veiled4allah

warrantless radiation monitoring targeted Muslims

Via Daily Kos. U.S. News and World Report has the following exclusive:

In search of a terrorist nuclear bomb, the federal government since 9/11 has run a far-reaching, top secret program to monitor radiation levels at over a hundred Muslim sites in the Washington, D.C., area, including mosques, homes, businesses, and warehouses, plus similar sites in at least five other cities, U.S. News has learned. In numerous cases, the monitoring required investigators to go on to the property under surveillance, although no search warrants or court orders were ever obtained, according to those with knowledge of the program. Some participants were threatened with loss of their jobs when they questioned the legality of the operation, according to these accounts. Federal officials familiar with the program maintain that warrants are unneeded for the kind of radiation sampling the operation entails, but some legal scholars disagree. News of the program comes in the wake of revelations last week that, after 9/11, the Bush White House approved electronic surveillance of U.S. targets by the National Security Agency without court orders. These and other developments suggest that the federal government's domestic spying programs since 9/11 have been far broader than previously thought. The nuclear surveillance program began in early 2002 and has been run by the FBI and the Department of Energy's Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST). Two individuals, who declined to be named because the program is highly classified, spoke to U.S. News because of their concerns about the legality of the program. At its peak, they say, the effort involved three vehicles in Washington, D.C., monitoring 120 sites per day, nearly all of them Muslim targets drawn up by the FBI. For some ten months, officials conducted daily monitoring, and they have resumed daily checks during periods of high threat. The program has also operated in at least five other cities when threat levels there have risen: Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, New York, and Seattle.

The FBI has responded saying no warrants were necessary for this type of monitoring. Even if we accept that as true, it appears that certain people were being singled out because of their religious affiliation with no suspicion or evidence of actual wrongdoing. Big wrong, people. BIG WRONG. It seems William Arkin was all too prophetic. Oh, and don't forget the Homeland Security database called Muslims of America. Wake up and smell the coffee. One could also ask how likely this sort of monitoring would be to actually pick up any "terrorist nuclear bombs". Again, there's no evidence yet that they had any suspicion of actual wrongdoing by any of the targets, they were just going on a fishing expedition in case there happened to be a "terrorist nuclear bomb" in some mosque or a Muslim's home or business. This seems like it would have been a huge waste of money. And of course there's the question of secret warrantless spying. Don't forget to re-read fifth column appears to be missing in action (or maybe it never existed) and FBI finds no sign of al-Qa'ida sleeper cells in America. Added: Other coverage: BBC, Daily Times of Pakistan, Detroit Free Press, CNN, NBC4, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Reuters.

the durable wisdom of the Constitution

Juan Cole has an excellent pictorial commentary on how Bush's high-flown rhetoric about liberty contrasts with the reality of his Administration's policies. Check it out! Added: Liberal Oasis looks at rhetoric and reality on human rights and foreign policy.

first they came for the...

AngryDesi (who is Hindu, not Muslim, just to make things clear), calls out a prominent liberal blogger:

In the aftermath of 9/11, the government didn't remove everyone's civil rights - just the rights of those whom they thought might fit the category of guilty - namely Muslims and other assorted brown people. If Josh is okay with the government's actions, then Josh is justifying the loss of civil rights for a group of people. That makes him a statistic - one of the many Americans who believe its okay to give up civil liberties for national security as long as its not his civil liberties. As I have posted often, I am sick and tired of people who would scream about the loss of their own liberties but have no problem selling the rights of others down the river. The Justice Department, taken off the civil rights leash, arrested more than 1200 Muslims and locked them up for periods of close to a year without any charges. They were held in facilties ranging from immigrant detention centers to maximum security prisons, abused by their guards, and often held incommunicado from their family and loved ones. They then forced thousands of young Muslim men from 27 countries to show up at immigration centers to be photographed, fingerprinted, and questioned. Some of those men were detained and deported without benefit of a trial before an immigration judge or access to counsel. Guess how many terrorists these intiatives netted John Ashcroft? Zero. Zippo. Nada. If Josh thinks that this is justified, then he's just another clueless asshole who pays lip service to the principles embedded in the Constitution. If he thinks that my rights are secondary to his safety because of my skin color or religion, it's time to recall his doctorate in history - the founding fathers embedded those rights in the constitution for a reason - to protect me and my right to be treated as an equal citizen from a frightened mob empowered with the force of government. I will not allow myself or others to be treated as second-class citizens.

