A jailed former spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations has picked up new legal support from the litigation arm of the public-interest group Public Citizen.
Randall Royer, who got a 20-year-sentence in 2004 after pleading guilty to helping four men join up with the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, has enlisted the Public Citizen Litigation Group in a pair of legal challenges he’s pursuing.
One case seeks to use the Privacy Act to correct records that led to his designation as a “terrorist inmate.” Another suit claims the Bureau of Prisons was required by law to publish a formal regulation to govern the process of listing prisoners as terrorists.
The Ralph Nader-founded Public Citizen isn’t the first group one might expect to get into a legal battle over issues of terrorism and the prison system, but PCLG lawyer Michael Fitzpatrick said the issues in the cases are part of his group’s core legal expertise.
“We do a lot fo work on the APA [Administrative Procedure Act,] FOIA [Freedom of Information Act], Privacy Act and government transparency,” said Fitzpatrick, who formally signed onto the cases on Tuesday. “Although this is an unusual area for us given the sort of underlying facts of the case and the way the whole thing got started, the APA, Privacy Act and constitutional due process issues is sort of up our alley and in our experience and expertise.”
Royer, litigating the cases from prison without an attorney, has rebuffed a few attempts by the Justice Department to have the cases dismissed.
In an order issued Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth rejected a bid by the Bureau of Prisons to delay discovery further in the cases.
The Center for Constitutional Rights is pursuing a similar suit on behalf of several inmates over the feds’ use of “Communication Management Units” largely for prisoners believed to have ties to terrorism.