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Chronology of Islam in America (2011)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
January 2012 Page Two
Top CIA lawyer never approved NYPD collaboration
Jan 20: The CIA's top lawyer never approved sending a veteran agency officer to New York, where he helped set up police spying programs, The Associated Press has learned. Such approval would have been required under the presidential order that Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said authorized the unusual assignment. Normally, when the CIA dispatches one of its officers to work in another government agency, rules are spelled out in advance in writing to ensure the CIA doesn't cross the line into domestic spying. Under a 1981 presidential order, the CIA is permitted to provide "specialized equipment, technical knowledge or assistance of expert personnel" to local law enforcement agencies but only when the CIA's general counsel approves in each case.Neither of those things happened in 2002, when CIA Director George Tenet sent veteran agency officer Lawrence Sanchez to New York, former U.S. intelligence officials told the AP. While on the CIA's payroll, Sanchez was the architect of spying programs that transformed the NYPD into one of the nation's most aggressive domestic intelligence agencies. The CIA's inspector general cleared the agency of any wrongdoing in its partnership with New York, but the absence of documentation and legal review shows how murky the rules were as the CIA and NYPD formed their unprecedented collaboration in the frenzied months after the 2001 terrorist attacks.In a series of investigative reports since August, the AP has revealed that, with the CIA's help, the NYPD developed spying programs that monitored every aspect of Muslim life and built databases on where innocent Muslims eat, shop, work and pray. Plainclothes officers monitored conversations in Muslim neighborhoods and wrote daily reports about what they heard. [Huffington Post]
Virginia “Anti-Shariah” Bill Inspired by Anti-Muslim Racist
Jan 20: The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a prominent national Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization today questioned why the Virginia legislature will hold a hearing on Monday to discuss a bill that was apparently drafted using a template written by David Yerushalmi, an infamous anti-Muslim extremist with a history of controversial views targeting Muslims, Jews, African-Americans, and women. The CAIR said Virginia General Assembly Delegate Rick L. Morris (R-House District 64) introduced HB 631 on January 11. Morris' bill is clearly based on a template promoted by Yerushalmi in other states. The bill will be considered and possibly voted on by the House Committee for Courts of Justice Subcommittee #2 Civil.CAIR said the Virginia bill is one of more than 20 similar pieces of legislation that have been introduced in state legislatures nationwide. It may be recalled that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit recently upheld a lower court's decision to block implementation of an Oklahoma state constitutional amendment that had been designed to accomplish the apparent goal of the Virginia bill. [CAIR]
Santorum told: Christians, Jews, Muslims worship the same God
Jan 21: The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's leading Muslim civil liberties organization, has condemned "inaccurate and offensive" remarks by GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, who said yesterday that the concept of equality "doesn't come from Islam" or "Eastern religions." He claimed equality comes from "the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." At his last town hall before South Carolinians vote in Boiling Springs, Rick Santorum was discussing the concepts of freedom and equality that the nation was founded on and said the concept of equality “doesn’t come from Islam” or “Eastern religions.” Instead “it comes from “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” In a statement, CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper said: "The Quran, Islam's revealed text, is the best refutation of Mr. Santorum's inaccurate and offensive remarks, which are unbecoming of anyone who hopes to hold our nation's highest office. Christians, Jews and Muslims all worship the same God and share religious traditions that promote justice and equality.God states in the Quran: 'Say ye: 'We believe in God and the revelation given to us and to Abraham, Ismail, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and that given to Moses and Jesus, and that given to (all) Prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and it is unto Him that we surrender ourselves.' (The Holy Quran, 2:136). The Quran and the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) stress racial and gender equality. The Prophet said: 'All people are equal as the teeth of a comb.' [CAIR]
Supreme Court Court Rejects Willy-nilly GPS Tracking
Jan 23: The Supreme Court said today that law enforcement authorities might need a probable-cause warrant from a judge to affix a GPS device to a vehicle and monitor its every move — but the justices did not say that a warrant was needed in all cases. The convoluted decision in what is arguably the biggest Fourth Amendment case in the computer age, rejected the Obama administration’s position that attaching a GPS device to a vehicle was not a search. The government had told the high court that it could even affix GPS devices on the vehicles of all members of the Supreme Court, without a warrant. “We hold that the government’s installation of a GPS device on a target’s vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle’s movements, constitutes a ‘search,’” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the five-justice majority. The majority declined to say whether that search was unreasonable and required a warrant.
