University of Minnesota

December 12, 2006

Study Number 0609S93035

 

 

Summary

Many Muslims in Minnesota feel that law-enforcement agencies treat Muslims with suspicion and special scrutiny because of their ethnic and religious identities.  This report examines actions by the Federal Bureau of Investigation from September 11, 2001 through October 2006 and the Muslim community’s reaction.  The study concludes that local FBI officials, although promoting cooperation with some of their actions, contributed to this sense of mistrust with other actions.  The FBI Minneapolis Division carried out national directives that targeted Muslims on the basis of their membership in demographic groups.  The Division undertook local actions that appear to have scrutinized and pressured Muslims in ways that have not been publicly justified.  At the same time Muslim reactions to law-enforcement actions sometimes have been conspiracist and cynical.  Congress can take action to end the national-level abuses.  Local FBI conduct raises concerns and requires further examination.  The local FBI and local Muslim community both can take steps voluntarily to improve relations.  Widely held prejudices that hold Muslims in suspicion can be addressed by promoting positive images of Muslims in the mass media.

This report is part of a project conducted under the Master of Public Affairs Program of the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.  The topic was suggested by the Muslim American Society, Minnesota Chapter.  The research, analysis, and recommendations were intended to help Muslim community organizers and allies describe the problem accurately and propose possible solutions if it decides to pursue changes in the public arena.

Nationwide actions since September 11th undertaken by the FBI and related federal law-enforcement agencies for the stated purpose of deterring terrorism repeatedly discriminated against Muslims usually with no significant benefit to counterterrorism.  Some of these nationwide actions also occurred in Minnesota, such as the Justice Department’s selection of approximately 115 legal residents for voluntary interviews because they recently immigrated from Middle Eastern nations viewed as suspicious; airport screening by use of an FBI database that seems to select Muslims for greater scrutiny; and the FBI’s detention of suspects without charges by classifying them as “material witnesses.”  Muslims visiting Minnesota on visas likely were affected by nationwide “special registration” restrictions upon legal visitors from Muslim countries.  Multi-city raids on money-transfer businesses favored by Somalis contributed to the sense of demographic-based scrutiny when the raids apparently yielded no link to terrorism.  This special treatment of Muslims as a mass alienates them from the government, taints their perception of other actions by government and other institutions, and damages relations with government officials in Minnesota.  Congress should reform airport screening procedures to remove the appearance of profiling; reform the PATRIOT Act to protect personal records; and reform the material witness statute.  Congress should impose oversight on federal law-enforcement to prevent mass detention and questioning of Muslims based on their demographic group.

In Minnesota, the FBI Minneapolis Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office expended significant effort to promote a cooperative relationship by holding outreach meetings in Minnesota’s Muslim communities including Somali communities in the initial years after 9/11.  Those efforts were undercut by inconsistency.  Outreach was reduced after changes in top leadership in the FBI Division and U.S. Attorney’s Office.  The newly appointed Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Minneapolis Division, Michael Tabman, agreed to form a multi-agency task force to address Muslims’ perception of discriminatory federal scrutiny, but a year later, there had been no progress in forming a panel.  FBI-Minneapolis should formalize its community outreach procedures to ensure consistency.

More damaging to the relationship, the message of cooperation from local FBI managers and the U.S. Attorney was contradicted by the apparent actions of investigatory staff that intimidated Minnesota Muslims and attempted to spy on them.  These accounts require verification.  Several individuals told their lawyers and community leaders about being questioned by local FBI agents in a persistent manner that verged on harassing.  Lawyers recounted other incidents of individuals asked or pressured to act as the FBI’s informants in Minnesota mosques.  The former FBI head said the Division may have occasionally placed mosques under surveillance but only in specific investigation of allegations against individuals.  Arguably legitimate investigatory tactics when used selectively, infiltration and surveillance by the nation’s lead police agency contribute greatly to Muslims’ sense that the dominant culture treats them as a population of suspects.  FBI-Minneapolis should minimize surveillance and infiltration of mosques of Muslim organizations.  More research is necessary to determine whether FBI-Minneapolis actions constituted profiling.

