ACLU - Targeting AMEMSA Communities lyrics

Arab, Middle-Eastern, m**m, and South Asian (AMEMSA) communities in the U.S. have faced the brunt of the FBI's overzealous applications of its expanded authoritiessince 9/11. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, acting out of fear and ignorance, FBI agents and other federal officials arrested hundreds of Middle-Eastern immigrants, based mostly on minor visa violations, in a pre-emptive measure painfully reminiscent of the Palmer raids.241 The Justice Department initiated a “hold until cleared” policy that a**ured the detainees would be held without bond until cleared by the FBI of any links to terrorism, meaning many languished in detention for months.242 An affidavit signed by an FBI counterterrorism official presented a “mosaic” theory, which argued these detainees should be held despite the lack of individualized evidence of dangerousness until the FBI could develop a fuller picture of the threat and rule out their involvement in terrorism.243 Attorney General John Ashcroft defended such pre-textual arrests, warning the “terrorists among us” that: If you overstay your visa – even by one day – we will arrest you. If you violate a local law, you will be put in jail and kept in custody as long as possible. We will use every available statute. We will seek every prosecutorial advantage. We will use all our weapons within the law and under the Constitution to protect life and enhance security for America.244 This statement was the first clear indication that the government would pursue what was soon called the “Al Capone strategy,” in reference to the notorious gangster's imprisonment on tax charges rather than violent crimes. This strategy held that government agents should vigorously pursue people they believed to be involved in terrorism using any civil or criminal violation that could be found, no matter how small or unrelated to actual terrorism plotting. The description of an official “disruption strategy” in the FBI's 2009 “Baseline Collection Plan” suggests the FBI is continuing to promote this concept.245 Using a “disruption” plan could arguably make sense if the target is actually a terrorist. Many times, however, when the government doesn't have evidence to support a terrorism charge, it is because the person isn't actually involved in terrorism, despite the FBI's suspicions. But the FBI didn't just pursue immigrants, or wait until it found a legal violation. The FBI also jailed innocent American m**ms by misusing material witness warrants. Indeed, the FBI's flawed terrorism training materials and intelligence products make clear that agents were erroneously taught to view m**m religious practices and political activism as indicators of terrorism. When the government selectively targets, investigates, and refers for prosecution people based on race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, or political viewpoint it has a different name: discrimination. AMEMSA communities in the U.S. have faced different types of degrading, oppressive treatment as a result of the FBI's flawed attitude, training, and policies since 9/11. In 2003, the FBI ordered its field offices to count the number of mosquesin their areas as part of one counterterrorism initiative and initiated nationwide programs of “voluntary” interviews throughout AMEMSA communities.246 U.S. News and World Report revealed in 2005 that FBI agents secretly scanned hundreds of m**m homes, businesses, and mosques with radiation detection equipment without warrants in at least six cities across the nation.247 No nuclear weapons were detected. The ACLU obtained documents indicating that from 2007 through 2011 the FBI exploited its community outreach programs to secretly gather information on AMEMSA community organizations and mosques, which was then uploaded to domain management intelligence files and disseminated outside the FBI in violation of the Privacy Act.248 The FBI has also aggressively pressured AMEMSA community members to become informants for the FBI, particularly immigrants who must rely on the government to process their immigration and citizenship applications in a fair and timely manner. An FBI training presentation on recruiting informants in the m**m community suggests agents exploit “immigration vulnerabilities” because m**ms in the U.S. are “an immigrant community.”249 In 2008, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service implemented a covert program to ensure that individuals who pose a threat to national security are not granted immigration benefits, which often gives the FBI wide discretion to deny, approve, or delay citizenship requests, and thereby the leverage to compel m**m immigrants to become informants.250 The pervasive and unjustified use of informants to spy in m**m communities offends American values and inflicts real harm on the innocent people living there, by chilling their ability to exercise constitutionally guaranteed religious freedoms.251 The FBI has also sent informants, including some with serious criminal histories, into AMEMSA communities to act as “agents provocateur.” 252 As stated by the “disruption strategy” described in the FBI's 2009 “Baseline Collection Plan,” source-driven operations are one of the FBI's preferred methods of “disrupting” its intended targets.253 While FBI has long used informants and undercover agents in sting operations, the methodology used against m**ms since 9/11 has been significantly more aggressive. According to a 2011 an*lysis of federal terrorism prosecutions by Mother Jones magazine, of 508 terrorism defendants prosecuted since 9/11, 158 (31 percent) were caught in sting operations.254 In many cases the government agent provides all the instrumentalities of the crime, chooses the target, designs the plot, and provides the gullible subjects financial support or other incentives to carry out the plot. The subjects are often destitute and at times become financially dependent on the informants. For example, a defendant in Chicago was given room and board in the informant's home and provided with a car and spending money.255 In a case in Newburgh, N.Y., the FBI informant offered one of the hesitant defendants, ex-convict James Cromitie, $250,000 to execute the faux plot, raising the question of whether this was a truly terrorism case or a murder-for-hire.256 While some of the defendants targeted in these cases were angry and disgruntled—and arguably deserved some law enforcement attention—they mostly did not have violent criminal histories. They also did not acquire weapons on their own nor possessthe financial means to obtain them before meeting an FBI informant. Yet instead of addressing the threat as it existed in these cases, the FBI initiated elaborate sting operations using dubious informants, many with criminal records, to prod the subjectsto act out, often supplying them with spiritual or political motivation, financial a**istance, and sophisticated military hardware at little or no cost. The informant in Newburgh provided the destitute defendants a Stinger surface-to-air missile and plastic explosives.257 In the Chicago case, the defendant was unable (or unwilling) to raise the paltry $100 the undercover agent was going to charge him for four military hand grenades, so the agent instead traded him the grenades for two used stereo speakers.258 There is no legitimate reason for the FBI to exaggerate the danger posed to the community in these cases by introducing heavy weapons the defendants clearly would be unable to obtain on their own. Government actions aggrandizing the threat a defendant poses through the introduction of what are no more than harmless stage props only spreads unwarranted public fear, which it often fans with sensational press conferences at the time of arrest. The effect of these FBI tactics is that judges and juries who might otherwise question the FBI's tactics in these cases and entertain an entrapment defense may be less willing to do so out of unjustified concern for public safety, or unease over the potential public reaction. Indeed, the judge in the Newburgh case called it a “fantasy terror operation” and said, “[o]nly the government could have made a terrorist out of Mr. Cromitie, whose buffoonery is positively Shakespearean in scope.”259 Nevertheless, she let the jury's conviction stand and sentenced Cromitie to 25 years in prison. These questionable investigative methods also tend to increase the potential penalties faced by these defendants, who may be pressured to plead guilty in exchange for more lenient sentences, giving the courts and the public fewer opportunities to examine and evaluate FBI tactics.