All nine justices, however, agreed to toss out the life sentence of a District of Columbia drug dealer who was the subject of a warrantless, 28-day surveillance via GPS. Four justices in a minority opinion said that the prolonged GPS surveillance in this case amounted to a search needing a warrant. But the minority opinion was silent on whether GPS monitoring for shorter periods would require one. Justice Sonia Sotomayor voted with the majority, but wrote in a separate, solo opinion that both the majority and minority opinions were valid. She also suggested that Americans have more rights to privacy in data held by phone and internet companies than the Supreme Court has held in the past. “I think it’s fair to say, the use of a a GPS device like this requires a warrant where they are tracking him for a long time,” Thomas Goldstein, who has argued dozens of cases before the Supreme Court, said in a telephone interview. The Justice Department maintained it had probable cause in the case, though not a valid warrant. The majority said because of procedural rules, it would not decide whether the “search” in this case required a warrant. “We consider that argument forfeited,” the majority wrote.
Walter Dellinger, the lawyer for the drug dealer who appealed his conviction, said the decision, no matter how disjointed, means “that almost any use of GPS electronic surveillance of a citizen’s movement will be legally questionable unless a warrant is obtained in advance.” The justices agreed to hear the case in a bid to settle conflicting lower-court decisions — some of which ruled a warrant was necessary, while others found the government had unchecked GPS surveillance powers. For the moment, the conflict is unresolved and “will take more lawsuits,” Orin Kerr, a Fourth Amendment scholar and former Justice Department prosecutor, said in a telephone interview. One of the Obama administration’s main arguments in support of warrantless GPS tracking was the high court’s 1983 decision in United States v. Knotts, in which the justices ruled it was OK for the government to use beepers known as “bird dogs” to track a suspect’s vehicle without a warrant. In that case, the police had the consent of that truck’s owner, which was not the case in the opinion decided Monday, Scalia wrote.
In the Supreme Court case decided on Jan 23, 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit had ruled that the Fourth Amendment rights of suspected District of Columbia drug dealer Antoine Jones had been violated by the month-long warrantless attachment of a GPS underneath his car. The lower court had reversed Jones’ conviction, saying the FBI needed a warrant to track Jones. During oral arguments in the case in November, a number of justices invoked the specter of Big Brother if the police could secretly attach GPS devices on Americans’ cars without getting a probable-cause warrant. The last time the high court considered the Fourth Amendment, technology and privacy in a big-ticket case was a decade ago, when the justices ruled that the authorities must obtain search warrants to employ thermal-imaging devices to detect indoor marijuana-growing operations, saying the imaging devices carry the potential to “shrink the realm of guaranteed privacy.” [Wired.com]
CAIR applauds Supreme Court ruling on GPS monitoring
Jan 23: The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's leading Muslim civil liberties organization, today applauded a unanimous ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court stating that warrantless GPS monitoring of suspects violates the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure. In October of last year, CAIR filed an amicus (friend of the court) brief in the case (United States v. Jones) seeking the court's support for the requirement that a warrant be obtained before placing a GPS tracking device on any individual's vehicle. "We welcome this decision because it clearly shows that the nation's highest court has recognized that the warrantless use of GPS devices is a violation of Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure," said CAIR Legal Counsel Nadhira Al-Khalili, the attorney of record on CAIR's amicus brief. She said CAIR's interest in the case stems from a lawsuit it is litigating on behalf of Yasir Afifi, a Santa Clara, Calif., resident who discovered a GPS tracking device placed on his vehicle in October 2010. FBI agents went to Afifi's home two days after the GPS device was discovered to retrieve it and interrogate him. In March 2011, CAIR filed suit on behalf of Afifi against Attorney General Eric Holder and FBI Director Robert Mueller. In September 2011, that case was stayed pending the Supreme Court's decision. "This important ruling will serve to protect all Americans from further unchecked assaults on their constitutional rights," said Zahra Billoo, executive director of CAIR's San Francisco Bay Area chapter and Afifi's attorney.
