#Lawsuit Says

[reasoningdaily]

The Intercept: Police Harass Veteran on Terror Watchlist, Lawsuit Says

Saadiq Long was on his way to a night shift at the transportation company he works at when he saw flashing lights behind his car. Two police cruisers were signaling him to pull over. This would be the third time in just over a month that Long, a U.S. Air Force veteran with no criminal record, had been pulled over without explanation by Oklahoma City police officers. The stops frustrated Long. He suspected he was being targeted.

After wondering again why he’d been pulled over, this time would be different: He would get some answers, however unsettling, about why it was happening.

Long, 52, was initially told by an officer who stopped him that his car had been listed in a gang database. After waiting in his car for roughly 20 minutes, the officer, according to a video that Long made of the incident, came back with a different story. The police officer told Long that his car had come up as a “hit” in a national watchlist database, one that “automatically alerts us that this vehicle is under suspicion for a terrorist watchlist.” The cop said that Long’s presence on the watchlist, rather than any driving-related infraction or accusation of criminality, was why he had been pulled over.

Long is no stranger to harassment by federal authorities. In 2015, he sued the U.S. government over his placement on the Department of Homeland Security’s no-fly list, as well as the larger terrorist watchlist from which that database is built. Eventually, Long was told his name was removed from the no-fly list, but, as the traffic stops in Oklahoma indicate, he has remained on the broader terrorism watchlist. His lawsuit in federal court related to that watchlist is still ongoing.

More immediately, Long is trying to deal with the very local consequences of being on the federal watchlist.

The U.S. government’s terror lists are often thought of as a tool for protecting against foreign national security threats. Yet in Long’s case, his continued presence on the list, which is secret and has no clear avenues for an individual to be delisted, has now resulted in an unending cycle of harassment from local police in his hometown of Oklahoma City, where he lives with his family.

Since the December 30, 2022, stop where he was verbally informed that his car was on the terrorist watchlist, things have gotten much worse for Long. In subsequent stops, he has been pulled over, handcuffed, and placed in the back of a police cruiser. In one incident, Oklahoma City police officers leveled their guns at Long while blaring orders over a loudspeaker instructing Long to exit his vehicle.

Having failed thus far in his case against the federal government, Long is now suing the Oklahoma City Police Department over the traffic stops, as well as their use of the federal terrorist watchlist as a pretext to target his vehicle. (The Oklahoma City Police Department declined to comment on the case.)

“As Saadiq Long drives the roads of his city, the Oklahoma City Police Department has been watching, aiming its vast network of cameras and computers at him repeatedly,” the lawsuit says. “Using a secret, racist list of Muslims that the FBI illegally maintains, officers have repeatedly pulled Saadiq Long over, sometimes at gunpoint, unlawfully arresting him twice in the last two months.”

“Despite the fact that he has never been arrested or charged for any crime, due to his presence on this list, he has lost work licenses, been denied visas, and been prevented from flying on airplanes,” said Gadeir Abbas, an attorney with the Council on American-Islamic Relations who is representing Long. “The officers who are pulling him over are just doing it because their computers are telling them to do so due to his watchlisting status. He is not under investigation for anything, but this secret list is still terrorizing him whether on land or air.”

In 2013, Long was prevented from boarding a flight to Oklahoma from Qatar, where he then resided. A U.S. citizen and Air Force veteran, the denied flight to Qatar was when Long first discovered that he was on the DHS’s no-fly list. Ever since, he has faced detention and other harassment while traveling.

Long sued in 2015 to clear his name from this secret database. In 2020, Homeland Security informed Long that he had been removed from the no-fly list and would not be placed back on absent further information. The government argued in court that the removal of Long’s name from the no-fly list had rendered his claims moot. Yet his removal from the no-fly list has not meant his removal from the broader terrorism watchlisting database, nor from the dire consequences of his status.

