AP: CIA And NYPD Team Up To Covertly Spy On Muslims

[MobBoss]

But the primary victims are now Muslims, whose religion continues to be vilified by Islamophobic and xenophobic individuals in these organizations.

I actually have an answer to that. When radical islam stops being the main perpetrator of terrorist acts the world over, that will cease. Simple. And what's more is that moderate muslims are going to be key in accomplishing this. In fact, I would say it will be impossible without huge efforts by moderate muslims to decry and out the more radical and violent elements of their religion.

 

[carmen510]

I actually have an answer to that. When radical islam stops being the main perpetrator of terrorist acts the world over, that will cease. Simple. And what's more is that moderate muslims are going to be key in accomplishing this. In fact, I would say it will be impossible without huge efforts by moderate muslims to decry and out the more radical and violent elements of their religion.

I would argue that nationalist or politically-motivated groups are responsible for most terrorism; it just so happens that most of these groups function in countries where Islam constitutes a significant portion of the population.

Either way, I do agree that we need moderates to be more vocal, although there seems to be a trend where two extremes of opinion tend to shout down the moderates.

 

[Theige]

Of course there have been. If there weren't, there would be no possible way to rationalize all this fear and hatred of fellow Americans who feel the same way about 9/11 as nearly every American does. How else can the apparent profiling and deprivation of constitutional rights of so many loyal Americans be explained?

Statement Opposing NYPD-CIA Spying on Muslim-Americans

Wait you said there hadn't been any homegrown terrorism since 1993, and now you completely agree with my point.

Glad we've settled that, though your posting does seem a bit odd.

I completely disagree with you about the "fear and hatred of fellow Americans." The vast majority of all people realize it's just a handful of individuals, and that 99.99% of muslims love this country and would do whatever they could to assist law enforcement in finding those individuals who would seek to murder civilians.

 

[illram]

Read the article, fascinating piece. I am surprised this is not a bigger story.

To me it presents a difficult and perhaps unanswerable question. The question is premised on the assumption that law enforcement, or whoever, has a general but vague idea of one area (i.e., radical islamic groups or perhaps a specific geographic area) more likely to hide people with hostile intent.

How do you balance the need to prevent terrorist attacks with aggressive surveillance, against the need to maintain the trust and respect of the community from which a lot of the problems arise? I.e., everyone agrees that it is crucial to develop trust between the police and the community in order to combat violence and crime. I don't think catching terrorists is much different from this basic concept that most people in law enforcement already know and agree with. However, when you cross the line into creating animosity or an "us and them" attitude between the police and that community, are the gains (i.e., potential leads through underhanded or aggressive tactics, even foiling a plot) outweighed by the potential losses (i.e., losing that community's trust and forever blocking them from integrating, and therefore risking an endless future of animosity and potentially even more attacks as more and more hostility, and thus hostile intent, is bred.)

It's a question as applicable to harsh crime ridden ghettos as it is to combating terrorism. It is present on a global and a local scale. I still don't know the answer but I suspect that ultimately it is better to create trust and respect, and thus encourage the community to find and prevent hostility on its own, than to perpetuate an adversarial relationship and get entrenched in a "war" on terrorism, or drugs, or crime, or whatever it is. That is not to say establishing trust and respect means no aggressive investigations--on the contrary, it means effective and aggressive investigations, but they are aided by the community and encouraged when the community trusts and respects the authorities conducting it, rather than fearing them.

It's a similar concept to the "trust gap" that has been described in Police training manuals. I have posted about it before, ages ago. When the community distrusts the police and do not want to call them, or talk to them, or in any way cooperate with them, that's a trust gap. Criminals thrive in that gap. And terrorists are criminals, in my opinion.

 

[Formaldehyde]

The simple answer is that you don't. That one must realize that freedom and liberty are far more important than a bit more perceived security from deliberately harassing, discriminating against, and depriving millions of loyal Muslims in the US of their civil rights. After all, these are basic premises which this country was founded.

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin

Thousands have been unfairly deported and far more have apparently voluntarily left the country in fear of persecution. This report just covered the first 3 years after 9/11:

New ACLU Report Documents Devastating Effects of Post-9/11 Deportations on Immigrant Communities and Families

NEW YORK-At a roundtable discussion today with more than 20 human rights advocates and Muslim community members, the American Civil Liberties Union released a new report documenting the devastating effects that the Bush administration's "anti-terrorism" policies have had on immigrant families and communities.

"The U.S. government unfairly deported thousands of immigrants after the September 11 attacks-simply because they were from Muslim countries and were in the wrong place at the wrong time," said Anthony Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. "For each man who was arrested, there was a network of children, parents, siblings, neighbors and community members who depended on him."

