As You Were, John Doe

It seems like the public incredulity and outrage over the idea that a private citizen could be sued for doing his/her civic duty by reporting suspicious activity has taken the wind from some sails. The whimpering cries of, "...but it could lead to racial profiling" have apparently been quelled and the John Doe protection provision has been added, once again, to the Homeland Security conference report. I'm interested to read the actual verbage of the provision, although, the intent of the provision is certainly needed and warranted.

If you haven't been keeping track of the significance of this provision or its roots, there are plenty of places to refresh your memory. To nutshell it, six Muslim imams were removed from a flight last fall after behaving in a manner that resulted in many passengers raising concerns with the flight crew. This behavior included things like loudly chanting (and saying things during those chants that had one Arabic-speaking passenger speaking up) in Arabic, making anti-American/pro-Saddam comments, shuffling their seats once on board, all going back and forth to the lavatory (and they are still on the ground at this time), asking for seat belt extenders when they didn't need one. In other words, pretty much daring anyone to have the gall to call them on their idiotic behavior. Once other passengers did, the imams were removed from the flight. Their response was to quickly call the Council on American-Islamic Relations or CAIR (and, I'll assume the conversation went something like, "Hey! It worked!") and file a lawsuit against the airlines AND the "John Does" who reported their behavior.

Without some sort of legislative protection, anyone reporting suspicious activity, whether right or wrong, could face personal financial ruin from a frivolous lawsuit. I say frivolous because, in my opinion, unless the plaintiff could demonstrate a malice or reckless disregard on the part of the defendant (the private citizen reporting his/her suspicions), they should not receive any sort of remedy from the private citizen. Having the legislative provision in place might not stop you from being sued in a case like this, but your attorney's fees could be much smaller given your attorney could file any number of motions to end the case before it ever saw a courtroom.

It's sad such civility and vigilance has to be protected through legislation, but in the world we're facing today, the loopholes have to be filled in lest they be exploited by those with less than pure intentions.

Trackbacked by:
Our own John Haskell e-mailed me about Gitmo, so I’ll go off on the GWOT generally from Pros and Cons