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Homeland Security Focus Areas Civil Liberties and Privacy Issues
April 24, 2008 National Briefing | Midwest Judge Rules on Terrorism Watch ListsBy NEIL MacFARQUHAR, NYTimes.com A federal magistrate judge in Chicago has ruled that protecting state secrets is not a valid argument for the government to refuse to tell American citizens whether they are on the terrorism watch list, the Terrorist Screening Database. The ruling, signed on April 16 but made public by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois on Wednesday, ordered the Department of Homeland Security and the F.B.I. to give the court the files regarding the 10 Muslim or Arab-American plaintiffs who filed a lawsuit starting in 2005, seeking court protection from what they contend is unwarranted harassment at the border. The magistrate judge, Sidney I. Schenkier of Federal District Court, said the court could review the information to decide whether it should remain classified. The F.B.I. said it had no comment.
High court signals gun sentimentsSome weigh in on 2nd AmendmentBy James Oliphant Washington Bureau WASHINGTON — A majority of Supreme Court justices on Tuesday appeared ready to make history and embrace the view that the 2nd Amendment creates an individual right to own a gun, placing Washington, D.C.'s ban on handguns at risk and perhaps jeopardizing Chicago's anti-gun law as well. Kennedy: An overall right"In my view ... there's a general right to bear arms quite without reference to the militia either way," Justice Anthony Kennedy said early in the arguments. He suggested the right arose out of the need for settlers to protect their families "against hostile Indian tribes and outlaws, wolves and bears and grizzlies and things like that." Beyond militias?Dellinger's opponent, Alan Gura, a Washington lawyer, argued that the 2nd Amendment went beyond the regulation of state militias, that self-defense was a primary purpose. The D.C. ban essentially made that impossible, he said.
House Lawmakers Question Privacy in Cyber-Security Plan By Brian Krebs House lawmakers yesterday raised concerns about the privacy implications of a Bush administration effort to secure federal computer networks from hackers and foreign adversaries, as new details emerged about the largely classified program. The unclassified portions of the project, known as the "cyber initiative," focus on drastically reducing the number of connections between federal agency networks and the Internet, and more closely monitoring those networks for malicious activity. Slightly more than half of all agencies have deployed the Department of Homeland Security's program. But administration officials have not said how far monitoring would go, and whether oversight would extend to networks operated by state, local, and private sector entities, including government defense contractors. A more real-time scrutiny of federal data flows is necessary because "our adversaries are very adept at hiding their attacks in normal everyday traffic," DHS Undersecretary Robert Jamison told the House Homeland Security Committee yesterday. He added that DHS is developing a privacy impact assessment on the new capabilities, which will be open to public review upon completion. Some Democrats on the oversight panel were not assuaged by the administration's testimony. Rep. Bob Etheridge (D-N.C.), said he remained concerned about the program's impact on the privacy of his constituents. "It looks a little like the fox is guarding the hen house," he said. But Jim Lewis, director of the technology arm of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, called the privacy concerns premature and overblown. "There's a big difference between intercepting and reading e-mail and reacting to suspicious traffic going across your network," said Lewis, whose employer is working with Congress and the private sector on a set of cyber security policy recommendations for the next president.