Civil liberties advocates, who routinely challenge the constitutionality of the terrorism watchlist in court, have grown increasingly alarmed by the expansion of its use by local law enforcement agencies. In some cases, these local agencies have been tasked with both monitoring individuals assigned to the list and expanding its scope. In 2014, The Intercept published the government’s secret guidance for selecting individuals to the watchlist. Disclosures in a lawsuit from 2017 revealed that the watchlist had grown to 1.2 million people, the majority of whom are believed to be noncitizens and nonresidents of the United States.

Presence on the watchlist can generate numerous problems for those targeted, from harassment and detention while traveling to the type of routine law enforcement threats and harassment Long now faces.

“His experience, unfortunately, is very common for people who are still on watchlists, even if they are not on the no-fly list. It is par for the course for anyone on a watchlist to experience more aggressive traffic stops,” said Naz Ahmed, a staff attorney with the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability and Responsibility project at the City University of New York School of Law. “Officers are instructed not to do anything that gives away that a person they have pulled over is on a watchlist or to carry out warrantless searches. But you can imagine how an officer may react who doesn’t have much training on this subject, and does not see it commonly, when they come across someone in this situation.”

A 2016 report by Yale Law School and the American Civil Liberties Union found that the U.S. government had “drastically expanded a consolidated watchlisting system that includes hundreds of thousands of individuals based on secret evidence.” The report documented how the system was now being used and interpreted by local police forces who were frequently acting upon “potentially erroneous, inaccurate, or outdated information.” Unlike the no-fly list, which has some limited redress processes, the broader terrorism watchlist remains largely opaque and unchallengeable.

“The FBI accepts almost every single ‘nomination’ to its list submitted by anyone,” Long’s lawsuit says. “This is because the FBI uses a standard so low that, based on a string of speculative inferences, any person can be made to qualify.”

Long’s lawyers filed suit against the local police department in Oklahoma City on Thursday, to compel its officers to stop pulling him over based on his watchlisting status. Long is also asking for financial compensation for violations of his Fourth Amendment rights. (The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the suit.)

Despite his recent experiences, Long has continued driving to work, doing errands, and visiting family in Oklahoma City but with increasing trepidation about how his watchlisting status is being interpreted by local police. Some police officers have been apologetic while pulling him over; others have responded aggressively, treating him as a threat, pulling out weapons, and causing him to fear for his life.

“For the past year or two, I noticed that the Oklahoma City police often followed me while driving, though without pulling me over,” said Long. “I got kind of used to it, but just recently, within the last month and a half, that’s when this started turning into something much more serious.”

The most recent incident, when he was pulled over earlier this month by a group of police officers who drew guns on him and ordered him out of his vehicle — an incident that Long also caught on his own dashboard camera — was the most alarming in his recent series of run-ins. A video of the incident shows police officers yelling contradictory instructions at him for several minutes while standing with guns drawn behind his vehicle.

“I was wondering if they were going to make my wife a widow now for something so silly,” Long said, “just for me being on this list, when they themselves don’t even know why I’m on it.”

[wombywoo]

impressions 🎖️

[daily-sifloop]

Day 44: Little Goody Two Shoes (game by AstralShift) AU

Spoilers for Ending No. 1 - Moira under cut

[dragongirlafro]

are you FUCKING kidding me. this is the wapeach that got instantly shot down by Miyamoto and banished to the Nintendo vault for practically 20 years????? this is literally the most inoffensive take they could have done on an "evil peach twin" and it was still too much for the old man.

i don't even know what to say at this point lmao. this in a nutshell i think perfectly shows why no matter how much cool shit nintendo does they'll always be held back

[lover-of-mine]

Buck and Buck Begins explaining the chain of events that led to the lawsuit.

[stagefoureddiediaz]

This quote is so heartbreaking

Newly estranged relationship😭😭😭 is bad enough but then to follow that with there’s no one in Eddie’s life really is soul destroying.

Buck supporting Eddie through this is a given - the very literal visual metaphor of Buck being at Eddie’s back - of having his back as well as being the supporting hand on his shoulder we saw at the end of the season as Chris left. This is the next phase of that and how it looks remains to be seen. The way this is worded suggests that Chris is going to refuse contact with Eddie - at least initially and that is going to really hurt Eddie.

