly becomes suspicious because of ethnicity,” Lieberman said Tuesday.
A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn said the government was still considering whether to appeal the decision.
The plaintiffs, Tarik Farag and Amro Elmasry, were held for four hours on Aug. 22, 2004, following a flight from San Diego to John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Two agents with a terrorism task force who also were aboard claimed they became suspicious after Farag, a retired New York City police officer, and Elmasry, a General Electric sales manager, switched seats and spoke in Arabic.
Elmasry caused more concern by repeatedly checking his watch and, in a conversation with one of the agents, revealing he was from Egypt, court papers said.
The agents had the pilot alert authorities at Kennedy that they suspected two Arab passengers were conducting surveillance. As they left the plane, the men were greeted by a team of police officers, handcuffed and thrown in jail cells before being released hours later.