Posted on 05/16/2006 6:09:36 PM PDT by LSUfan
Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have asked the FBI to release documents detailing any post-September 11 surveillance of Southern California mosques and Muslims.
Local Islamic leaders said they enlisted the ACLUs help after the FBI provided little information in response to their allegations that the agency was monitoring them and their places of worship. They say some Muslims are afraid to go to mosques because they fear government monitoring.
According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, Shakeel Syed, executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, said numerous Muslims reported being questioned by the FBI about their religious practices and sermons given during prayer services. The ACLU filed the request under the federal Freedom of Information Act on behalf of individual Muslims and six Islamic groups, including the Shura Council, an Anaheim-based federation of more than 60 mosques, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights group whose Southern California chapter is also in Anaheim. The ACLU has used similar strategies to get government documents on other groups monitored by the FBI. Records obtained last year on behalf of 150 organisations showed that FBI counter-terrorism agents had been covertly watching several activist groups, including the Catholic Worker and Greenpeace, since the September 11 attacks for links to violent or disruptive activities. In January, the FBI acknowledged that agents monitored mosques, Muslim-owned businesses and homes throughout the country for radiation levels.
The authorities have said they acted on intelligence that Al Qaeda planned to use a radioactive dirty bomb in the US. The surveillance programme, which consisted of checking for radioactivity in the air, began after the 9/11 attacks and continued through 2003.
After the radiation monitoring was disclosed in December 2005, FBI officials met with angry Muslim and Arab-American leaders in Washington to explain the surveillance programme. In an email, FBI officials said they would address the ACLUs request, but did not say whether records would be turned over. The FBI does not investigate anyone based on their lawful activities, religious or political beliefs, said Assistant Director J Stephen Tidwell of the LA office. He added that FBI officials met with members of several local Middle Eastern communities, including Muslims, last month to address their concerns at an agency-sponsored town hall meeting in Los Angeles. However, Shakeel Syed was quoted by the Los Angeles Times as saying that the FBI had a practice of coming in through the back door to question people based only on the premise of suspicion
These people will lead to our destruction!
Good. Those would be the muslims using the mosques to plot terrorism.
Everything I need to know about muslims, they taught me on 9-11.
They are good teachers.
It's about time someone did something about those who are helping our enemies here while they enjoy the benefits of living here.
I see the American Caliphate Leftist Utopians are at it again.
That's why this has all been blown up in the first place. The Muslim organizations know they're being watched - as well they should be. Absolutely NO info should be released on this surveillance. None. Nada. Zip.
Nah. The ACLU will bend over and submit.
"Where would you like to place my chin?"
Really? The government can monitor me going to church. All they'll see and hear is a lot of standing and sitting, a few hymns, a long sermon, the Lord's prayer, and a few "peace be with you" exchanges. There's no reason to fear being monitored IF YOU ARE NOT DOING ANYTHING WRONG.
If you practiced the ACLUs delirious positions, we would either be in chains or caskets. Their ideology is much worse than communism. It is hysteric nonesense based on some pseudo-morphed sense of righteousness and haughtiness. It simply doesen't make logical sense.
There. Fixed it.
Ooo...that's good! Is that yours? If so, may I borrow it for a parody?
I don't hate much, but I hate the ACLU.
That's, That's racial profiling!
...and it's about DAMN TIME.
No kidding. All anti-American liberals have been snapping up this book in droves...

That's, That's racial profiling!
Really? I wasn't aware that "Muslim" was a race. Does that mean "Christian" is a race too? ;o)
Yeah..but with the aclu..we all know what "peace be with you" means..code words for violence against women, minorities and those who want to kill us..it's as plain as the nose on my face..
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