To me it feels like we might see Buck being in contact with Chris and therefore being able to feed back to Eddie to be the one connection to Chris he has. But also then become some sort of mediator for them as things settle and time and distance allows perspective to be gained and anger to settle. This channel of communication between buck and Chris and Eddie is something we’ve seen develop through the seasons - Buck being a safe space for Chris - someone not his father he can talk to and open up to or go to for help, and also someone Eddie can do the same things with.

It feels like it’s very much going to be a continuation of that established dynamic and a way of tightening the bonds between the three of them further in the long run. It truly is very coparent loaded and really a compelling narrative to explore.

The no one in Eddie’s life really quote also is loaded. It gives rise to the concept that his reltionship with his parents is going to deteriorate as well - that they may refuse to give him information on Chris or not take his calls, not involve him in decisions about Chris that really should have his input.

I found Ryan saying Eddie’s going to lean on buck very interesting as well - especially as he also said

Bucks going to lean on Eddie as well. (Also second mentions of the relationship flourishing and being stronger than ever!)

The fact this is in direct opposition to what Tim said - that Eddie is going to end up feeling a bit out in the cold because Buck will be spending more time with Tommy is interesting. Because which one is it?

Obviously Tim likes to spin his words so they never mean what he actually says. So I take all his interviews with a pinch of salt but I do think we will see that distance he spoke about because it’s good for Eddie to have that space for himself.

Well it can actually be that both are true and that is really interesting from a story telling perspective - and not exactly as a point of conflict, but as a way of juxtaposing Eddie and Tommy - it’s the pulling of the triangle that Buck Eddie and Tommy form.

This idea that Buck is going to be dealing with Gerrard and pushing back against a very different authority figure to bobby has a lot of potential for Buck and his journey of self discovery and self love and acceptance that his arc seems to be set up for this season. I don’t want to talk about Buck and BT in a meta about Eddie though!

I’m really interested to see how Eddie let’s buck lean on him and what that support looks like. Because it will be exactly what Buck needs - Eddie understands Buck and how to nudge him in the right direction - it’s a key part of their dynamic and, I’m of the opinion that we’re going to see s8 as a sort of s3 redux so I think this next iteration of buck and Eddie’s relationship - with Eddie also leaning on Buck is going to be the fight club/ lawsuit arc but in juxtaposition. Whereas in s3 they didn’t lean on each other and support one another, this time they will - it will show how much they’ve changed and grown and trust one another since s3 and how much depth there is to them as a unit. (Which will also be a perfect juxtaposition of how little buck and Tommy know and trust one another!)

[poebrey]

this generation of kids is so fucked and it’s so depressing to watch in real time. the amount of parents that are like “my preschooler got covid/rsv/had to be hospitalized but it’s ok because kids get sick all the time” is so……in 20 years or so when these kids are in early adulthood we’re going to have an increase in autoimmune diseases and chronic respiratory illnesses along with heart conditions and strokes due to repeated covid infections and researchers are going to be scratching their heads on the cause and ignoring that we let kids go back to schools mid-pandemic with no disease mitigation and then ignored a second respiratory disease resurgence

[makorragal-312]

Eddie's gonna invite Buck to a one-on-one game of basketball before he leaves, but only if he doesn't push him again and damn near break his ankle like he did last time.

Take note of the Season 3 "Just don't do it again" point.

[destielmemenews]

"In the lawsuit filed in Hennepin County District Court in Minneapolis on Monday, the DHL eCommerce unit alleges that MyPillow is in violation of a contract that requires the Minnesota-based company to pay for all parcel delivery services within 15 days of being billed. The lawsuit says they reached a settlement in May 2023 that required MyPillow to pay $775,000 in 24 monthly installments starting in April of this year.

But the lawsuit alleges that MyPillow has made only partial payments on that settlement, totaling $64,583.34, with the last one received on June 6. DHL says it notified MyPillow that it was in default on July 2. The lawsuit seeks $799,925.59, plus interest and attorney fees."

