Opinion

U.S. spying on Muslim Americans a cause for concern

Rutgers Professor Hooshang Amirahmadi was reportedly a target of the U.S. government's secret surveillance program. Rutgers Professor Hooshang Amirahmadi was reportedly a target of the U.S. government's secret surveillance program. Photo: Mel Evans, Associated Press Photo: Mel Evans, Associated Press Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close U.S. spying on Muslim Americans a cause for concern 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

This country's jittery response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and its secret surveillance practices are once more on display in revelations that five prominent Muslim Americans were monitored for years. Washington needs to explain the background of this disturbing case.

At issue are five men, all U.S. citizens, who are active in legal, political and academic causes. From 2002 to 2008, their e-mail accounts were traced by security agencies, apparently using approval from the closed-door court process authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

A spreadsheet showing e-mail addresses tabbed for monitoring was released by Intercept, an online news operation with ties to Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor now living in Russia. He leaked a trove of confidential information that documented widespread surveillance and data-collecting by Washington spy agencies.

In this case, the details are both troubling and uncertain. Despite the secret eavesdropping, no charges were ever lodged against any of the individuals, who include college professors, a defense lawyer and the leader of a civil rights group.

The figures vary in their public image. One of the five, Faisal Gill, has run for the Virginia Legislature as a Republican and worked with a top-secret clearance in the Department of Homeland Security, created in the wake of the 2001 attacks. Another, Nihad Awad, is executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, once linked to a charity convicted of sending money to Hamas, a militant Palestinian anti-Israeli group.

None of the figures has been accused of illegal or suspicious activities, and it wasn't clear from the leaked paperwork what led government sleuths to pursue each of the men.

The concern, though, is plain to see. Government authorities, given wide license to monitor potential trouble, tracked prominent Muslims. This impulse went unchecked in the nervous aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and the wars that followed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another one of the five, Asim Ghafoor, a lawyer who has defended accused terrorists, added: "I try not to play the race card. But there's really no other explanation."

The response from Washington isn't reassuring. In a statement, intelligence officials ducked any direct description of the cases and insisted no one's constitutional rights were abused. But the reasons for tracking the five, the evidence gathered and the outcome remain unclear.

On one level, the episode should remind Washington of the need to change the lopsided structure of the FISA process, where only government prosecutors make a case for surveillance before a judge in closed court. It may well be necessary to keep such proceedings private, but it's a recipe designed to muzzle dissenting views and lead to abuses.

This latest spying revelation demands explanation. The standards and justifications for tracking citizens must be clearer. Defense of basic rights shouldn't be left up to security agencies.