Muslim mistrust in the federal government may be exaggerated by misperceptions or cultural differences.  This mistrust can lead to a withdrawal from potentially helpful aspects of the federal system.  Despite widespread anecdotes of intimidating FBI behavior, Muslims apparently have not registered any complaints with or about the FBI.  Minnesotan Muslims should take advantage of available complaint procedures to document alleged abuses and to gain familiarity with the system.  When leaders of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota declined to participate in recent FBI citizen programs or to file a request for reduced airport security screening, they exhibited a skepticism that, while grounded in past dissatisfying dealings with the federal government, could be construed as unconstructive.  To counter that perception, and to reduce anxiety that comes from unfamiliarity with FBI procedures, Minnesotan Muslims should participate in FBI citizen programs.  Cooperation would also be promoted if Muslim community leaders help the FBI recruit Muslim employees, and create channels within the community to facilitate individuals alerting the FBI to suspicious activity.

The law-enforcement actions occurred at a time when academic writings promoted the notion that terrorist attacks on Western targets were signs of a larger confrontation pitting all majority-Muslim nations against all majority-Christian and Jewish nations.  This framing was epitomized by the catchphrase “the clash of civilizations” coined by Bernard Lewis, popularized by Samuel Huntington, and echoed by Osama bin Laden.  Civilization-clash theorists influenced local FBI thinking: Former Special Agent in Charge Deborah S. Pierce said she improved her understanding of “the big picture” by meeting with Nancy Kobrin, a psychoanalyst who has written that terrorism reflects a mass psychosis affecting all of Muslim culture.  Meanwhile, social-justice researchers reported that Arab-Americans’ perception of police scrutiny was leading many of them to withdraw from participation in mainstream society and their own community associations.  To counter this antagonistic frame and stop the spiral of alienation, Muslims and their allies should use the mass media to promote positive images of Muslims in public life.

Contents:

Summary. iii

I.          Introduction. 1

I. A.  Purpose of the project 1

I. B.  Research methods

I. C.  Background: Muslim population in Minnesota. 3

II.         The problem:  Suspicion tied to identity. 4

II. A.  Factor: FBI actions on the national level 5

II. A. 1.    Detentions following 9/11. 5

II. A. 2.    Voluntary interviews. 6

II. A. 3.    Infringements on privacy. 6

II. B.  Factor: Other federal agencies’ actions on the national level 7

II. B. 1.    Special registration. 7

II. B. 2.    Airport screening. 8

II. B. 3.    Immigration background checks. 8

II. C.  Background: Federal law-enforcement in Minnesota. 9

II. C. 1.    Federal law-enforcement organizational structure in Minnesota. 9

II. C. 2.    Terrorism prosecutions. 10

II. D.  Factor: Muslim and federal outreach efforts post-9/11. 12

II. D. 1.    Muslim outreach to federal officials and the broader community. 12

II. D. 2.    FBI and U.S. Attorney outreach to Muslim communities. 13

II. E.  Factor:  FBI and U.S. Attorney’s investigatory actions in Minnesota. 18

II. E. 1.    Voluntary interviews in Minnesota. 18

II. E. 2.    Scrutiny of Somalis. 20

II. E. 3.    Surveillance of and spying in mosques. 22

II. E. 4.    Persistent visits. 24

II. E. 5.    Immigration status as leverage. 26

II. F.  Factor: Muslim community reaction to FBI actions. 27

II. F. 1.    Generalized mistrust of U.S. government 27

II. F. 2.    Not using the system properly. 28

III.        Review of relevant analytical writings. 30

IV. A.  American public’s view of Muslims. 30

IV. B.  Muslim reactions to public suspicion. 33

IV.        Conclusions and recommendations. 34

1.  National-level federal actions discriminate against Muslims. 34

2.  National-level federal actions detrimentally affect the local relationship. 35

3.  Local FBI recruitment of informants within mosques undermines trust. 35

4.  Anecdotes suggest local FBI investigators verge on harassing Muslims. 36

5.  Federal outreach improved relations but was inconsistent. 36

6.  Muslim mistrust has legitimate sources but may be exaggerated. 37

7.  Law-enforcement’s suspicion of Muslims reflects broader societal attitudes. 37

Bibliography. 1

Footnotes  6

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Abbreviations used in this report

CIS                              U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

DOJ                             U.S. Department of Justice (Justice Department)

FBI                              Federal Bureau of Investigation

FBI-Minneapolis          FBI Minneapolis Field Division

ICE                              U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

INS                              U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service

IRB                              University of Minnesota Institutional Review Board

