There are a number of problems with human rights in the United States at present in my opinion. I would like to address a couple of them with certain specifics as I see them.
First, I would like to point out what I see as an example of unequal treatment of ethnic groups under the law.
The United States government regularly scrutinizes Muslim charities and the alternative remittance system known as "hawala" to ensure that no funds are delivered to Muslim groups in the Mideast which the State Department might consider terrorists. Examples of targeted charities are the Holy Land Foundation, Global Relief Foundation (GRF), Benevolence International Foundation (BIF), and Islamic American Relief Agency (IARA), though there are numerous other examples as well. Many have been closed and/or had their assets seized on the basis of minimal, if any, real evidence.
This stands in sharp contrast to the treatment of fundraising efforts in the U.S. for violently radical pro-settler militant groups who set up outposts in the Occupied West Bank. The case of Yaakov Teitel seems a case in point. Mr. Teitel is, from my understanding, a U.S./Israeli dual-national citizen from Florida who stands accused of engaging in a 12-year murder spree against Palestinians, homosexuals, and leftist intellectuals in Israel and the Occupied Territories. Such radicalized individuals are not uncommon in the settler movement, many hold U.S./Israeli dual-national citizenship and receive funding from the U.S., and many are violently radical, occasionally threatening to assault even Israeli Defense Forces troops if the troops get in their way. Yet the funding that supports these communities of violent activists appears to come in large part from private donations originating in the United States. In November of 2009, a fundraiser was held for the Hebron Fund, a pro-settler organization, at Citi Field, a facility owned by the New York Mets. In the words of Adalah (The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel) spokesman Andrew Kadi, "You have about 700 Israeli settlers living among 150,000 Palestinians and if you were to go there you would see that the Palestinians are under constant threat of violent and racist attacks by these settlers and this is what the Hebron Fund is supporting". Such fundraisers are regular events in the U.S. Yet despite the violence these fundraisers seem to support, despite the responsibility that the U.S. government presumably has to prevent violence by its citizens living abroad against others, the settler organizations are not listed as terrorists by the State Department and the Justice Department does not seem to treat the funding of militant pro-settler groups the same way it would treat the funding of Islamic militants. This is not only unjust, it has repercussions for our foreign policy (or could be characterized to in fact be our foreign policy), and undermines U.S. credibility in the Mideast.
In addition, it seems to me that Muslims prosecuted under anti-terror legislation in the U.S. seldom seem to receive fair trials. As a case in point, I would point out the case of Dr. Sami Al-Arian. For the sake of brevity, I'll merely suggest examining the journalistic efforts of John Sugg, a writer for the publication Creative Loafing, formerly titled the Weekly Planet, whose reporting on the Al-Arian case surpassed all other mainstream media for accuracy and objectivity. Mr. Sugg was frequently highly critical of the judicial process in the Al-Arian case, and the failures of that process were glaring. In addition, I will mention that at one point a hearing was scheduled regarding Dr. Al-Arian's case in the court of Judge Gerald Lee, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia for September 11, 2007. This was glaringly inappropriate, and illustrates how the government resorts to referencing the 9-11 attacks as a substitute for real evidence in terrorism trials. It should be noted that Dr. Al-Arian was never accused of any violent crime, but nevertheless spent years in prison and remains in home detention trial on criminal contempt charges.
This stands in contrast to the case of Seminole, Florida Podiatrist Robert Jay Goldstein, an individual arrested when police arrived outside his condominium to address a domestic dispute and found that he had assembled an arsenal of "two light anti-armor rockets, a .50-caliber sniper rifle, hand grenades, assorted guns and assault rifles and 20 homemade bombs, among other lethal weapons and magazines and articles on how to build destructive devices", along with "a typed list of 50 Islamic worship centers in the Tampa Bay area and Florida", and detailed plans to, in his own words, "Kill all 'rags' at this Islamic Education Center -- ZERO residual presence -- maximum effect". He was not labeled a terrorist, received little media scrutiny, instead was treated as "mentally unstable", and received a sentence of 12 years and seven months. Yet more alarming was the treatment of his collaborators. Michael Hardee, a Temple Terrace dentist, was sentenced to three years and five months in prison. His ex-wife, Kristi Persinger, was "sentenced to just three years for possessing illegal bombs that were hidden in the bedroom closet of the home she shared with Goldstein". Coincidentally, Dr. Goldstein and his associates were apprehended in roughly the same urban area as Dr. Al-Arian (an area in which I also reside), at the same time that Dr. Al-Arian was being prosecuted under anti-terror legislation. Yet while the government doggedly pursued Dr. Al-Arian for years with scant evidence for nonviolent offenses at a cost to taxpayers which reached well into the millions of dollars, Dr. Goldstein's case received minimal scrutiny.
