The US Federal Bureau of Investigation pries into the lives of Muslims across America as part of nationwide intelligence gathering in the fight against terrorism, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) says.
According to CAIR, Muslims in the United States are watched, especially at mosques, a Press TV correspondent in Washington reported on Tuesday.
With part of the intelligence gathering focused specifically on Muslims, the US government's goal is to have every state and local law enforcement agency feed information to the FBI, which is in charge of terrorism investigations.
CAIR is particularly concerned with trainers hired by some law enforcement agencies whose extreme views on Islam and terrorism is considered counter-productive by the FBI and other US intelligence agencies.
“Whenever you have law enforcement personnel being trained by anti-Muslim bigots, it is going to have an impact,” says Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR.
The prayer leader of a Virginia mosque is one of thousands of Americans the US government is collecting information on. He suspects his phone has been tapped and says he is on a government watch list.
Many of those Muslims, however, may not have been accused of any crime.
“American Muslims pretty well assume now if they go to a mosque, they are going to be either under surveillance, or going to be in the hearing radius of some agent provocateur,” Hooper said.
“I think people need to realize that it does not just affect the American Muslims; it affects everybody.”
New York Congressman Peter King, who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, recently held a controversial hearing on radicalization of Muslims in America, saying “Homegrown radicalization is part of al-Qaeda's strategy to continue attacking the United States.”
Regarding King's words, Hooper pointed out that the hearing was nothing but “false allegations” against CAIR.
There are nearly four thousand federal, state and local organizations -- about a thousand of which were created after September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center -- which have counter terrorism responsibilities.
Since the United States invasion of Afghanistan in the war on terror in October 2001, techniques used on battlefields in the Asian nation have become a prying tool for local law enforcement agencies in America.
US intelligence officials say it is now more urgent than ever to identify those US-born or naturalized citizens, planning violent attacks, while US President Barack Obama supports this local approach as a much-needed evolution in the battle against terrorism.
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