Katherine Kersten: Klobuchar, Coleman help revive John Doe

Last week, "John Doe" appeared to be down for the count. But the congressional initiative to grant lawsuit protection to people who report suspicious behavior has a new lease on life. Minnesota's two senators played no small part in its last-minute resuscitation.

John Doe, you recall, was the term that the "flying imams" used in their federal suit to designate unnamed passengers who had alerted authorities to the imams' "suspicious" behavior on a US Airways aircraft. The imams were removed from the plane in the Twin Cities in November, questioned and released.

The imams' suit -- which targeted the John Doe citizens as well as the airline and the airport -- prompted widespread concern and inspired U.S. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., to introduce legislation to give immunity to such whistleblowers.

Last week, the John Doe provision became mired in technicalities as Democratic leaders tried to kill it in a conference committee on a homeland security bill. A Senate attempt to keep it alive as an amendment to another bill fell three votes short of passage.

But Tuesday night, King announced that the John Doe provision would be part of the security bill after all. The House is expected to vote on the bill this week, and the Senate next week.

I had a hunch that John Doe's resurrection might be just around the corner when I talked to Sen. Amy Klobuchar on Monday.

Klobuchar's vote was one of the three that seemed to sink John Doe. But on Monday, she told me that she had decided to support the measure. "It came up in the middle of the night, attached to an unrelated bill," she said. "I was thinking about a case I had in Bloomington as [Hennepin] county attorney. A security guard reported a series of fires set by a 'Middle Eastern man,' but police discovered he had set the fires himself. I wanted to make sure that the [immunity provision] had exceptions that would preserve the right to sue under such circumstances."

After the late-night vote, Klobuchar talked to Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., a cochairman of the committee and a supporter of the John Doe provision. He alleviated her concerns, she said.

Sen. Norm Coleman backed John Doe's resuscitation. He served on the conference committee that hammered out the language, and brought his perspective as former chairman of the subcommittee on investigations of the Senate's Homeland Security committee. He supported the measure's inclusion in the bill throughout negotiations.

In an interview on Tuesday night, King said that when the Democrats took control of Congress in January, they promised voters to pass the ultimate homeland security bill. "But how can you have that if you don't give protection to people who report potential terrorist activity?" he asked. After the John Doe amendment failed in the Senate, Democrats were "too embarrassed" to continue opposing immunity for people who report suspicious activity, he said.

Still, King added, Democratic conferees' support was lukewarm. "They wanted to water it down, take all the teeth out of it," he said. For example, they opposed making the provision retroactive to Nov. 20, in order to shield the passengers who reported the imams' "suspicious" behavior. And they favored giving immunity only to individuals who report potential terrorist activity, not ordinary crimes.

"But how can the average person tell if he sees someone illegally buying machine guns whether it's for Al-Qaida or a bank robbery?" he asked.

In its final form, the John Doe provision gives lawsuit immunity to individuals who make good faith reports of suspicious activities, and entitles them to attorneys fees and costs if they are sued, according to a spokesman for Coleman. It is retroactive to Oct. 1, 2006.

If the homeland security bill passes, it will be harder to discredit tipsters as engaging in racial profiling. Protection for John Does can come none too soon. Already, people are hesitating to report their suspicions for fear of being tarred as racial profilers. For example, the video store clerk who foiled a terrorist plan to attack Fort Dix, N.J., thought twice before he contacted authorities after seeing a video that showed the alleged plotters shooting guns at a target range and shouting "God is great!" . "Should I call someone or is that being racist?" he told the New York Post he had asked a co-worker.

"Radical Islamic groups are using lawsuits as weapons to intimidate and silence their opponents," says Steven Emerson, a terrorism expert who has testified before Congress and was himself the target of a lawsuit. "Suing passengers is an extension of their effort to intimidate and stifle people who simply report suspicious activity."

Every day, we read of the urgent need for John Doe immunity. This week, the Transportation Security Administration acknowledged that terrorists may be making dry runs for attacks at U.S. airports. In recent months, security personnel have discovered items that mimic bombs and improvised explosive devices in checked and carry-on luggage. According to a TSA bulletin, these could be "pre-attack security probes," or repeat operations to desensitize security officials.

Katherine Kersten • kkersten@startribune.com Join the conversation at my blog, Think Again, which can be found at www.startribune.com/thinkagain.