SAN DIEGO, 25 December 2005 — US News and World Report caught the holiday-focused nation off guard Friday with breaking news that the federal government has, since 9/11, run a far-reaching, top secret program that monitored radiation levels at over a hundred Muslim sites in the Washington, D.C. area, including mosques, homes, businesses, and warehouses, plus similar sites in at least five other cities.
“In numerous cases, the monitoring required investigators to go on to the property under surveillance, although no search warrants or court orders were ever obtained, according to those with knowledge of the program. Some participants were threatened with loss of their jobs when they questioned the legality of the operation,” said US News.
US officials confirmed the activity after the story broke. They told reporters that the monitoring, which intensified after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, did not require warrants or court orders because it took place from publicly accessible areas or from parking lots or driveways leading to private facilities, which the FBI believes do not carry privacy protections. News of the program came on the heels of revelations last week that, after 9/11, the Bush White House approved electronic surveillance of US targets by the National Security Agency without court orders. These and other developments suggest that the federal government’s domestic spying programs since 9/11 have been far broader than previously realized.
The debate over US civil liberties intensified this week when a federal judge resigned from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court in Washington, apparently in protest over the Bush-ordered eavesdropping by the National Security Agency that skirted his court. The court’s chief judge has called for briefings next month to see if the snooping went around the law. The nuclear surveillance program began in early 2002 and has been run by the FBI and the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Emergency Support Team, NEST. At its peak, US News quotes sources saying the effort involved monitoring 120 sites per day, nearly all of them Muslim targets drawn up by the FBI. The program has also operated in at least five other cities: Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, New York, and Seattle.
Government officials familiar with the program insist it is legal; warrants are unneeded for monitoring from public property, they say, as well as from publicly accessible driveways and parking lots. “If a delivery man can access it, so can we,” said one.
Law experts disagree. Surveillance of public spaces such as mosques or public businesses might well be allowable without a court order, they argue, but not private offices or homes. Officials also rejected charges that the program specifically targeted Muslims. “We categorically do not target places of worship or entities solely based on ethnicity or religious affiliation,” one told reporters. “Our investigations are intelligence driven and based on a criminal predicate.” Most staff for the monitoring came from NEST, which draws from nearly 1,000 nuclear scientists and technicians based largely at the country’s national laboratories. For 30 years, NEST undercover teams have combed suspected sites looking for radioactive material, using high-tech detection gear fitted onto various aircraft, vehicles, and even backpacks and attaché cases. No dirty bombs or nuclear devices have ever been found - and that includes the post-9/11 program. “There were a lot of false positives, and one or two were alarming,” says one source. “But in the end we found nothing.”
Muslim advocacy groups called the program “misguided” and said it targets “the wrong people.” “It is a waste of time, it is a waste of resources and it is causing us to be concerned about our citizenship, our constitutional rights,” Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told CNN.
“I don’t understand what good this sort of surveillance is doing,” said Mukit Hossain, trustee of the All Dulles Area Muslims Society in Sterling. “What we are doing is harassing the immigrants and citizens and we haven’t found one that is a terrorist.” He said this kind of surveillance fuels “anti-Muslim feelings in America and a public relations problem for America in Muslim countries.”