NYTimes.com February 15, 2008 House Leaves Surveillance Law to ExpireBy CARL HULSE WASHINGTON — The House broke for a week’s recess Thursday without renewing terrorist surveillance authority demanded by President Bush, leading him to warn of risky intelligence gaps while Democrats accused him of reckless fear mongering. The refusal of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, to schedule a vote on a surveillance measure approved Tuesday by the Senate touched off an intense partisan conflict over the national security questions that have colored federal elections since 2002 and are likely to play a significant role again in November. Trying to put pressure on Democrats, Mr. Bush offered to delay a trip to Africa to resolve the dispute and warned that failure to extend the expanded power under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which expires Saturday, could hamper efforts to track terrorists. “Our intelligence professionals are working day and night to keep us safe,” Mr. Bush said, “and they’re waiting to see whether Congress will give them the tools they need to succeed or tie their hands by failing to act.” But Ms. Pelosi and other House Democrats said Mr. Bush and Congressional Republicans were at fault because they had resisted temporarily extending the bill to allow disagreements to be worked out. Democrats would not be bullied into approving a measure they considered flawed, she said. “The president knows full well that he has all the authority he needs to protect the American people,” said Ms. Pelosi, who then referred to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s admonition about fearing only fear itself. “President Bush tells the American people that he has nothing to offer but fear, and I’m afraid that his fear-mongering of this bill is not constructive.” The decision by the House Democratic leadership to let the law lapse is the greatest challenge to Mr. Bush on a major national security issue since the Democrats took control of Congress last year. Last summer, Democrats allowed the surveillance law to be put in place for six months although many of them opposed it. They have also relented in fights over spending on the Iraq war under White House pressure. But with Mr. Bush rated low in public opinion polls as he enters the last months of his presidency, Democrats are showing more willingness to challenge him. Republicans say House Democrats are taking a risk, especially in light of the strong bipartisan Senate vote for the bill. “They can’t pass a Mother’s Day resolution and got 68 votes for this bill,” said Representative Adam H. Putnam of Florida, chairman of the House Republican Conference. The battle over the surveillance bill was also tangled up in the rancor over a House vote to hold in contempt Joshua B. Bolten, the White House chief of staff, and Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, for refusing to testify about the firing of United States attorneys. Republicans said the House was devoting time to that issue when it could be considering the surveillance program, and they staged a walkout in protest. The main sticking point is a provision in the Senate bill that provides legal immunity for telecommunications companies that, at the Bush administration’s request, cooperated in providing private data after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Many House Democrats oppose that immunity. Surveillance efforts will not cease when the law lapses. Administration intelligence officials said agencies would be able to continue eavesdropping on targets that have already been approved for a year after the initial authorization. But they said any new targets would have to go through the more burdensome standards in place before last August, which would require that they establish probable cause that an international target is connected to a terrorist group. Intelligence officials also told reporters Thursday that they were worried that telecommunications companies would be less willing to cooperate in future wiretapping unless they were given immunity. Ben Powell, general counsel for the director of national intelligence’s office, said some carriers had already asked whether they could be compelled to cooperate even without legal protection, although he indicated that none had actually threatened to halt operations. Ms. Pelosi said that she believed that the differences could be resolved within three weeks and that she had told the chairmen of the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees to work with their counterparts in the Senate to seek a compromise. Congressional Republicans sharply criticized Democrats for not moving on the final measure. “I think there is probably joy throughout the terrorist cells throughout the world that the United States Congress did not do its duty today,” said Representative Ted Poe, Republican of Texas. Democrats said Republicans, struggling politically, were trying to create an air of crisis. “This is a manufactured political crisis,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat. “They want something to put in front of the American people to take their minds off the state of the economy.” Eric Lichtblau contributed reporting.
US seeks satellite access for securityPlans advance; privacy a concernBy Eileen Sullivan, Associated Press | February 13, 2008 WASHINGTON - A plan to use US spy satellites for domestic security and law enforcement missions is moving forward after being delayed for months because of privacy and civil liberties concerns. The charter and legal framework for an office within the Homeland Security Department that would use overhead and mapping imagery from existing satellites is in the final stage of completion, according to a department official who requested anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly about it. The future of this program is likely to come up today when Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff goes to Capitol Hill to talk about his department's spending plan. Last fall, senior Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee asked the department to put the program on hold until there was a clear legal framework of how the program would operate. This request was made during an ongoing debate over the rules governing eavesdropping on phone calls and e-mails of suspected terrorists inside the United States. The new plan explicitly states that existing laws that prevent the government from spying on residents would remain in effect, the official said. Under no circumstances, for instance, would the program be used to intercept verbal and written conversations. The department is waiting for federal executive agencies to sign off on the program, called the National Applications Office, and will share the details with lawmakers soon. Domestic agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Interior Department have had access to this satellite imagery for years for scientific research, to assist in response to natural disasters, and to map out vulnerabilities during a major public event like the Super Bowl. Since 1974 the requests have been made through the federal interagency group, the Civil Applications Committee. These types of uses will continue when the Homeland Security Department oversees the program and becomes the clearinghouse for these requests. But the availability of satellite images will be expanded to other agencies to support the homeland security mission. The details of how law enforcement agencies could use the images during investigations would be determined after legal and policy questions have been resolved, the official said. Requests for satellite images will be vetted even more than they were when the requests went through the Civil Applications Committee. All requests will be reviewed by an interagency group to ensure civil rights and civil liberties are not violated.
