Opinion
CASE NUMBER 12 C 3934
05-25-2012
Ali v. U.S. House of Representatives
Name of Assigned Judge
or Magistrate Judge
Sitting Judge if Other
than Assigned Judge
DOCKET ENTRY TEXT
Plaintiff's motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis [4] is granted, but the case is dismissed as frivolous and the motion for appointment of counsel [5] is denied as moot.
[×] [For further details see text below.]
Docketing to mail notices.
*Mail AO 450 form.
STATEMENT
Plaintiff HaNiyyah N. Ali, on behalf of herself and her minor child, filed a complaint along with a petition for leave to proceed in forma pauperis and a motion for appointment of counsel. In the IFP petition, Ali states that she has no income except for $533 per month she receives as an adoption subsidy. The court finds that paying the filing fees and other associated costs would create an undue hardship, and thus grants the motion.
However, the case is dismissed as frivolous. See 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B). Ali has named as a defendant the U.S. House of Representatives; she has arguably also named John Boehner, the current Speaker of the House, as well as the Office of the U.S. President and Representative Diana Degette. In her complaint, she seems to allege that she has been subjected to some sort of government mind-control experiment. She states that the NSA (presumably the National Security Agency) is using a vast wireless system to obtain audio-visual information directly from citizens' brains and to alter citizens' perceptions, moods, and motor control. She claims that the defendants created this system for the purpose of "creating mental anguish, anti-social personality disorder, memory loss . . . and dream manipulation" and to interfere with President Barack Obama's ability to govern the country. She includes a complaint of religious discrimination and retaliation due to her Islamic faith, although just how she has been singled out is not clear. She requests $100 million in damages. In addition to this case, Ali has filed at least nine other lawsuits in this district alone, many of which use almost exactly the same language despite different defendants, and a number of which have been dismissed as frivolous. See Ali v. Rockefeller, Case No. 12 C 3746; Ali v. AT&T, Case No. 12 C 3749; Ali v. The Masons, Case No. 12 C 3752; Ali v. Dirksen Federal Courthouse, Case No. 12 C 3936; Ali v. Walt Disney Magnet School, Case No. 12 C 3742; Ali v. Nat'l Security Agency, Case No. 12 C 3791; Ali v. Law Offices of Mark S. Kocol, Case No. 12 C 3890; Ali v. AT&T, Case No. 1:10-cv-02138; and Ali v. IBEW Local 21, Case No. 10 C 5466.
This court holds that Ali's complaint is factually frivolous, see Johnson v. Stovall, 233 F.3d 486, 489 (7th Cir. 2000) (noting that the standard for factual frivolousness is "when the facts alleged rise to the level of the irrational or the wholly incredible") (citation and quotation marks omitted), and fails to allege any "plausible" claim to relief as required by Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009), and Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007). In addition, the named defendants are "absolutely immune from liability for their legislative activities." Bogan v. Scott-Harris, 523 U.S. 44, 48 (1998). Thus, Ali's complaint is dismissed and the motion for appointment of counsel is denied as moot.