What he said. Note: The title of this entry comes from Niemoller (or see the updated version, more to the point of this entry). First they came for the [fill in the blank] but I did not speak out because I was not a [fill in the blank].

civil liberties hero of the day

As brother P6 has noted, the Bush Administration recently snuck into law an expansion of the Patriot Act. According to this press release, Rep. Dennis Kucinich will be introducing legislation to repeal the new law:

Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH), Co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, announced today that he will introduce legislation to repeal a section of the FY ’04 Intelligence Authorization Act that expands powers granted to the federal government in the USA PATRIOT ACT. Kucinich, who voted against and remains one of the most vocal opponents of the original PATRIOT ACT, has already introduced legislation to repeal many sections of the bill. (HR 3171) Today, Kucinich announced that when Congress returns, he intends to introduce language to repeal a section in the FY ’04 Intelligence Authorization Act that allows the government greater power to acquire financial records without judicial oversight from car dealers, pawnbrokers, travel agencies, and many other businesses. Traditional financial institutions like banks and credit unions are already subject to such demands, but this dramatic expansion of government authority will mean that records created by average citizens who purchase cars, plan vacations, or buy gifts will be subject to government seizure and analysis without the important requirements of probable cause or judicial review. This provision initially appeared in a leaked draft of the so-called “PATRIOT II”, a proposal the American public and Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle in the House and Senate rejected. “If we allow this Administration to continue this trend of expanding governmental powers at the expense of our civil rights our very democracy is at stake,” stated Kucinich. “Today, I join with over 229 communities in 35 states that represent over 29 million citizens, that have passed resolutions opposed to the law, in standing up to this abuse of power.” “It is now clear the administration’s strategy is to pass PATRIOT II in separate pieces with little public debate, in secret, and surreptitiously attached to other legislation,” continued Kucinich. “This is far from an appropriate or democratic way to handle issues that affect the fundamental liberties and freedoms of Americans.”

Go, Dennis, go!

Web Sites Listed as 'Terror' Groups

FindLaw Legal News reports:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has added Web sites to its list of "foreign terrorist organizations" for the first time, under the category of aliases for conventional groups, a State Department official said on Friday. A list published in the Federal Register includes newkach.org, kahane.org, kahane.net, kahanetzadak.com as aliases for the Jewish group Kahane Chai or Kach, which is suspected of organizing attacks on Palestinians. Under U.S. law, it would be illegal to provide money or other material support to the designated Web sites, the people who run them could be denied U.S. visas and U.S. banks must block their funds. The State Department said it was [not] yet clear how this would work in practice. But the law may not enable the United States to block access to the Web sites, if only for technical reasons.

civil liberties in Europe

Maria Farrell of Crooked Timber has a lengthly post about the erosion of civil liberties and privacy rights in Europe in the wake of 9/11. I tend to focus mostly on the U.S. since that's where I live and that's whose laws affect me, but Maria provides a broader perspective.

the war on drugs and civil liberties

Jonathan Edelstein has discussed civil liberties violations in the war on drugs such as subcontracting torture and legitimizing abductions of foreign nationals. As Jonathan noted in both posts, this foreshadows some of the tactics that America is using in the new war on terrorism. This is an angle that I am extremely interested in and hope to follow up on, inshallah. My initial search with Google turned up two articles that provide a good overview. Unfortunately, both articles are over ten years old. Hopefully, I will be able to find some more recent articles this weekend! These articles are both very long and I haven't had time to read them fully myself but I'm providing links here for those who are interested: A Society of Suspects and The Bill of Rights: A Casualty of the War on Drugs?. I also found an article that details the use of the U.S. military in the drug war.

God help us, haven't they done enough already to our civil liberties?

Justice Dept. Drafts Sweeping Expansion of Anti-Terrorism Act

Link found via Counterspin Central

Update 2/8: Good analysis and reactions at Shadow of the Hegemon, The Liquid List, Warblogging.com, The Agonist, and Oliver Willis