1500 NYPD officers viewed Anti-Muslim film
Jan 24: The New York Times reported today that, despite the New York Police Department’s denials last year, the propaganda film - The Third Jihad - "was shown to more than a thousand officers as part of training in the NYPD." According to the film's narrator, the "true agenda of much of Islam in America" is to "infiltrate and dominate America ... This is the war you don't know about." The Times article states: "In January 2011, when news broke that the department had used the film in training, a top police official denied it, then said it had been mistakenly screened 'a couple of times' for a few officers. A year later, police documents obtained under the state's Freedom of Information Law reveal a different reality: 'The Third Jihad,' ... was shown, according to internal police reports, 'on a continuous loop' for between three months and one year of training. During that time, at least 1,489 police officers, from lieutenants to detectives to patrol officers, saw the film." News that police trainers showed this film so extensively comes as the department wrestles with its relationship with the city’s large Muslim community. The Police Department offers no apology for aggressively spying on Muslim groups and says it has ferreted out terror plots. But members of the City Council, civil rights advocates and Muslim leaders say the department, in its zeal, has trampled on civil rights, blurred lines between foreign and domestic spying and sown fear among Muslims.”
The NYT report pointed that the 72-minute film was financed by the Clarion Fund, a nonprofit group whose board includes a former Central Intelligence Agency official and a deputy defense secretary for President Ronald Reagan. “Its previous documentary attacking Muslims’ “war on the West” attracted support from the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, a major supporter of Israel who has helped reshape the Republican presidential primary by pouring millions of dollars into a so-called super PAC that backs Newt Gingrich.” Commissioner Kelly is listed on the “Third Jihad” Web site as a “featured interviewee.” Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, wrote in an e-mail that filmmakers had lifted the clip from an old interview the NYT report said adding: The commissioner, Mr. Browne said, has not asked the filmmakers to remove him from its Web site, or to clarify that he had not cooperated with them.
The NYT said that repeated calls over the past several days to the Clarion Fund, which is based in New York, were not answered. The nonprofit group shares officials with Aish HaTorah, an Israeli organization that opposes any territorial concessions on the West Bank. The producer of “The Third Jihad,” Raphael Shore, also works with Aish HaTorah. Clarion’s financing is a puzzle, the paper pointed out and added: Its federal income tax forms show contributions, grants and revenues typically hover around $1 million annually — except in 2008, when it booked contributions of $18.3 million. That same year, Clarion produced “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West.” The Clarion Fund used its surge in contributions to pay to distribute tens of millions of copies of this DVD in swing electoral states across the country in September 2008. [AMP Report]
Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs blast Rick Santorum on ‘equality’ comment
Jan 27: Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus are accusing Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum of bigotry and ignorance after he said that “equality” is solely a Judeo-Christian concept. “Where do you think the concept of equality comes from?” Santorum said on the campaign trail last Friday (Jan. 20). “It doesn’t come from Islam. It doesn’t come from the East and Eastern religions. It comes from the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” “Sen. Santorum’s presidential campaign is now playing to the lowest common denominator of religious bigotry and prejudice by attacking Eastern religions and Islam,” said Aseem Shukla of the Hindu American Foundation. Santorum’s comments, Shukla added, “show a profound ignorance of the teachings of Dharma spiritual traditions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism.” For example, in the Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu scripture, the god Krishna writes, “I look upon all creatures equally; none are less dear to me and none more dear.” Sikhs, who also trace their religion to India, were equally upset. “In Sikhism, all human beings have equal status in the eyes of God. No differentiation in status or ceremonies or rights is made between men and women, rich and poor, foreigner and countryman, high caste or low caste,” said Manbeena Kaur, education