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Muslim
Internet Sites Will Be Latest Target In War On Terror: Analysts
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FBI
overhaul will allow monitoring of Muslim Internet sites for first
time
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WASHINGTON
D.C., June 1 (IslamOnline and News Agencies) – A major debate
Saturday between Martin Garbus, a First Amendment lawyer, and Rick
Hahn, an analyst for the MSNBC news network, focused on the expansion
of the new FBI laws to include entities like Muslim Internet sites,
libraries, mosques and political groups.
During
a heated debate on the civil rights and privacy implications for the
new Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) laws that allow agents to
target places of worship, political organizations and Internet sites,
the two analysts differed on the effectiveness of such steps but
asserted that the steps may be necessary in order to “protect
thousands of American lives form terrorists.”
Defending
the targeting of American Muslims, Hahn asserted that “mosques have
been used during public gatherings to raise money” for terrorist
activities.
But
Garbus, slamming the new laws allowing greater leeway for the FBI as a
“public relations ploy,” asserted that such “infiltration”
moves by the FBI would both “jeopardize privacy and security.
“The
FBI doesn’t have the resources or the people to do it.”
He
went on to state that the FBI is misleading the American people by
insisting that their new moves would provide for greater security.
“You
cannot monitor 6 million people,” Garbus asserted, referring to the
estimated number of American Muslims in the U.S.
“It
is not just a question of invading privacy and civil liberties. These
[measures by the FBI] are a counter productive public relations ploy
to make us look more secure.”
Garbus
stated to Hahn that the FBI should not waste its resources on
attempting to racially profile American Muslims and concentrate on
investigating places and venues where they already have leads.
Hahn
lashed out by saying that he resented the allegation that the FBI was
on a broad based fishing investigation, asserting that such
accusations are “false.”
Civil
rights activists have slammed the U.S. for its profiling of American
Muslims/Arabs since September 11, stating very blatantly that the FBI
was on a fishing expedition.
Hahn
asserted that the new laws providing greater accessibility to the FBI
were essential as they now allow for the FBI to target Muslim Internet
sites, which he stated attempted to “recruit terrorists.”
“Even
the Internet sites that are publicly accessible are denied to the FBI.
Some of those Websites recruit terrorists.”
Garbus,
however, refuted Hahn’s claim saying, “Do you think Al-Qa’eda is
so naïve that they would recruit over the Internet?”
U.S.
Attorney General John Ashcroft granted the new guidelines Thursday
that would permit FBI agents to enter public places freely and observe
what is happening there, in the event that terrorist activities are
suspected.
The
guidelines come after much criticism of the 1978 Levy Accords,
implemented after former U.S. President Richard Nixon’s Watergate
scandal.
The
Levy Accords provide strict guidelines for FBI accessibility to public
venues and events.
Ashcroft
insisted that agents would have free rein to surf the Internet and
track potential terrorist activities online, "even when not
linked to an individual criminal investigation."
Agents
had previously been restricted from both types of activities, Ashcroft
said, adding that the restrictions had provided a "competitive
advantage for terrorists."
Garbus
and Hahn continued to focus on whether the new FBI guidelines and
racial or religious profiling may be necessary in a “war on
terrorism”.
“Maybe
some civil liberties must be sacrificed in order to protect lives,”
MSNBC’s moderator prodded.
“No
one could have seen during the creation of the Constitution the war on
terror,” Garbus stated. “But the question is: have you made the
country more secure and safer or is the FBI wasting their resources on
public relations?”
“The
idea of interviewing 500 Middle Easterners and detaining 400 Middle
Easterners has accomplished nothing,” he concluded.
A
top secret internal FBI report warned in the months before September
11 that the agency was ill-prepared to handle an attack from groups
like Al-Qa’eda, the New York Times reported Saturday.
The
classified document, called the “Director's Report on Terrorism”,
provided detailed recommendations and proposed spending increases to
address the problem, officials who have seen the document told the Times.
The
internal report found virtually every major FBI field office
undermanned in evaluating and dealing with the threat posed by groups
like Al-Qa’eda, they told the daily.
The
report not only provided an accounting of the abilities of each FBI
office to deal with the overall terrorist threat, but also tried to
determine the level of funding needed in the next five years to
correct the problem.
IslamOnline
was told shortly after the events of September 11 that the FBI was so
ill prepared that it did not even have one agent who spoke Pashto and
had to seek the help of Urdu and a few Farsi speakers to help them
deal with the attack on Afghanistan.
The
FBI has also embarked on a major effort to recruit Arabic speakers
into its ranks. 
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