Alien Terrorist Removal Court - Yup, that's a thing [View all]

[JW2020]

http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/terrorist-court-unused-16-years-after-creation-14746

More than 15 years since its creation – and a decade after 9/11 – a special court for deporting suspected foreign terrorists has never been used.

Since 1996, five federal judges have been regularly appointed to sit on the Alien Terrorist Removal Court, a court most people have never heard of.

The court has no budget or staff, though the clerk of the U.S. District Court in Washington will serve that role if needed. But legal observers, attorneys and even the judges appointed to the court wonder if that will ever happen.

"I guess I’m still on the court, though I’m not too nervous about being called to active duty," said U.S. District Court Judge David D. Dowd, one of the court's original sitting jurists. "Our court has suggested that Congress should just abolish the court if it's not going to be used, but no one has taken the bait on that issue."

The terrorist court is just one of a few unused – and potentially unconstitutional – counterterrorism laws that remain on the books. Created by Congress in the aftermath of the World Trade Center terrorist attacks in 1993 and 9/11, these legal vestiges may have run their course, been rendered useless by other laws or were never necessary.