Congress fails to adopt lawsuit guards

WASHINGTON, July 20 (UPI) -- Protection from lawsuits for wrongly reporting suspicious behavior has failed to pass the U.S. Congress.

The legislation was inspired by a suit brought by a group of Muslim imams who were removed from a U.S. Airways flight to Phoenix before it left Minneapolis last November, The Washington Times reported. Some passengers on the plane said they had seen the imams, behaving suspiciously by praying together before boarding.

The imams, who were allowed to leave after several hours of FBI questioning, sued the airline, the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Airports Commission and unnamed passengers.

Democratic leaders said that the lawsuit protection could lead to racial profiling. The provision was kept out of a homeland security bill during a House-Senate conference.

"This is a slap in the face of good citizens who do their patriotic duty and come forward, and it caves in to radical Islamists," said Rep. Peter King, R-NY, who sits on the House Homeland Security Committee.