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[your-ace-cousin-clover]

helllooooo Force India Checo

[cockbiteproductions]

you think you're free from rvb. you're immune. you were a clown in their circus for so long and you finally wiped off the makeup. the reds and the blues aren't coming back and you aren't either. but then rooster teeth says rvb is ending and you're like "oh no, but it was past time." but then they say burnie is writing it and you're like "wow just like in s15e4, I can't believe rooster teeth went to scotland and tore burnie from his photogenic island life to get him to finish it."

and then they say the reds and the blues are back and you're stopped being able to comprehend words. and then they say it's the aftermath of ain't that a bitch and you blink and you've already rewatched the first 3 seasons. you stare at your own face in the reflection of the dark screen and you see the clown makeup has reappeared.

[fedoraspooky]

I truly hope the rumors of tumblr selling its user's artwork and other images to midjourney aren't real, because I am extremely tired of having to uproot and move around on the internet and still haven't fully recovered from the old dA-to-tumblr exodus... But juuuust in case a deal like that does go through, I'mma just leave this linktree post here. Just, y'know, for reasons.

The worst part is, you can't even delete or go back and edit your posts to opt out if this happens, because reblogs are unaffected. If anyone has ever reblogged your work there will be no way to opt out of this unless we can get a class action suit for tumblr going, or I guess report our own artwork and hope they nuke it themselves.

Just... Really didn't fuckin need this. Tumblr has been my internet home since 2011. I may not have a lot of followers, but I've made a lot of friends here over the years, and i don't wanna start all over from scratch AGAIN because some pissbaby CEO decided to have a transphobic breakdown and sell out all of the site's artists to theft machine robber barons for a shiny nickel.

I'm hesitant to post on insta too because zuck's vacuuming up everything for his AI too. Same with musk. Like, where the hell can we even go now?

All I can think of rn is just... Bluesky, cohost, sheezyart (which is as of this post still in closed beta), and newgrounds. There's furaffinity and stuff too but idk if I draw enough furries to be on a furry site, y'know? Idk, maybe my werecreature and nonhuman character stuff counts but just ughhh if we gotta move, can we all just agree on a place and move together and not scatter to the winds again? That would be great.

[buddiesmutslut]

One thing I hate so much about 911 is the LACK OF APOLOGIES.

Bobby shoves Buck against the wall in s1 & it’s written off as acceptable bc Buck is being nosy, like being annoying is a good excuse to put your hands on an employee.

Buck apologized for the lawsuit & not being around in s3, but Bobby never apologized for holding him back (& lying about it) & Eddie never apologized for screaming at him in the grocery store.

Chim assaulted Buck in his apartment before going after Maddie, and it was never addressed. (Also, does anyone remember if Chim apologized for keeping the Daniel secret from Buck but not the bomber in that one episode? I genuinely can’t remember, I haven’t watched the first seasons in like, a year.)

Also, does Maddie ever apologize for telling their parents about Buck being in therapy? I know they fought about it, but it was also tied in with the Daniel secret (which was fucked but they talked about that) and I can’t remember, but that was kind of shitty, too.

Buck maybe purposefully gets rough with Eddie and definitely hurts his ankle during the game. Sure, we see him feeling bad about it & Maddie scolding him, but no actual apology to his best friend, not even a mention of one.

Those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head, & idk man, people are flawed, and I know that these characters aren’t perfect, but part of that is apologizing & making amends when you’re wrong. So much stuff is just glanced over to keep the story moving, and I get it but I’m not a huge fan of it. They all have this great, family bond, but how sustainable is that when you’re not owning up to your mistakes and making it right when you hurt someone?

[synth-spinner]

Why are you stanced like that you're 60

[olives-and-sunshine]

"Prodigal Son stole whole plotlines from I Hunt Killers which is why the creators were sued for copywrite," I say into the mic.

The crowd boos. I begin to walk off in shame, when a voice speaks and commands silence from the room.

"They're right," they say. I look for the owner of the voice. There in the 3nd row stands: I Hunt Killer's author, Barry Lyga, and his lawyer.