The Daily Utah Chronicle Bill would conceal names of animal researchersBy: Rochelle McConkiePosted: 2/1/08Animal rights protesters are up in arms over a bill set to hit the Senate floor in the legislature next week that would conceal the names, personal addresses and phone numbers of animal researchers at state colleges and universities.
NYTimes.com October 29, 2007 Real ID That Spitzer Now Embraces Has Been Widely CriticizedGov. Eliot Spitzer’s plan to provide three kinds of driver’s licenses, two that would meet new federal security regulations and a third that would be available to illegal immigrants, has put New York on pace to be among the first states to adopt the federal identification program known as Real ID. Mr. Spitzer seemed to be ignoring the federal mandate several weeks ago when he announced that illegal immigrants would be allowed to get the same type of license as other state residents. The proposal set off intense criticism — a Siena College poll of 620 registered voters found that 72 percent opposed it — even as Mr. Spitzer made clear that he would consider creating a class of driver’s licenses in the future to abide by federal regulations. Mr. Spitzer’s new position, announced on Saturday in Washington, places New York among a handful of states agreeing to implement a federal identification system that has faced intense opposition from civil libertarians, immigration advocates and many lawmakers. Concerns focus on privacy protection and the costs to states that implement the Real ID program. The program is supposed to be phased in nationally by 2013, but Mr. Spitzer wants to put his plan in place next year. “The costs involved in this program are by no means insignificant,” said Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian policy group in Washington. The Department of Homeland Security puts the price of the program nationally at $23 billion over 10 years, while the National Governors Association estimates that the cost to states will exceed $11 billion in the first five years alone. Still, Congress appropriated just $40 million for start-up costs in 2006, leaving the burden of paying for most of the costs largely to the states. “There’s going to be an irreducible expense that falls on you, and that’s part of the shared responsibility,” the secretary of homeland security, Michael Chertoff, said in August at a meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures. The Real ID law, which Congress passed two years ago, sets national standards for state-issued documents like driver’s licenses and other identification cards, requiring applicants to prove citizenship or legal residency to obtain them. One of the goals of the legislation was to make identification documents harder to forge. Under the program, an estimated 245 million drivers will have to renew their licenses in person and present a form of photo identification and documents proving date of birth, Social Security number and address. Proponents of the act say that it responds to recommendations of the 9/11 Commission and that its stricter and standardized rules could keep terrorists and illegal immigrants from obtaining legitimate identification. But 17 states have passed laws defying the mandate, while others are considering similar measures. One criticism that has been raised is that the personal information will be entered in databases that will be shared by every state, raising questions about how the data will be secured and how safe its storage will be. “That’s an identity thief’s dream,” said Christopher Calabrese, counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union’s technology and liberty program. Mr. Calabrese said that Mr. Spitzer’s proposal to create a driver’s license that would appeal largely to undocumented immigrants presents “a much more dangerous condition” for them. “What we’re going to have,” he said, “is a list of undocumented aliens, and there’s no way New York will be able to keep the federal government’s hands off this list and protect the people whose names are on the list. “Spitzer may have had the best of intentions at first,” Mr. Calabrese continued, “but he buckled to political pressure and it seems now that his good intentions have backfired.” Mr. Spitzer’s new plan would also create an even more secure type of license, which would be particularly useful for New Yorkers who frequently cross into Canada.
NYTimes.com October 26, 2007 Panel to See Papers on Agency’s EavesdroppingBy SCOTT SHANE WASHINGTON, Oct. 25 — The White House on Thursday offered to share secret documents on the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program with the Senate Judiciary Committee, a step toward possible compromise on eavesdropping legislation. Fred F. Fielding, the White House counsel, offered to show the documents to Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, the committee’s chairman; Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the ranking Republican on the committee; and staff members with the necessary security clearances, said Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman. Mr. Fratto said that if Mr. Leahy and Mr. Specter so wished, other committee members would be granted clearances for the N.S.A. program and permitted to see the documents. A spokeswoman for Mr. Leahy, Erica Chabot, said he would make sure the entire committee had access. Only Senate Intelligence Committee members and their staffs have seen the documents. Last week, the committee approved a bill that would step up court oversight of N.S.A. eavesdropping while granting legal immunity to telecommunications companies. The companies face class-action lawsuits for giving the agency access to customers’ phone calls and e-mail messages. On Tuesday, Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who is the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, urged the White House to allow all Congressional committees with oversight responsibilities access to the N.S.A. documents. Neither the House Intelligence Committee nor the House Judiciary Committee has been shown the documents. Mr. Fratto noted that a bill pending in the House contained no provision for immunity from lawsuits and suggested that unless that changed, the House committees would not see the documents. “If the committees say they have no interest in legislating on the issue of liability protection, we have no reason to accommodate them,” he said. Mr. Fratto said the administration was generally pleased with the Senate bill, though it opposes its six-year sunset provision and is seeking changes in the language of a provision that would require court warrants for eavesdropping on Americans traveling overseas. “Over all, it’s a pretty good start,” he said. The security agency’s program to eavesdrop without warrants on international communications of Americans and others in the United States suspected of links to Al Qaeda started with extraordinary secrecy after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Congress has fought for more information on the program for several years. The documents at issue include orders signed by President Bush every 45 days to reauthorize the surveillance and legal opinions prepared by the Justice Department to justify the program. Two Democratic members of the Intelligence Committee, Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, voted against the Senate bill in committee. Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, has vowed to fight any legislation that grants immunity to the telecommunications companies.
NYTimes.com October 9, 2007 Democrats Seem Ready to Extend Wiretap PowersBy ERIC LICHTBLAU and CARL HULSE WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 — Two months after insisting that they would roll back broad eavesdropping powers won by the Bush administration, Democrats in Congress appear ready to make concessions that could extend some crucial powers given to the National Security Agency. Administration officials say they are confident they will win approval of the broadened authority that they secured temporarily in August as Congress rushed toward recess. Some Democratic officials concede that they may not come up with enough votes to stop approval. As the debate over the eavesdropping powers of the National Security Agency begins anew this week, the emerging measures reflect the reality confronting the Democrats. Although willing to oppose the White House on the Iraq war, they remain nervous that they will be called soft on terrorism if they insist on strict curbs on gathering intelligence. A Democratic bill to be proposed on Tuesday in the House would maintain for several years the type of broad, blanket authority for N.S.A. eavesdropping that the administration secured in August for six months. In an acknowledgment of concerns over civil liberties, the bill would require a more active role by the special foreign intelligence court that oversees the interception of foreign-based communications by the security agency. A competing proposal in the Senate, still being drafted, may be even closer in line with the administration plan, with the possibility of including retroactive immunity for telecommunications utilities that participated in the once-secret program to eavesdrop without court warrants. No one is willing to predict with certainty how the question will play out. Some Congressional officials and others monitoring the debate said the final result might not be much different from the result in August, despite the Democrats’ insistence that they would not let stand the extension of the powers. “Many members continue to fear that if they don’t support whatever the president asks for, they’ll be perceived as soft on terrorism,” said William Banks, a professor who specializes in terrorism and national security law at Syracuse University and who has written extensively on federal wiretapping laws. The August bill, known as the Protect America Act, was approved in the final hours before Congress went on its summer recess after heated warnings from the administration that legal loopholes in wiretapping coverage had left the country vulnerable to another terrorist attack. The measure significantly reduced the role of the foreign intelligence court and broadened the security agency’s ability to listen to foreign-based communications without court warrants. “We want the statute made permanent,” a spokesman for the Justice Department, Dean Boyd, said Monday. “We view this as a healthy debate. We also view it as an opportunity to inform Congress and the public that we can use these authorities responsibly. We’re going to go forward and look at any proposals that come forth. But we’ll look at them very carefully to make sure they don’t have any consequences that hamper our abilities to protect the country.” House Democrats overwhelmingly opposed the bill in August and said the administration had been forced them into a corner. As Congress takes up the new bills, a senior Democratic aide said, House leaders are working hard to ensure that the administration does not succeed in pushing through a bill that would make permanent all the powers it secured in August. “That’s what we’re trying to avoid,” the aide said. “We have that concern too.” The bill to be proposed on Tuesday by the Democratic leaders of the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees would impose more controls over the powers of security agency, including quarterly audits by the Justice Department inspector general. The measure would also give the foreign intelligence court a role in approving, in advance, “basket” or “umbrella” warrants for bundles of overseas communications, a Congressional official said. “We are giving the N.S.A. what it legitimately needs for national security but with far more limitations and protections than are in the Protect America Act,” said Brendan Daly, a spokesman for Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California. Perhaps most important in the eyes of Democratic supporters, the House bill would not give retroactive immunity to the telecommunications utilities that participated in the eavesdropping. That has been a top priority of the administration. The temporary measure gave the utilities immunity for future acts, but not past deeds. Private groups are trying to prove in federal court that the utilities violated the law by participating in the program. A former senior Justice Department lawyer, Jack Goldsmith, seemed to bolster their case last week when he told Congress that the program was a “legal mess” and strongly suggested that it was illegal. The House bill would also require the administration to disclose details of the program. Democrats say they plan to push the administration to turn over internal documents laying out the legal rationale for the program, something the administration has refused to do. In the Senate, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, is working with his Republican counterpart, Christopher S. Bond of Missouri, a main proponent of the August plan, to come up with a compromise. Wendy Morigi, a spokeswoman for Mr. Rockefeller, said that retroactive immunity for the utilities was “under discussion” but that no final proposal had been developed. The immunity issue may prove to be the crucial sticking point between whatever proposals the House and Senate ultimately pass. Representative Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat who was among the harshest critics of the temporary bill, said in an interview he would vigorously oppose any effort to grant retroactive legal protection to telecommunications utilities. “There is heavy pressure on the immunity, and we should not cave an inch on that,” Mr. Nadler said. Mr. Nadler said that he was worried the Senate would give too much ground to the administration in its proposal, but that he was satisfied with the bill to be proposed on Tuesday in the House. “It is not perfect, but it is a good bill,” he said. “It makes huge improvements in the current law. In some respects it is better than the old FISA law,” a reference to the foreign intelligence court. Civil liberties advocates and others who met House officials on Monday on the proposed bill agreed that it was an improvement over the August plan but were less charitable in their overall assessment. ‘This still authorizes the interception of Americans’ international communications without a warrant in far too many instances, and without adequate civil liberties protections,” said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, who was in the group that met House officials. Caroline Frederickson, director of the Washington legislative office of the American Civil Liberties Union, said she was troubled by the Democrats’ acceptance of broad, blanket warrants for the security agency rather than the individualized warrants traditionally required by the intelligence court. “The Democratic leadership, philosophically, is with us,” Ms. Frederickson said. “But we need to help them realize the political case, which is that Democrats will not be in danger if they don’t reauthorize this Protect America Act. They’re nervous. “There’s a ‘keep the majority’ mentality, which is understandable,” she said, “But we think they’re putting themselves in more danger by not standing on principle.”
NYTimes.com October 4, 2007
Washington A.C.L.U. Goes to Supreme Court Over WiretapsThe American Civil Liberties Union asked the Supreme Court to settle the question of whether the president has the inherent authority to order wiretaps on Americans without a warrant. It asked the court to review an appellate ruling this year that had thrown out a lower court’s decision concluding that the eavesdropping program operated by the National Security Agency was illegal and unconstitutional. Jameel Jaffer, a lawyer for the A.C.L.U., said, “The president continues to claim the authority to violate any law that regulates his ability to gather foreign intelligence, and that is a dangerous claim that should not go unreviewed by the court.”
