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New guidelines from the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, (FBI), abuse the religious freedom
of Muslims in the U.S. A national Islamic advocacy group, CAIR, said
on May 30 that the
new Justice Department guidelines give FBI agents wide latitude in
monitoring the Internet,
libraries and religious institutions which could lead to abuses
similar to those experienced
by minority groups in the past. Black, Eastern European, Russian and
Japanese
Americans are a few of those previously targeted. Attorney General
John Ashcroft has put
forth a new plan relaxing the old guidelines that require agents to
show that they had
probable cause or information from an informer that crimes were
being committed to begin
invasive investigations. The Washington Post newspaper reported that
due to the new
guidelines, some civil liberties groups express fears of a ‘Big
Brother’ government
monitoring its citizens.
The FBI is now telling the American people, ‘You no longer have to
do anything unlawful
in order to get that knock on the door,’” said Laura Murphy,
director of the American Civil
Liberties Union’s Washington office. “You can be doing a perfectly
legal activity like
worshipping or talking in a chat room, they can spy on you anyway.”
In response to the new guidelines, Jason Erb, Director of
Governmental Affairs for CAIR,
said, ”All Americans support the investigation of terrorists or
those who are suspected of
engaging in or planning terrorist acts, and anyone having
information about such attacks
should immediately contact the FBI. But America must not respond to
past intelligence
failures by adopting a ‘round up the usual suspects’ approach to
counter terrorism. It is
one thing to allow FBI agents the reasonable ability to surf the
Internet for criminal activity
or do research on issues not related to specific criminal cases, and
quite another to have
agents entering mosques claiming to be Muslims or people of other
faiths seeking
spiritual guidance. Mosques, along with other religious
institutions, are open to all
Americans and have nothing to hide, but that openness should not be
abused by using
tactics of deception to spy on a religious minority engaged in
lawful activities. We
cannot win the war on terrorism by turning the clock back to the
days when the FBI
infiltrated groups and harassed individuals engaged in
Constitutionally-protected
political dissent.”
Representative John Conyers, Jr. of Michigan, ranking member of the
House Judiciary
Committee commented on the new guidelines saying, “Threatening the
private practice of
religion constitutes a war on freedom, not a war on terror. I hope
it is clear to all that
taking it upon himself to institute new rules to wiretap religious
organizations, including
places of worship, the Attorney General will do little to help us
battle terrorism. Instead, it
will simply further alienate the American Muslim community, a
crucial ally in our efforts.”
A national poll released in May indicated that nearly 75% of Muslim
Americans either know
someone who has or have themselves experienced an act of anti-Muslim
discrimination,
harassment, verbal abuse or physical attack since September 11. This
percentage is part
of the estimated 7 million Muslims in America, who are included with
the more than 1.2
billion Muslims worldwide.
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