director for the New York-based Sikh Coalition. “Sikhs have had this belief in and practice of equality as a spiritual mandate long before the political revolutions that brought freedom to America and much of the Western world.” Buddhism expert Toshie Kurihara argues equality was a foundational teaching of the Buddha. “The Buddha preached against the caste system and advocated equality of all people. From the beginning, Buddhism espoused the concept of equality of all people,” she wrote last year in the Journal of Oriental Studies. The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations said it would send Santorum a copy of the Quran, Islam’s holy text. “The Quran is the best refutation of Mr. Santorum’s inaccurate and offensive remarks,” said Ibrahim Hooper, a CAIR spokesman. The group cited Quran verses and sayings of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad that supported equality. For example, Prophet Muhammad is reported to have said, “All people are equal as the teeth of a comb.” [Washington Post]
Islamophobic General withdraws from Prayer Breakfast
Jan 30: Just four days after ThinkProgress reported that the United States military academy at West Point was planning to host an Islamophobic general as its featured speaker at the National Prayer Breakfast, that general has now pulled out of the event. West Point just issued this news release: LTG (Ret) William Boykin has decided to withdraw speaking at West Point’s National Prayer Breakfast on 8 February 2012. VoteVets, the coalition of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, is to be commended for raising this issue and putting pressure on West Point to do the right thing. VoteVets Chairman Jon Soltz told ThinkProgress this evening, “This is why VoteVets exists — the calls from veterans, activists, and civil rights leaders around the country made this decision possible. I’m glad that the cadets will not be forced to hear the words of an anti-Muslim general whose rhetoric does not align with the values of our military and also endangers our troops in combat.”
Boykin has a deep record of anti-Muslim rhetoric. Here's a small selection:…."We need to recognize that Islam itself is not just a religion -- it is a totalitarian way of life. It's a legal system, sharia law; it's a financial system; it's a moral code; it's a political system; it's a military system. It should not be protected under the First Amendment."….."No mosques in America. Islam is a totalitarian way of life; it's not just a religion." Americans should "claim empty lots in Jesus' name," so the Muslim community cannot build Mosques there……"There is no greater threat to America than Islam."
Jon Soltz, Co-Founder of VoteVets.org, Iraq War Veteran, in an opinion piece in Huffington Post said that the invitation to Lt. Gen Boykin should be revoked for two reasons: First, because Boykin's comments are inconsistent with Army values -- the very values that are stressed at West Point and other Academies, and constantly reinforced as critical to the success and protection of US Forces in harm's way; and second, because Boykin's statements disrespect the service of the thousands of Muslim-Americans who have fought in uniform for America, and often died for America. [Think Progress/ Huffington Post]
Muslim woman claims religious discrimination at gas station
Jan 31: An October incident that has just come to light is casting a cloud over a Boca Raton Chevron (Florida) station for what one woman claims is discrimination. Wednesday, La-Fleur Mohammed talked about her experience at the Boca Raton station where she said she was refused service because she was wearing a traditional Muslim headdress that covered almost all of her face. "She took my money and said 'you can't come in here dressed like that,'" said La-Fleur Mohammed. "I said, 'excuse me but this is my religious right.'" Mohammed continued, "She said, 'well, I need to see you.' I said, 'no, you don't. Please just give me $20 on pump number one' and that's when she just threw my money back at me." Mohammed said at that point she picked up her money, walked out, and called 911. A sheriff's deputy arrived and escorted Mohammed into the store again, but was still refused service. ...Still, CAIR representatives said it's a clear-cut case of discrimination on religious grounds. "In this particular case, when someone is escorted by law enforcement and asked to be served and where she hears is a refusal; there's no doubt that this is a violation of Title 2 of the Civil Rights Act," said Wilfred Ruiz, CAIR legal counsel. CAIR reported the incident to the Florida Commission on Human Rights. Mohammed said she doesn't want money, but would like Chevron to apologize to her. [CBS Miami]
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