This can only present the impression that Muslims and Muslim organizations in the United States are deliberately subjected to a form of ethnic discrimination and unequal treatment under the law.
Apart from the issue of unequal treatment under the law for Muslims, I'd also like to address other human rights issues in the U.S. I will try to keep it as brief as possible, as my input has already been rather specific and verbose.
The state of public education in relation to employee rights in the workplace in the U.S. is, in my opinion, abysmal. Having worked for a number of employers in the past, I have witnessed a number of abuses of employee rights. On more than one occasion employers have shown a willingness to put my life at risk for minimal benefit. I would say that in the food service industry, for example, human rights abuses are rampant. I have also come close to suffering a potentially fatal injury while performing retail dockwork, and in the many years I have now been employed, have yet to ever encounter a representative of O.S.H.A. or have anyone make any particular effort to explain to me what their safety regulations encompass. In fact, in my time in food service, I only recall ever encountering food inspectors at one place of business, though due to the nature of the infractions they found they returned at least once more. I have at one point early in my career been underpaid and the employer incorrectly reported my position as "waiter" on paperwork so as to be able to pay me less than minimum wage (that employer eventually went bankrupt as far as I'm aware), and heard innumerable stories from waitstaff of employers demanding they work off the clock doing cleaning work in exchange for the privilege of working for tips during regular hours, or stories of sexual harassment.
This all leads me to believe that government oversight of working conditions in the U.S. is either lax or outright nonexistent in most circumstances. While I understand the difficulties and expenses of enforcement of regulations, I think that a simple solution to most of these problems would be to institute some sort of educational program in public schools regarding employee rights in the workplace and what to do if your rights are violated. It really should be part of the general curriculum starting no later than early high school, preferably earlier. It should be thorough, and should include details of which organizations to contact should your rights be infringed upon and how to navigate the court system with or without the aid of a lawyer. It is my view that nothing could be more beneficial in preventing workplace abuse. To my knowledge, though it has been a long time since I was in school, nothing comparable is taught in public schools at present. We don't even teach much labor history. The best way we can prevent workplace abuse is by educating workers and empowering them to protect themselves. From my experience most workplace abuse is a matter of either exploitation of employee ignorance and economic vulnerability or a result of an excessive ambition on the part of the employee to advance, which the employer takes advantage of. The latter is perhaps merely vulgar, but the former is positively criminal.
Apart from that, I suppose I should mention the usual critiques... too many people in prisons, disproportionate representation of certain ethnicities in prisons, different sentences for similar crimes by different ethnic groups, vast wealth disparity between social classes, differences in legal representation and sentencing for wealthy and poor individuals for similar crimes, extensive sentences for common street crime while white-collar crime is inadequately punished, unequal educational opportunities, gender discrimination, etc. You can add 'em all to the list, I'm sure you'll get plenty of comments that enumerate them, so I'll just leave it at that. It's all just too much to cover at once, especially in any sort of detail, so I've focused on just a couple of primary issues of concern to me. Sorry if I seem to be complaining overmuch, I'm aware that other countries have it much worse, but hey... you asked, and some of this stuff reaches unbearable levels.
Thanks for requesting public input on this matter.
I won't be up late tonight to read all the snarky comments here, but I'll check back in another day or so. Feel free to tee off all you'd like. But I do encourage you to contact the State Dept. with your own concerns regarding human rights in the U.S. Maybe it'll actually have more effect than assailing your Congresscritter with unsolicited correspondence about unprofitable political liabilities he'd rather not address. Whatever your opinions and concerns, now's your chance, so let 'er rip! Good luck!