Nick Baumann also has a great piece on Gulet Mohamed's detention, with this powerful kicker:
Prohibiting a US citizen from returning to the US or conditioning a citizen's right to return on answering questions is "absolutely illegal," Ben Wizner, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, told Mother Jones on Thursday.
But this isn't the first time that US citizens have been detained abroad and questioned about their travels to Yemen and other Muslim countries, Wizner said. Often, these Americans are told they are on the no-fly list and forbidden from returning to the US. Those people do have a way out, however. The ACLU is in the midst of a long legal fight over the no-fly list. As part of that lawsuit, the group sought to obtain a court order preventing the government from using the list in these types of situations. After that, the government "backed down, capitulated, and arranged for our clients abroad to be repatriated," Wizner says. "Ever since that, every time someone has contacted us on behalf of a citizen stranded abroad we've been able to arrange for that citizen to get back using the threat of litigation."
Gulet Mohamed has not been charged with any crimes. "I went to school, studied the US Constitution," his sister says. "What happened to the Constitution? I feel like that has been lost. He's such a kid, a little kid."
Well, they read all the nice parts in Congress yesterday so there's nothing to worry about, amirite?
