SLACKJOT

Know This History

azmatzahra:

It took the rise of Donald Trump for many Americans to first learn about NSEERS, the post-9/11 special registration program for non-immigrant males from mostly Muslim-majority countries. But for years, many of us have been writing about this—and other programs like it—that disproportionately target Muslims or those perceived to be Muslims.

Trump’s rhetoric may surprise you, but it is not new. It began even before 9/11 and continues today, often transcending political party. Here are just eight examples.

1. The “Secret Evidence” Law

Passed in 1996, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act created a new court specifically for government cases to deport aliens accused of terrorism, based on classified evidence that would remain secret, even to the accused and their lawyers. (It also did many other things.) It was expanded the same year through the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act so that “secret evidence” could be used to deport even lawful residents in immigration proceedings.

Almost every single secret evidence case known to the public involved Muslims or Arabs. http://bit.ly/2eO55vO The Clinton-era law quickly became notorious among these communities. People were deported, with no understanding of the testimony against them, or who had offered it. “It seemed like I was trying to defend my client blindfolded and handcuffed,” a Dallas lawyer in a secret evidence case told the New York Times. http://nyti.ms/2f7Yurl

When George W. Bush ran for president in 2000, he vowed not to use secret evidence in immigration cases. That year, 78% of American Muslims voted Republican in the presidential election. (Of course, 2004 was a different story.)

2. The Bridgeview Op

Also in the 90’s, a small community outside of Chicago was the focus of one of the FBI’s biggest counterterrorism surveillance operations before 9/11. The failed op—dubbed “Vulgar Betrayal"—was secret at the time, but Bridgeview’s Muslim and Arab communities had their suspicions, especially about the building across the street from the mosque. No one has gone inside the community it targeted, or explored the havoc it wrought there, until Bridgeview native Assia Boundaoui began working on a film. Here’s a sneak peek: http://bit.ly/2g4oDMg

3. The National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, or NSEERS

At this point, you’ve likely heard about Special Registration, a post-9/11 counterterrorism program registering more than 90,000 male individuals from 24 Muslim-majority countries (and Eritrea & North Korea). At the time, the government claimed it had caught terrorists through the system. The reality is that not a single registered person has ever been convicted of terrorism. Instead, more than 13,000 were involved in deportation proceedings. Because the program often did not give proper notice to targets, according to the ACLU, and often violated their right to counsel, it resulted in the deportation of “thousands of men and boys from Arab- and Muslim-majority countries for civil immigration violations that were frequently based simply on a failure to understand NSEERS’ arcane rules.” http://wapo.st/2gGqR4p

4. The Interviews

In the wake of 9/11, an unknown number of Muslims across America received letters from the Department of Justice like this one, which is on display at the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Michigan: http://bit.ly/2foCF7z

An excerpt: “During this interview, you will be asked questions that could reasonably assist in the efforts to learn about those who support, commit, or associate with those who commit terrorism.”

5. Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative (NSI), Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs), & Fusion Centers

In 2007, an elderly Pakistani-American man who worked at a kiosk at the Mall of America forgot his phone at the mall’s food court. When he went to retrieve it, it was cordoned off, and he was interrogated by the mall’s counterterrorism unit, also known as a “fusion center.” The unit filed a “Suspicious Activity Report” or SAR detailing his interrogation, which you can read here http://bit.ly/2g2Se53. Over and over, he was grilled about his background. But because that SAR was then shared with the police and the FBI, a few weeks later, the FBI show up at the home of his son, asking if he knew anyone in Afghanistan. http://to.pbs.org/2fDph2s

This bizarre tale of events are the result of a nationwide post-9/11 SAR initiative for local authorities, the state government and the federal government to collect and share information, with the goal of helping detect and prevent terrorism-related activity.

But what exactly is considered ”suspicious activity”? I dug through the definitions years ago. Some were truly baffling: For example, the LAPD considered dining & dashing suspicious activity, as well as people “who carry on long conversations on pay or cellular telephones.” Maryland’s fusion center said “overly cautious” drivers. Kentucky specified “people avoiding eye contact,“ "people in places they don’t belong,” or being “over dressed for the weather.” http://to.pbs.org/2eOeAuH

When GW Schulz at the Center for Investigative Reporting looked at who wound up in the SARs obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, almost two-thirds deemed "suspicious” were minorities. Additionally, more than half of the mall’s suspicious activity reports were then shared w/law enforcement agencies, like the FBI. It’s worth watching this by CIR for a clear understanding: vimeo.com/28556335

In 2010, the federal government moved forward with an expansion of a new nationwide suspicious activity database, which continues today: http://bit.ly/2g5YRVE

