The FBI in San Francisco used a public relations program billed as “mosque outreach” to collect information on the religious views and practices of Muslims in Northern California and then shared the intelligence with other government agencies, according to FBI documents obtained by civil rights groups.
The heavily redacted documents, released after a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, raise “grave constitutional concerns,” said Hina Shamsi, director of the National Security Project of the American Civil Liberties Union.
“In San Francisco, we have found that community outreach was being run out of the FBI’s intelligence division and was part of a secret and systematic intelligence gathering program,” conducted without any apparent evidence of wrongdoing,” said Shamsi. “The bureau’s documentation of religious leaders’ and congregants’ beliefs and practices violates the Privacy Act, which Congress passed to protect Americans’ First Amendment rights.”
The Privacy Act limits sharing of personal information among government agencies and the length of time it can be retained. In this case, the information shared included religious beliefs and affiliations, which the ACLU argues is entirely out of bounds.
The ACLU is calling for the Department of Justice’s inspector general to investigate alleged violations of the Privacy Act in the San Francisco Division and determine the scope of such activity nationwide.
The FBI San Francisco defended its agents’ actions, saying the information “was collected within the scope of an authorized law enforcement activity.”
The ACLU of Northern California filed the FOIA lawsuit with the Asian Law Caucus and the San Francisco Bay Guardian newspaper, leading to the release of the FBI documents on Tuesday.
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
One Response
Americans can be really stupid!!! Our gov’t needs to do things to protect us. We should have never been privy to such information as the water boarding crap. There are things that need to be done to try to protect us and the liberal media is wrong to report it. At this rate the liberal media will ensure the continued down fall of this once great nation. I say this as a Disabled American Vet.
get over it people or leave and go screw up another country with your liberal views.