FBI Targets Muslims Based on Their Religion

As I read through the emails, news articles, and blog posts of the day (I admit I'm not much of a Twitterer), the items that I end up posting are usually the ones that get me the most agitated.  It's an imperfect selection method, reactive rather than reflective, but one fairly common to the blogosphere.

The story that got me the most upset today was this one from the Detroit News:

The FBI has come under fire from Muslim leaders in Metro Detroit who say the agency is threatening or coercing local residents into informing on people in their communities and mosques.

The prospective informants, their lawyers and community leaders said the federal agents identify themselves and tell them their immigration status could be blocked or revoked if they turn down FBI requests to report on activities of people who attend mosques.

The pattern is clear, and I've seen it myself.  USCIS will hold up green card or citizenship applications for years at a time with no explanation while the FBI harasses or, in some cases, extorts information or cooperation from the applicant.  Traveling is a constant struggle.  Lives are lived under shadow of surveillance for no reason other than nationality or religion.  Read the specific examples the article details and ask what would happen if the FBI targeted Irish permanent residents because Sinn Fein engaged in international terrorist acts, or Korean nationals because Seung-Hui Cho went berserk at Virginia Tech.

Miller, of the FBI, said he could not comment on the specific circumstances of the Muslims who talked to The Detroit News because he did not know their names or the details of the investigations.

"I can tell you that we don't approach people like that unless there is a good reason, so I can assume there was," he said.

The federal government, for its secretive campaign to target foreign nationals inside and outside the U.S., its practice of locking up children and dropping them unaccompanied at the border, for jailing asylum-seekers for years at a time and causing them to relive their worst traumas, for waterboarding Khalid Shaikh Mohammed 183 times in March 2003, for continuing to bomb innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has lost forever my confidence that it would not do something "unless there is a good reason."  When it comes to foreign policy and immigration policy, I'm tempted to assume the opposite.  Certainly the FBI should explain why it is threatening Muslim immigrants with deportation if they don't spy on their fellow congregants.

I might once have said "that's un-American," but I've learned better.