The Washington Post

A new class-action lawsuit alleges that untold thousands of people placed on the U.S. watch listing system deserve monetary damages for what it says are the unpleasant and unconstitutional consequences of having their names on various federal registers.

The suit – filed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria on behalf of 18 Americans – is perhaps the broadest challenge to the federal watch listing system, though it is hardly the first.

A federal judge in Oregon has already declared the previous no-fly-list procedures unconstitutional, and a federal judge in Alexandria said the way the United States used it, in detaining a Northern Virginia teenager in Kuwait several years ago, was unconstitutional.

The judge invited the teenager, who claimed that he was tortured abroad, to test whether the new procedures still violate his rights. He is among the plaintiffs in the new suit.

The latest challenge is filed as a class action, arguing that it applies to “potentially thousands upon thousands of persons who have been similarly affected.” It targets not just the no-fly list, but also the selectee list, which, for instance, calls for more screening at airports for those on it.

“Through extra-judicial and secret means, the federal government is ensnaring individuals into an invisible web of consequences that are imposed indefinitely and without recourse as a result of the shockingly large federal watch lists that now include hundreds of thousands of individuals,” the suit alleges.

The suit says that in 2009, the federal government nominated 227,932 people for the lists, and in 2013, the number more than doubled to 468,749.

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment Tuesday. Federal authorities have implemented new procedures since previous legal challenges to the no-fly list, giving those who think they are on the list a mechanism to inquire about it.