NYTimes.com September 26, 2007 Free Speech Groups Sue Over Visa DenialBy NEIL MacFARQUHAR The government is increasingly using secret evidence allowed under new antiterrorism laws to prevent certain critics from entering the United States, according to a group of civil rights and academic organizations. The group, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, went to court yesterday in Boston seeking to force the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security to grant an entry visa to a South African Muslim academic who they said was barred from the United States because of his criticism of American foreign policy. “It sends the message that we are afraid of engaging difficult ideas,” an A.C.L.U. lawyer, Melissa Goodman, said. Ms. Goodman said that it was possible that some people barred were a threat but that the fact that the reasons for their exclusion were kept secret made such cases difficult to evaluate. Leftists traditionally bear the brunt of such exclusions, the various organizations suing said, but there has been a significant increase in such cases involving Muslims since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Under the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952, which was written in part to limit the entry of communists or their sympathizers, the United States has had a history of barring prominent intellectuals. Those denied entry visas over the years under McCarran-Walter have included the writers Gabriel García Márquez and Graham Greene as well as political figures like Pierre Trudeau, long before he became prime minister of Canada. “It sometimes does seem that what the government has done is taken the communist-era playbook and replaced every instance of the word communist with terrorist,” said Jameel Jaffer, an A.C.L.U. lawyer who said those excluded rarely appeared to be national security threats. Critics also say the exclusions are making Americans increasingly isolated from international opinion. They say that at a time when the United States is seen by many foreigners as arrogant, it is important to admit foreigners and to let them express their opinions, if not necessarily endorse them. “We see it as violation as our First Amendment rights as Americans to engage in international ideas and with international figures face to face,” said Larry Siems, director of Freedom to Write at the PEN American Center, an international organization of writers. “To impose new barriers at the border is an act of international antagonism.” Supporters of exclusion say the A.C.L.U. and other organizations are ignoring the welter of opinions that reach Americans, and some argue that exclusions made under the USA Patriot Act are weaker than the 1950s legislation. “What the A.C.L.U. and those extreme liberal groups are trying to do is focus a magnifying glass on a small part of the picture rather than focus on the entire picture,” said James R. Edwards Jr., an immigration expert and adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute, a Washington public policy group. “There are certainly some diverse opinions from foreigners that are voiced regularly in this country,” Mr. Edwards added, pointing, for instance, to the speech on Monday by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran at Columbia University. The lawsuit filed yesterday, in Federal District Court, names as defendants — in addition to the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security — Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, and Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security. It seeks to force the government to issue a visa for the South African Muslim academic, Adam Habib, who has been a vocal critic of United States foreign policy in the Middle East. Other organizations who joined the lawsuit, and who had sought Mr. Habib as a speaker, included the American Sociological Association, the American Association of University Professors, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights. Mr. Habib, who obtained his doctorate from the City University of New York, was a frequent visitor to the United States until his visa was revoked last October. Neither the Department of Homeland Security nor the State Department would comment on the lawsuit.
NYTimes.com September 4, 2007 Abandon Stereotypes, Muslims in America SayBy NEIL MacFARQUHAR ROSEMONT, Ill., Sept 3 — It is time for the United States to stop treating every American Muslim as somehow suspect, leaders of the faith said at their largest annual convention, which ended here on Monday. Six years after the Sept. 11 attacks, Americans should distinguish between mainstream Muslims and the radical fringe, the leaders said. “Muslim Americans feel an increasing level of tension and scrutiny in contemporary society,” said Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America, the largest Muslim organization in the United States and the convention organizer. The image problems were among the topics most discussed by many of the 30,000 attendees. A fresh example cited was an open letter from two Republican House members, Peter Hoekstra of Michigan and Sue Myrick of North Carolina, that attacked the Justice Department for sending envoys to the convention because, the lawmakers said, the Islamic Society of North America was a group of “radical jihadists.” The lone Muslim in Congress, Representative Keith Ellison, Democrat of Minnesota, the keynote speaker here, dismissed the letter as ill informed and typical of bigoted attacks that other minorities have suffered. Leaders of American Muslim organizations attribute the growing intolerance to three main factors: global terrorist attacks in the name of Islam, disappointing reports from the Iraq war and the agenda of some supporters of Israel who try taint Islam to undermine the Palestinians. American Muslims say they expect the attacks to worsen in the presidential