FBI Muslims’ bias suit reversed ruling

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court sided unanimously with the Biden administration Friday and reversed a lower court decision that had allowed a lawsuit to go forward by Muslim men claiming FBI religious bias. But the justices’ limited decision did not end the case, and the men and their lawyers said they would continue to pursue their lawsuit.

The government had argued that allowing the lawsuit to go forward could reveal national security secrets. The high court, however, didn’t decide if that was the case, or whether the lawsuit should have been dismissed.

Instead, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that a federal appeals court had made an error when looking at the case. He said that the appeals court was wrong to conclude that a longstanding “state secrets” privilege, which protects the government from having to reveal certain information, was altered by Congress’ passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. As a result, the court sent the case back for further review.

Ahilan Arulanantham, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a longtime lawyer for the men in the case, said the Supreme Court made it clear that it was only issuing an “extremely narrow” ruling. He said he was “quite pleased” the court let the case continue and did not rule more broadly for the government.

“We look forward to pursuing our clients claims and to holding the FBI accountable,” he said.

The case involves three men from Southern California. They filed a class action lawsuit claiming the FBI spied on them and hundreds of others in a surveillance operation that began several years after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist at