CAIR Suggests Only Way To Determine “Good Faith” Is To Sue Them

Baloney. There is most definitely a way, it’s called the authorities who were called in the first place. Jay Tea put it well:

Let’s take the setting — an airliner — out of the equation for a moment. Suppose that you were in a park and spotted someone acting in a very suspicious manner. You were disturbed enough by what you saw to tell a police officer about it. The officer goes over and confronts the person, trying to ascertain whether or not they are, indeed a danger.

If they are not, then there really isn’t any harm done. If they are, then you are a hero — or, at least, a good citizen.

Now let’s toss in CAIR’s boogeyman, the Dreaded Evil Islamophobe, and play out that same scenario from their perspective. Suppose you saw someone in that park who was obviously a Muslim. (Say, walking with — that is, a couple steps ahead — of a woman in a full burkah.) You hate and fear Muslims (a follower of The Religion Of Peace), so you decide to make trouble for that noble Follower Of The Prophet (Peace Be Unto Him) and seek out a police officer and lie to him, saying that you saw him strapping a bomb around himself (the sort of thing that a True Devotee Of Islam would NEVER do). The officer goes over and talks to the Noble Muslim. The officer immediately recognizes that the charges you made were utterly baseless, and sends him on his way to continue doing Allah’s work and spreading His word.

The law, in this case, is clear: you are on the hook, legally, for what you did. Technically, you could be charged with giving a false statement to the police.

The distinction here: in the first case, you were acting in good faith. You honestly reported what you perceived, expressing concerns, but not fabricating details. In the second, there was no good faith involved; the reporting to the police was done in malice, not based on actual events, but on your biases and ill will.

And that is the crux of the John Doe law. It protects those who act in good faith — but does nothing to protect those that CAIR speculates might act.

Of course, sometimes it is hard to determine who is acting in good faith, and who is feigning it. That’s why there are structures set up to screen these complaints. They are called “police” and “air marshals” and “airline officials.” They are the ones who hear the concerns, evaluate them (and the complainant), and then investigate them.

They are the ones who make the ultimate decision on what is done about these complaints. And it is them — not the complainant — who bears the responsibility for whatever actions spring from that initial complaint.

To suggest that everyone needs to be sued to find out if they are acting in good faith or not is just plain wrong.

Well, I still don’t believe that anyone should be shielded from lawsuits, but I’m satisfied as long as those who miss their flights while defending themselves from accusations made by nameless individuals have some recourse under the law.

Whether suing the “john does” or the police & the airline, the allegations made by John Doe will become a part of the record, and anyone whose allegations are not made in good faith can still be held accountable. And like the LGF lawyer says, there must be a good faith basis to bring a suit to trial, as well, so not even airlines & officers will be sued without merit.

You are correct… Everyone does not have to be sued to gather information. I did not mean to suggest otherwise (though reading what I wrote in my previous comment, I did make that suggestion.) As long as the accused have some recourse under the law, and malicious or frivolous “john does” can be held accountable for their actions, I’m happy.

Curt nails it in his 2:17pm comment.

The bottom line to this is that the entire purpose to lawsuits like those brought by groups like CAIR is intimidation. They don’t care whether they’ve got a case against the “John Doe” or not, the entire purpose is to put them through the wringer. There’s got to be a way to prevent these intimidation lawsuits, and the “John Doe” protection amendment before Congress seems the best way to me.