Former FBI agent warns of government spying abuse

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http://peoplesworld.org/former-fbi-agent-warns-of-government-spying-abuse/

Former FBI agent warns of government spying abuse

December 7 2010

CLEVELAND – Surveillance policies now used by the FBI and other domestic intelligence agencies are “totally un-American and against the values Americans hold dear,” Michael German, a former undercover agent, told a forum sponsored by the Cleveland Council on American Islamic Relations here Saturday.

Speaking to 150 at the Islamic Center of Cleveland, German said current guidelines allow federal agencies to spy, obtain private records and recruit informants against virtually all Americans even when “there is no factual basis to suspect they are engaged in illegal activity.”

German, who resigned in protest at these abuses after 16 years with the FBI, joined the American Civil Liberties Union in 2006 and serves as its national security policy counsel.

The Patriot Act, enacted after the 9/11 terror attacks, wiped out strict guidelines governing the FBI, he said, “and established a regime of suspicionless surveillance.” According to policies laid down by Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2002, “you only needed to show a group might possibly commit a crime” to place it under surveillance, German said.

In 2008 Attorney General Michael Mukasey ruled that even this was unnecessary. Surveillance, German said, currently requires “no factual predicate at all.”

In addition, for the first time, current policies allow the FBI to “map and track racial and religious demographics” and investigate “racial and ethnic behavior.”

The abusive atmosphere now in place is especially problematic given the power of digital technology, he said. “Your thoughts are online and what you read is the property of your Internet service provider.”

The FBI and other groups, he said, are continually demanding “the ability to get more information with less oversight.”

This includes growing numbers of private companies, who, at the state and local level, have formed some 72 “intelligence fusion centers” giving local police “wide access to electronic databases.”

The American people, German said, “are tired of the state of emergency we have been under” and support stricter guidelines for spying sought by the ACLU.

Romin Iqbal, a staff attorney for CAIR-Ohio, warned people to be on the lookout for agents provocateurs seeking to incite and entrap Muslims into criminal activity.

Imam Dawud Walid of CAIR-Michigan said there has been a disturbing trend of “increased complaints of harassment by the FBI” and other agencies and that Islamophobia has become blatant and accepted.

“We American Muslims must refuse to be treated as second-class citizens,” Walid said.

“Muslims,” said Julia Shearson, director of CAIR-Ohio, “are in the forefront of the fight to preserve this great democracy.”

“We want legitimate investigations of criminal activity,” she said, “but we must push all three branches of government to let people who are doing nothing wrong live in peace.”

American Muslims want to be active on many issues, including economic justice, foreign policy and the environment, Shearson said, “but we can’t stand up for the Palestinian people if we live in fear and don’t have freedom at home.”

DawudWalid

Dawud Walid is currently the Executive Director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI), which is a chapter of America's largest advocacy and civil liberties organization for American Muslims and is a member of the Michigan Muslim Community Council (MMCC) Imams Committee. Walid has been interviewed and quoted in approximately 150 media outlets ranging from the New York Times, Wall St Journal, National Public Radio, CNN, BBC, FOX News and Al-Jazeera. Furthermore, Walid was a political blogger for the Detroit News from January 2014 to January 2016, has had essays published in the 2012 book All-American: 45 American Men on Being Muslim, the 2014 book Qur'an in Conversation and was quoted as an expert in 13 additional books and academic dissertations. He was also a featured character in the 2013 HBO documentary "The Education of Mohammad Hussein." Walid has lectured at over 50 institutions of higher learning about Islam, interfaith dialogue and social justice including at Harvard University, DePaul University and the University of the Virgin Islands - St. Thomas and St. Croix campuses as well as spoken at the 2008 and 2011 Congressional Black Caucus Conventions alongside prominent speakers such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Congressman Keith Ellison. In 2008, Walid delivered the closing benediction at the historic 52nd Michigan Electoral College in the Michigan State Senate chambers and gave the Baccalaureate speech for graduates of the prestigious Cranbrook-Kingswood Academy located in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Walid was also a featured speaker at the 2009 and 2010 Malian Peace and Tolerance Conferences at the University of Bamako in Mali, West Africa. He has also given testimony at hearings and briefings in front of Michigan state legislators and U.S. congressional representatives, including speaking before members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in Washington, D.C. Walid has studied under qualified scholars the disciplines of Arabic grammar and morphology, foundations of Islamic jurisprudence, sciences of the exegesis of the Qur’an, and Islamic history during the era of Prophet Muhammad through the governments of the first 5 caliphs. He previously served as an imam at Masjid Wali Muhammad in Detroit and the Bosnian American Islamic Center in Hamtramck, Michigan, and continues to deliver sermons and lectures at Islamic centers across the United States and Canada. Walid was a 2011 - 2012 fellow of the University of Southern California (USC) American Muslim Civil Leadership Institute (AMCLI) and a 2014 - 2015 fellow of the Wayne State Law School Detroit Action Equity Lab (DEAL). Walid served in the United States Navy under honorable conditions earning two United States Navy & Marine Corp Achievement medals while deployed abroad. He has also received awards of recognition from the city councils of Detroit and Hamtramck and from the Mayor of Lansing as well as a number of other religious and community organizations.

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