election and candidates to criticize Islam in an effort to prove that they are tough on terrorism. Zaid Shakir, an African-American imam with rock star status among young Muslims, described how on a recent road trip from Michigan to Washington he heard comments on talk radio from people who were “making stuff up about Islam.” Among the most egregious, he said, was from a person in Kentucky who denounced the traditional short wood stick some Muslims use to clean their teeth, saying, “They are really sharpening up their teeth because they are planning to eat you, yes they are.” Representatives of at least eight federal departments and agencies attended the convention, their booths sandwiched among hundreds of others from bookstores, travel agencies, perfumeries, clothing designers and real estate developers. Mark S. Ward, who runs programs in Asia and the Middle East for the Agency for International Development, said Washington had to compete for influence abroad with militant groups that are expert at delivering humanitarian services. Mr. Ward said he hoped more American Muslim organizations would apply to help distribute overseas aid. A few people approached the Federal Bureau of Investigation booth to voice dismay at its presence, said a recruiter, David Valle, but most expressed pleasant surprise. “A lot of folks think we want to hire them to spy on their community, spy on their families,” he said. “We want to dispel any myths they might have about the F.B.I.” The Justice Department responded to Mr. Hoekstra and Ms. Myrick’s letter by noting that broad community contact in areas like voting rights was an important part of its mission. That theme was echoed by Daniel W. Sutherland, chief officer for civil rights and liberties at the Homeland Security Department. Mr. Sutherland told a luncheon audience that the government needed to dispel prejudice and misconceptions to steer the public discussion about fighting terrorism to “a higher level.” Sometimes frustration with the government boiled over. At a seminar on charitable giving, Ihsan Haque of Akron, Ohio, asked a Treasury Department representative, Michael Rosen, how to avoid being prosecuted for donating to Muslim charities. When Mr. Rosen said the government did not have the resources to check the million or so charities in the United States, Mr. Haque shouted, “And I do?” Muslim leaders described the government relationship toward Muslim organizations as contradictory. The government seeks to foster greater civic engagement, because a lack of engagement is widely considered a big cause of Muslim extremism in Europe. A Department of Homeland Security official moderated a panel on aiding engagement. Muslim groups are often treated as suspect, speakers said. In a trial that started in July in Dallas, federal prosecutors named the Islamic Society of North America as part of an effort to raise money for groups the government considers terrorists, but did not charge it with wrongdoing. The Justice Department has to decide on its law enforcement side what it considers a target, said Khurrum Wahid, a prominent Muslim defense lawyer. “Are they going to continue to say that the higher degree of religiosity you have the higher likelihood that you are a threat, because that’s the message they’ve sent,” Mr. Wahid said. Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, denounced by name Christian fundamentalists like Pat Robertson and Franklin Graham, as well as Dennis Prager, a well-known radio host who is Jewish. “The time has come to stand up to the opportunists, the media figures, the religious leaders and politicians who demonize Muslims and bash Islam, exploiting the fears of their fellow citizens for their own purposes,” Rabbi Yoffie told the opening session. The Koran tells Muslims to abstain from drinking alcohol and to lower their gaze in modesty when meeting a member of the opposite sex, but some college-age Muslim men and women at the convention stayed up late into the night drinking, talking and getting to know one another. “If you keep your gaze lowered all the time, you might just walk into a wall,” said Hazem Talha, a high school senior from Atlanta who said he was here for the religious lectures.
CIVIL-LIBERTIES CONCERNS Groups fear abuse of satellite images Friday, August 17, 2007 3:35 AM By Eric Schmitt THE NEW YORK TIMES WASHINGTON -- For years, a handful of civilian agencies have used limited images from the nation's constellation of spy satellites to track hurricane damage, monitor climate change and create topographical maps. But a new plan to allow emergency-response, border-control and, eventually, law-enforcement agencies greater access to sophisticated satellites and other sensors that monitor American territory has drawn sharp criticism from civil-liberties advocates who say the government is overstepping the use of military technology for domestic surveillance. "It potentially marks a transformation of American political culture toward a surveillance state in which the entire public domain is subject to official monitoring," said Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists. At issue is a newly disclosed plan that Mike McConnell, director of National Intelligence, approved in May in a memorandum to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, which puts some of the nation's most powerful intelligence-gathering tools at the disposal of domestic security officials as early as fall. The uses include enhancing seaport and land-border security, improving planning to mitigate natural disasters, and determining how best to secure major events, such as the Super Bowl or national political conventions. Eventually, state and local law-enforcement officials could be allowed to tap into the technology on a case-by-case basis, once legal guidelines are worked out, administration officials said. Spy satellites, which provide higher reso | |||||
