I'm in Detroit for the holidays.. when I picked up a copy of the
Free Press the other day, I found this story on how federal agents are monitoring Muslim homes and mosques for evidence of bomb-making material. Basically, the FBI has somehow been keeping tabs on private homes and places of worship, "monitoring the air for imminent threats to health and safety", without warrants or legal permissions.
One wonders how they did this monitoring. Did they drive by with detection devices? Why only Muslim homes and places of worship? Or did they install small detectors in certain homes? Did they pose as meter readers to gain access, or perhaps it was the fed government's chums at Comcast and other telecom giants -- you know, the ones helping them out with tapping our phone lines.
happy holidays!
Nuclear search targets Muslims
December 24, 2005
BY NIRAJ WARIKOO
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Federal agents secretly monitored Muslim homes and mosques in Detroit for radiation linked to terrorist bombs, according to published reports -- a disclosure Friday that prompted disbelief and outrage in Michigan's large Islamic communities.
Under the program, agents with the FBI and U.S. Department of Energy targeted a range of private Muslim institutions without court approval or warrants. Federal officials say they set up the program in Detroit and five other cities to thwart a nuclear attack from Islamic extremists, according to a U.S. News and World Report article that was confirmed Friday by the U.S. Justice Department.
[snip]
"We're wasting time and money and getting bad information based on a misunderstanding of a faith and people," said Imam Mohammad Elahi, head of the Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights. "Our tax money is being wasted on something totally meaningless, and in some cases, illegal..."
...According to the report in U.S. News and World Report, in 2002, federal agents began tracking more than 100 Muslim institutions in six cities -- Washington and its suburbs, Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, New York and Seattle -- to detect radiation that may potentially be used to make bombs...
To meet that threat, the government "monitors the air for imminent threats to health and safety" but acts only on specific information about a potential attack without targeting any individual or group, he said.
"FBI agents do not intrude across any constitutionally protected areas without the proper legal authority," the spokesman said.
In a 2001 decision, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that police must get warrants before using devices that search through walls for criminal activity. That decision struck down the use of a heat-sensing device without a warrant that led to marijuana charges against an Oregon man.
Roehrkasse said the Justice Department believes that case does not apply to air monitoring in publicly accessible areas.
...
"Where is the proof... of any such activity?" said Dawud Walid, director of the Michigan branch of the [local advocacy council]. "It's preposterous."
Walid said the FBI should form working partnerships with Muslims rather than "snoop into the personal lives of Muslims indiscriminately."