Blog of Rights
Nusrat
Choudhury

Nusrat Choudhury received her B.A. from Columbia University, and is a graduate of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and Yale Law School. Prior to joining NSP, Choudhury worked as a Marvin A. Karpatkin Fellow in the ACLU's Racial Justice Program and served as a clerk for Judge Barrington D. Parker in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit and for Judge Denise Cote in the Southern District of New York.

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02/04/2013
Racial Mapping

Shhhh – What The FBI Doesn’t Want You to Know About its Racial Profiling Program

By Nusrat Choudhury, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 12:40pm

The FBI is using a racial and ethnic mapping program to collect intelligence on American communities...

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03/25/2013
No-Fly List

The Constitution Applies When the Government Bans Americans From the Skies

By Nusrat Choudhury, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project & Hina Shamsi, Director, ACLU National Security Project at 2:58pm

The government does not have the unchecked authority to place individuals on a secret blacklist without providing them any meaningful...

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07/30/2012
No-Fly List

Ninth Circuit Gives ACLU’s No Fly List Clients Their Day in Court

By Nusrat Choudhury, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 11:15am

Last week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that the ACLU’s lawsuit challenging the U.S. government’s secretive No Fly List should go forward. This decision is a true victory for our clients and all Americans.

More than two years ago, 15 U.S. citizens and permanent residents, including four military veterans, were denied boarding on planes. None of them know why this happened. And no government authority has ever given them an explanation or a fair chance to clear their names.

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08/25/2011
FOIA

Sounding "Suspicious": Making Sure the FBI Protects Americans AND Our Liberties

By Nusrat Choudhury, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 2:12pm

Today we filed a lawsuit to enforce a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request asking the government for information about a nationwide FBI system called eGuardian, which is used to collect and share so-called "Suspicious Activity Reports" (SARs) about people from local, state and federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The government has been using eGuardian since January 2009 to compile data on thousands of Americans, and the ACLU wants to know how this system works, and what safeguards are in place to make sure that the constitutional rights of innocent people are protected.

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12/09/2011
FBI

The Proof is in the Practice: FBI Documents Show Misuse of Community Outreach for Intelligence Gathering and Privacy Act Violations

By Nusrat Choudhury, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 3:28pm

Last week, the ACLU released FBI documents showing that the bureau is secretly and deliberately collecting information about innocent Americans through community outreach programs and retaining information about these Americans’ speech, beliefs, and other First Amendment-protected activities in violation of the Privacy Act.  The Washington Post reported on Muslim community concerns over this practice.

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11/09/2010
No-Fly List

Exiled From Home

By Nusrat Choudhury, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 5:07pm

Last summer, the ACLU and its affiliates in Oregon, Southern California, Northern California and New Mexico filed a lawsuit on behalf of 17 U.S. citizens and legal residents to challenge their placement on the U.S. government's No-Fly List and the failure of the government to give them a chance to defend themselves. Some of these people were in the United States when they found themselves suddenly and without explanation unable to board a plane. Others — including military veterans, students and people visiting family — were overseas and were effectively exiled from their own country because they couldn't board a plane to fly home.

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09/02/2009

ACLU Lawsuit Challenges Expulsion of Middle School Student After Illegal Cell Phone Search

By Nusrat Choudhury, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 1:08pm

On August 15, 2008, Richard Wade, a 12-year-old honor student at Southaven Middle School, made the simple mistake of taking his cell phone with him to school. He had no idea that on that day, school officials would seize his phone, search its contents and conclude without substantiation that the private photos he had saved on the cell phone — most of which simply showed him dancing at home — were "gang-related messages." Nor did Richard foresee that the DeSoto County Board of Education would expel him from school for carrying these photos on his cell phone.

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05/11/2012
No-Fly List

Fighting to Clear Their Names: Appeals Arguments Today for No-Fly List Challenge

By Nusrat Choudhury, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 10:04am

Today in Portland, Ore., I will be in a federal appeals court asking a three-judge panel to reinstate the ACLU's lawsuit challenging the government's secretive No-Fly List. We represent 15 U.S. citizens and permanent residents, including four military veterans, who are banned from flying to or from the U.S. or over American airspace. They have never been told why they are on the list or given a reasonable opportunity to get off it.

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03/27/2012
Religious Discrimination

FBI FOIA Docs Show Use of "Mosque Outreach" for Illegal Intel Gathering

By Nusrat Choudhury, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 11:38am

This type of secret intelligence gathering is an affront to religious liberty and the right to equal protection of the law.

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10/07/2011
Anti-Muslim Bias

Biased Counterterrorism Trainings: Far More than One Bad Apple

By Nusrat Choudhury, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 11:19am

On Wednesday, yet another report confirmed the use of factually incorrect and bigoted training materials on Islam and Muslims — this time by the Department of Justice. Wired published a 2010 PowerPoint presentation created for the U.S. Attorney in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, which teaches that "Islam is convinced of the superiority of its culture; and obsessed with the inferiority of its power" and that "No Major Muslim group has ever renounced the doctrine of jihad of the sword." It also includes a slide from a briefing by an FBI intelligence analyst notorious for his anti-Islam views, which claims that today, "Civilians, Juries, Lawyers, Media, Academia, and Charities" are engaged in a "Civilizational Jihad" in the United States. The article also reports that anti-Islam training materials are used in military intelligence schools, an online university geared towards people seeking jobs in intelligence, and the Army's center at Fort Leavenworth.

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