Hardly surprising, given the current climate in Washington:
Since Sept. 12, 2001, Muslim Americans have been under the watchful eye of U.S. law enforcement — most notably, the FBI, whose focus shifted in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks from tracking domestic criminals to preventing terrorist attacks.
About two-thirds of the estimated 2.5 million Muslim Americans were born abroad, according to a 2007 survey by the Pew Research Center, and they travel frequently to their native countries. Such comings and goings have given FBI agents plenty of fodder for inquiry.
In that same survey, 53 percent said it was more difficult to be a Muslim since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Most also believed the U.S. government "singles out" Muslims for increased surveillance and monitoring.
Singled out? I wonder why...
Since Sept. 11, news reports throughout the country have detailed cases of Muslims being targeted for interviews or placed on watch lists. The FBI has been criticized for infiltrating mosques and asking Muslims to spy on friends and family members.
The FBI infiltrate suspect mosques where jihad and Islamism is being preached by radical Saudi-financed imams? We can't have that! Better a thousand Americans die than one Muslim have his feelings hurt, Saddiq.
The project, an extension of the ACLU's 5-year-old Muslim Rights Task Force, will provide volunteer attorneys for Muslims questioned by law enforcement officers. Other organizations, such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, have founded similar programs.
Through an interpreter speaking Farsi, Jim Hacking, a St. Louis attorney and convert to Islam, told the men that the ACLU "is concerned that Muslims — both citizens and noncitizens — have had their rights violated by law enforcement officials."
"We, as Muslims, have an obligation to report any wrongdoing we're aware of," Hacking continued. "But what we're concerned about is when people like you go into an interview with the FBI or police without knowing your rights."
All but two members of the ACLU's Muslim Rights Task Force are Muslim. They are professors, imams, doctors, attorneys and engineers. A recent event raised $20,000 toward hiring a part-time ACLU staffer to work solely on the Muslim Rights Project. Jones said the organization will also expedite calls to its office coming from Muslims in the area as part of the project.
It's obvious why the ACLU wants this to be mostly a Muslim only program. As one ex-FBI officer famously said before refusing to wear a wire to record a suspect Muslim terrorist, "One Muslim doesn't record another Muslim."
Here's the thing...
If your only knowledge about Muslims and Islam for the past ten years came from this article, you would think the FBI was simply harassing people without cause because they wore funny long beards and tied up the airplane restroom for too long.
You would learn nothing about 9/11, the attempted Christmas panty bombing, th eFort Hood killings, or the funding of Jihad terror through Islamic "charities".
Interestingly enough, one of the sob stories in this article concerns a Muslim whom the FBI interrogated because of a contribution he gave to the Islamic African Relief Agency (IARA)/Islamic Relief Agency (ISRA).
Here's a little something to chew on:
IARA/ISRA is headquartered in Khartoum, Sudan and maintains over 40 offices throughout the world, including in the United States. IARA is formerly affiliated with Maktab Al-Khidamat (MK), which was co-founded and financed by UBL and is the precursor organization of al Qaida. Records indicate several years of cooperation among IARA, MK, and UBL, starting in 1997, including a fundraising trip in 2000 during which one of IARA's Afghanistan leaders accompanied the Afghanistan MK leader to Sudan and other locations in the Middle East and raised $5 million for MK activities. Additional information indicates an IARA leader was involved in discussions to help relocate UBL to secure safe harbor for him. Among others, these discussions included representatives for UBL and MK, along with Lajnat al-Dawa (LDI). In addition, a Sudanese individual traveled to Mali and stayed with an IARA director while assessing whether Mali could serve as a safe harbor for UBL.
Evidence also shows that as of early 2003, IARA was responsible for moving funds to the Palestinian territories for use in terrorist activities, notably serving as a conduit to Hamas in one Western European country. In part, funds were raised through IARA collection boxes marked “Allah” and “Israel ,” signaling the funds would be directed towards attacks against Israelis. Within the last year, IARA was reportedly linked to the Belgium office of the Al-Aqsa Foundation.
The U.S.-based branch of IARA/ISRA is located in Columbia, Missouri, and was founded in 1985 as the “Islamic African Relief Agency, United States Affiliate.” In 1999, the charity substituted “American” for “African” in its name.
This particular 'charity' was officially designated a terrorist front by the US government back in 2004. But to read the article, you'd think it was something like the United Way.
Whether the ACLU wants to admit it or not, we have a problem here in America with home grown jihad stoked by radical imams in America's mosques and madrassas. And since a large part of the Muslim community in America is either supportive, disinterested or intimidated, the only way to combat it while still giving Islam and Muslims Constitutional protection is to infiltrate these mosques, actively interrogate any suspects and use every technique available to encourage Muslims to man up and help purge the Islamists from our midst.
The ACLU program is undoubtedly legal, although it stinks of the sort of Leftist groupthink I despise..can anyone imagine the ACLU putting together a special unit to advocate for American victims of jihad?
But it simply puts another roadblock in the way of the FBI and other law enforcement when it comes to combating jihad here in America. Ex-prosecutor Andy McCarthy has it exactly right...it will intimidate agents from investigating suspect Muslims and organizations in the first place, especially given who's in the White house right now.
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