The report, "Worlds Apart: How Deporting Immigrants After September 11 Tore Families Apart and Shattered Communities," shares the stories of 13 men who filed a complaint with the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention charging that they were unfairly arrested and imprisoned by the United States. The ACLU said that the men were among hundreds of Muslims who were arbitrarily and indiscriminately arrested even though they had not engaged in criminal activity of any sort. The men languished in jail - sometimes in solitary confinement - for weeks and sometimes months, even after it became clear that they were innocent of any charges related to terrorism.

As documented in "Worlds Apart," the communities that were home to these men were also devastated. Many merchants in predominantly Muslim communities have been forced out of business since the September 11 attacks, and some residents fled to Canada or Europe out of fear that they or their family members would be unjustly targeted. One neighborhood discussed in the report is "Little Pakistan" in Brooklyn, New York. More than a third of Brooklyn's once vibrant Pakistani population has either been deported or moved voluntarily after the September 11 attacks.

"The United States government correctly condemns other countries when they violate human rights, but we have to be equally vigilant in making sure that those rights are not violated here at home," said Ann Beeson, Associate Legal Director of the ACLU. "Unfortunately, the United States continues to arrest and imprison Muslims without evidence and deport them without charges."

And this unfair deliberate targeting continues even today:

Rights Groups: U.S. Government Targeting Muslims via U.S. Immigration System

New York, NY...The U.S. government's aggressive use of the immigration system in its counterterrorism efforts discriminates against Muslims and violates international human rights law, according to a Briefing Paper on the issue released today by AALDEF and the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) at NYU School of Law. The Briefing Paper, Under the Radar: Muslims Deported, Detained, and Denied on Unsubstantiated Terrorism Allegations, exposes the many ways in which U.S. officials take advantage of the lax standards and lack of transparency that mark the immigration system as particularly ripe for abuse.

"The U.S. government is deporting, detaining, and denying benefits to Muslim immigrants on the basis of innuendo, religious and cultural affiliations, or political beliefs," said CHRGJ Faculty Director, Smita Narula. "These practices violate fundamental human rights and American values and have had profoundly devastating impacts on Muslim families and communities in the United States."

The Briefing Paper includes a number of case studies that suggest extremely problematic patterns of the U.S. government's targeting of Muslims through the immigration system. The Briefing Paper details how the U.S. government is:

* Making unsubstantiated terrorism-related allegations against Muslim immigrants without bringing official charges in cases involving ordinary immigration violations.

* Subjecting Muslim immigrants to detention in cases involving minor violations that, ordinarily, do not entail detention.

* Imposing flimsy immigration charges--such as false statement charges for failure to disclose tenuous ties to Muslim charitable organizations--in a manner that targets Muslim immigrants for religious and political activities and affiliations.

* Applying overbroad statutory language of the terrorism bar provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) to remove, bar, and detain Muslims.

* Relying on vulnerable immigration status to coerce Muslim immigrants to become informants for federal law enforcement officials.

"President Obama recently reiterated that the U.S. is not at war with Islam. However, we have a long way to go before Muslim immigrants are treated with the fairness and dignity that is owed to all immigrant communities in the United States," said Sameer Ahmed, AALDEF Attorney/Skadden Fellow. "It is time for our government to live up to its rhetoric and make needed reforms to the immigration system in order to prevent these widespread abuses."

 

[Martin Alvito]

I'd have to agree with the position that FBI/NYPD counter-terrorism operations (including this) would be fine, but that when the CIA gets involved over to the FBI's objections we have a problem. That's an artificial, statutory barrier to operations (which probably explains why CIA's leaders regularly thumb their noses at it)...but that doesn't make CIA's actions legal.

I don't think it really matters what they think... blame it on the 112th Congress.

That's where the oversight responsibility lies, and they deserve the bulk of the blame at the end of the day. If something like this is getting picked up in the mainstream media and Congress isn't acting on it, that's failure to carry out what political science would define as the reasonable role of Congress.

 

[Formaldehyde]

The FBI apparently thinks the NYPD is illegally profiling Muslims, as well as engaging in other tactics which are illegal besides involving the CIA in domestic operations. It will be interesting to see what the Justice Department does now that they can no longer ignore these issues.

 

[Thoughtful Thug]

* Relying on vulnerable immigration status to coerce Muslim immigrants to become informants for federal law enforcement officials.

I live 2 houses down from a muslim family owned Drive-Thru business.(They came to the US in the 90s from Jordan) And they do have a reputation for narcing people. So I am not suprised about these things since we see it here with our local law enforcement.