And as for the more than 70 local fusion centers, where many of those SARs originate, (mapped here, btw: http://to.pbs.org/2fRslYt), here’s what a bipartisan Senate Committee’s two-year investigation into their effectiveness concluded: Fusion Centers have “not produced useful intelligence to support federal counterterrorism efforts” and have “too often wasted money and stepped on Americans’ civil liberties” http://to.pbs.org/2fMWeau

6. Controlled Application Review and Resolution Program, or CARRP

Formerly secret, this federal program in place since at least 2008 delays or denies citizenship or immigration benefits, based on what rights groups have only been able to identify as religion, national origin, and similar factors. Many of those affected by it are eligible to become residents, but whose applications have sat for sometimes more than 10 years. Many of them are Muslim or originate from Muslim-majority countries. But it goes even further for some Muslims with immigration delays that seem unexplainable, until an FBI agent knocks on the door offering immigration help in exchange for becoming an informant. It’s worth reading Talal Ansari and Siraj Datoo’s investigation: http://bzfd.it/2gr6Pw8

7. The No-Fly List

You’ve heard of this list of nearly half a million names, but do you know how broad and ill-defined the criteria for getting on the list is? Or how it’s riddled with errors, and yet so difficult to get a name off the list? That it’s almost entirely “populated by Muslims or individuals assumed to be Muslim”? Or that some of those who are unfairly on the list have been approached by the FBI and told that if they become informants, they can be taken off the list? Here’s Diala Shamas, again, to explain: http://cnn.it/2foICBp

8. Law Enforcement “Muslim Outreach”

For a long time now, government officials have touted the important of Muslims in the U.S. working with law enforcement. In fact, Hillary Clinton brought it up during the Oct. 9 debate. But here’s a look at how some of those efforts have gone over the last 15 years:

The Associated Press’ Pulitzer-winning investigation into the NYPD’s surveillance of Muslims shed incredible light on how the department had spied on the city’s Muslim partners. For example, Brooklyn-based Imam Sheik Reda Shata, who had partnered with the FBI and done local outreach with his community, was actually under secret surveillance by the NYPD. When he found out, here’s what he told the AP: “This is very sad. What is your feeling if you see this about people you trusted? … It’s a bitter feeling.” http://to.pbs.org/2grfVZw

Beyond distrust among the communities, what were the results? According to the AP, “In more than six years of spying on Muslim neighborhoods, eavesdropping on conversations and cataloguing mosques, the New York Police Department’s secret Demographics Unit never generated a lead or triggered a terrorism investigation.” I don’t have the time to point out every one of the AP’s explosive findings. Just take a look for yourself — it’s stunning: http://bit.ly/2fc75MU

But it’s not just the NYPD. Let’s move on to the FBI, and how for more than four years, it used “community outreach” meetings at mosques in Northern California as a guise to collect intelligence on congregants, according to documents obtained by the ACLU. Sometimes, the FBI would begin by asking congregants about hate crimes, to get them to open up, before proceeding to other questioning. There’s no evidence the FBI informed the Muslims they interviewed that the information was for intelligence, or would be recorded/disseminated: http://to.pbs.org/2f8bJZ7

Or how about the time an undercover informant for the FBI said he was trained to entrap Muslims he surveilled. But here’s the kicker: Those Muslims were so alarmed by the informant’s talk of violence they actually reported him to the FBI. It’s so worth listening to Sam Black’s This American Lifeepisode that takes you through the entire story: http://bit.ly/2g5YmuI

Then, there’s the FBI’s data mining system, “Domain Management,” which Trevor Aaronson exposed, pinpoints ethnic & Muslim communities: http://bit.ly/1czcwu6

Then there are the FBI training materials which instruct agents at Quantico that “mainstream” Muslims are violent, radical & linked to terrorism, as exposed by Spencer Ackerman: http://bit.ly/2g4B4oV

Even the Air Force can fall prey, publishing a paper stating that Muslim women wearing headscarves represent “passive terrorism” and that “sexual deprivation” drives support for militant groups. As exposed by Murtaza Hussain: http://bit.ly/2fDxHXF

These and other bungled efforts have left many Muslims pretty wary of “law enforcement Muslim outreach.” Here’s just one example of something I personally hear regularly among Muslim communities: http://bit.ly/1hg4gqC

All of this is to say that a Muslim database shouldn’t be so shocking given the history. The government has been implementing it for years; Muslims (and those assumed to be Muslim) have been experiencing it for years; Journalists have been covering it for years.  And it shouldn’t take Trump’s rhetoric to know it.

If this history is unfamiliar to you, it’s probably unfamiliar to many of those in your circles. Learn it. Share it. Follow it forward.