ACLU: FBI used outreach to collect info on Muslims

EILEEN SULLIVAN

Asso­ci­ated Press

WASHINGTON — Heav­ily blacked-out inter­nal FBI doc­u­ments released Thurs­day indi­cate that the FBI, in some cases between 2007 and 2009, ran back­ground checks on peo­ple they encoun­tered at Muslim-related events and recorded per­sonal infor­ma­tion such as email addresses, phone num­bers, phys­i­cal descrip­tions and opin­ions in reports marked “routine.”

The Amer­i­can Civil Lib­er­ties Union, which obtained the doc­u­ments under the U.S. Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion Act, accused the FBI of mis­us­ing its com­mu­nity out­reach pro­grams to col­lect infor­ma­tion on peo­ple at Muslim-related events that the FBI orga­nized or was invited to attend. Those pro­grams were intended to improve the rela­tion­ship between Mus­lims and the FBI.

The bureau said some of the doc­u­ments the ACLU pub­lished were not derived from out­reach pro­grams but were from actual crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tions in which it was appro­pri­ate to include spe­cific details such as a driver’s license number.

The blacked-out parts make it dif­fi­cult to under­stand what the reports rep­re­sent. But the dis­clo­sure comes at a time when the FBI has been crit­i­cized for some of its other pro­grams, strain­ing the frag­ile rela­tion­ship between law enforce­ment and Mus­lims who widely believe they are sub­jected to sur­veil­lance and scrutiny because of their religion.

The ACLU said the FBI never told Mus­lims at out­reach events such as job fairs, reli­gious din­ners or com­mu­nity meet­ings that it would record in gov­ern­ment files the details about the events or who attended them.

The FBI’s Com­mu­nity Out­reach Pro­gram pre­dates the ter­ror­ist attacks of Sep­tem­ber 2001 and is designed to improve the public’s trust in the bureau and build part­ner­ships. After the attacks, fed­eral, state and local gov­ern­ment offi­cials stepped up this type of out­reach to Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ties. Agents who attend such offi­cial events are instructed to file reports for what the FBI described as “inter­nal over­sight purposes.”

Sep­a­rate from out­reach pro­grams, FBI agents who are inves­ti­gat­ing a per­son or group may do their own out­reach to as part of the inves­ti­ga­tion, said Jeff Mazanec, deputy assis­tant direc­tor of pub­lic affairs, who over­sees the offi­cial pro­gram. But that is kept sep­a­rate from what a com­mu­nity out­reach coor­di­na­tor does, he said.

For exam­ple, the ACLU cited a 2008 report describ­ing an FBI agent in San Fran­cisco atten­dance at a reli­gious din­ner. The agent doc­u­mented who was sit­ting at a table, a cell­phone num­ber and details about a man the agent obtained from the Cal­i­for­nia State Depart­ment of Motor Vehi­cles. The FBI agent also included details about a Cal­i­for­nia man and a check deposited to a bank, ref­er­enc­ing infor­ma­tion from the FBI’s inter­nal case files. The names of indi­vid­u­als and other details were cen­sored from the pub­licly avail­able report for pri­vacy reasons.

Mazanec said the FBI report was writ­ten as part of a for­mal inves­ti­ga­tion and not as part of the offi­cial com­mu­nity out­reach program.

A board mem­ber at the Islamic Cul­tural Cen­ter of North­ern Cal­i­for­nia, Sara Mostafavi, said she was dis­ap­pointed that the FBI’s San Fran­cisco divi­sion filed a report in 2007 that listed the names and orga­ni­za­tions of peo­ple at a mosque meet­ing. It included the names of 50 peo­ple from 27 dif­fer­ent orga­ni­za­tions and iden­ti­fied the par­tic­u­lar sect of Islam that each of the atten­dees followed.

“When you enter kind of a rela­tion­ship with a sense of trust, you’d like to know that your pri­vacy rights aren’t going to get vio­lated,” Mostafavi said. “It’s been dif­fi­cult for some peo­ple to some­times attend these meet­ings because they’re afraid of what the reper­cus­sions will be.”

Mazanec said the FBI includes such details in its files so that rela­tion­ships can be main­tained when agents leave or retire. “It’s bet­ter than a Rolodex,” Mazanec said. He said the FBI does not use out­reach pro­grams for ter­ror­ism inves­ti­ga­tions or assess­ments, and rules against this were sharp­ened this year.

Since 2001, advo­cacy and civil lib­er­ties groups have raised con­cerns that Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ties are unfairly tar­geted for coun­tert­er­ror­ism pur­poses because of their reli­gion. An Asso­ci­ated Press inves­ti­ga­tion into the New York Police Department’s intelligence-gathering tac­tics in Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ties revealed wide­spread spy­ing pro­grams that doc­u­mented every aspect of Mus­lim life in New York. Police infil­trated mosques and stu­dent groups and secretly spied on Mus­lims who were con­sid­ered part­ners in the city’s fight against terrorism.

Posted by AP News on Dec 1 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.