On May 1, 2008, at 4:59 p.m., Brad Kleinerman entered the spooky world of homeland security.

As he shopped for a children's watch inside the sprawling Mall of America, two security guards approached and began questioning him. Although he was not accused of wrongdoing, the guards wrote a confidential report about Kleinerman that was sent to police.

The reason: Guards thought the Avon, Conn., man might pose a threat because he looked at them in a suspicious way.

The episode is one of many cases in which seemingly innocent people have been ensnared by the mall's counterterrorism initiative, an investigation by the Center for Investigative Reporting and National Public Radio has found.

In many cases, information about people stopped at the mall has found its way into the hands of law enforcement without their knowledge. The information in reports obtained by reporters includes birth dates, employer names, Social Security numbers, and names of family members and friends. Some reports contain shoppers' travel plans and surveillance images.

Nearly two-thirds of the people mentioned in more than 100 reports were minorities.

Mall of America officials say its security unit conducts up to 1,200 "security interviews" each year for a variety of reasons. Officials say the program focuses only on behavior.

"The government is not going to protect us free of charge, so we have to do that ourselves," said Maureen Bausch, the mall's executive vice president of business development. "We're lucky enough to be in the city of Bloomington where they actually have a police substation here [in the mall]. ... They're great. But we are responsible for this building."

Najam Qureshi, who once owned a mall kiosk that sold items from his native Pakistan, recalls when his father left a cellphone on a table in the food court. An FBI agent came to their home, asking if they knew anyone who might want to hurt the United States.

An Iranian man, now 62, began passing out during questioning. An Army veteran sobbed in his car after being questioned for nearly two hours. Much of the questioning has been done in public while shoppers mill around.

The Center for Investigative Reporting and NPR obtained 125 suspicious activity reports totaling more than 1,000 pages referring to the mall and dating back to 2005. Bloomington police and a state intelligence center released the reports under the state public records law. It's unclear how many other reports may have been shared with law enforcement.

The documents give a glimpse inside one of the legacies of the terrorist attacks 10 years ago. In 2008, the mall's security director, Douglas Reynolds, told Congress that the mall was the "number-one source of actionable intelligence" provided to the state's fusion center, an intelligence hub created after 9/11 to pull together reports from an array of law enforcement sources.

Heightened awareness

The push to encourage Americans to report suspicious activity began in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, when government officials and citizens found out that hints about the attackers had been missed by intelligence analysts.

The Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security launched programs urging citizens and the private sector to report suspicious activity. Among those formally enlisted were parking attendants, Jewish groups, stadium operators, landlords, security guards, fans of professional golf and auto racing and retailers such as the Mall of America. Visitors "may be subject to a security interview," the mall's website says.

Commander Jim Ryan of the Bloomington police said shoppers are not under arrest when stopped for questioning by private guards. He said even he would walk away if the questioning seemed excessive.

"I don't think that I would subject myself to that, personally," he said. Ryan, however, defends security procedures at the mall.

In nearly two-thirds of the cases reviewed, subjects are described as African-American, people of Asian and Arabic descent, and other minorities,.

Mall spokesman Dan Jasper said the private security guards do not conduct interviews based on racial or ethnic characteristics because "we may miss someone who truly does have harmful intent." He said subjects are chosen "solely on suspicious behavior" and research indicates that "profiling based on ethnic or racial characteristics is ineffective and a waste of valuable time and resources."

Ryan said the reports are crucial to the nation's safety and could be held by his agency for two decades or longer. He acknowledged that the mall's methods, and its reports to law enforcement, may "infringe on some freedoms, unfortunately."

"We're charged with trying to keep people safe. We're trying to do it the best way we can," he said. "You may be questioned at the Mall of America about suspicious activity. It's something that may happen. It's part of today's society."

Anyone can be questioned