MAS                            Muslim American Society, national organization

MAS-MN                    Muslim American Society, Minnesota chapter

NSEERS                      National Security Entry-Exit Registration System

OFAC                         U.S. Department of Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control

SAC                            Special Agent in Charge

TSA                             Transportation Security Administration

9/11                             Al Qaeda’s terrorist attacks in the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001


I.                   Introduction

I. A.  Purpose of the project

This report was prepared at the suggestion of the Muslim American Society, Minnesota Chapter (MAS-MN), to assist the chapter as it communicated with federal government officials about law-enforcement practices that the chapter deems to be harassing and unresponsive.  The research and analysis were intended to assist MAS-MN, other Muslim community organizers and their allies in understanding and describing these practices in preparation for confronting such practices in multiple public forums.  The recommendations for improvement are directed at Congress, the local FBI, Muslims in Minnesota, and non-Muslim allies.

This document and related documents were produced as a community service of the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota.  The work was performed by Master of Public Affairs candidate Daniel Lynx Bernard with advice from MAS-MN and with research supervision by Dr. Gary DeCramer, director of the Master of Public Affairs Program.[1]  Bernard approached MAS-MN officials, who proposed the topic, which was approved by DeCramer and the University of Minnesota Institutional Review Board.  This paper does not represent the opinion or position of MAS-MN.

I. B.  Methodology

Most research and analysis was conducted between August and November 2006 by Bernard while a research assistant at the Humphrey Institute and a degree candidate in the Institute’s mid-career public affairs program.[2]  The paper is intended as a foundation for future work.  Research was aimed at sketching the outlines of the problem rather than defining the problem with a high level of detail or verification.  This limitation reflects the time constraints of the work period as well as the university’s procedural restrictions on research. 

Research included one-on-one interviews with people in the Minneapolis-St. Paul (Twin Cities) metropolitan area who have observed the relationship between the Muslim community and federal law-enforcement agencies:  Muslim and Somali community leaders, private attorneys, political activists, journalists, and current and former federal officials including Deborah S. Pierce, former Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Minneapolis Field Division, and Thomas A. Heffelfinger, former U.S. Attorney for Minnesota.  Documents reviewed included news media coverage, public federal documents, and human rights advocates’ reports.  These sources are listed in the Bibliography.  The generalities in this report apply primarily to Muslims born in other countries; the attitudes and experiences of U.S.-born Muslims were not explored.

The University of Minnesota’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) requires that individuals’ safety and privacy be protected during research projects, especially individuals from vulnerable populations, a category which includes immigrants; and especially on sensitive topics, which includes allegations of criminality.  Therefore this research excluded direct contact with private individuals who may have been approached, interrogated or detained by federal law-enforcement agencies.  Instead, the researcher interviewed secondary sources who had spoken to those private individuals, such as their lawyers and religious and community leaders, and did not ask or learn the names of the individuals.[3]  Under IRB rules, public officials may be identified.  Public figures such as heads of community organizations were interviewed about their own experiences and others’.  Secondary sources interviewed for this project gave written consent to be named and quoted, as did interview subjects whose public/private status was unclear.  All interview subjects were given an IRB form explaining their rights, the project’s purpose, and contact information for Dr. DeCramer and the IRB.

I. C.  Background:  The Muslim American Society of Minnesota

Research was conducted under the supervision of the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs and reflects the views of the author.  The author is grateful for the wisdom and cooperation of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota.  MAS-MN is a nonprofit community organization that provides services to an estimated 5,000 Minnesotan Muslims, from education and legal assistance to religious instruction and advocacy.  Founded by a group of leaders at Minneapolis-St. Paul area mosques in 2002, the organization seeks to promote unity and empowerment among Muslims and understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims.  MAS-MN encourages members to become active in non-Muslim charitable and civic organizations while seeking to preserve Muslim tradition.  The chapter’s annual convention on issues facing Muslims in America has drawn top political figures including former Vice President Walter Mondale and then-Senate candidate Amy Klobuchar.  

I. D.  Background: Muslim population in Minnesota

Of Minnesota’s 5.2 million population,[4] the number of Muslims is estimated at 100,000 to 150,000.[5]  The Muslim percentage of the population has been increasing[6] largely because of an influx of immigrants.  From 2000 to 2005, more than one in four immigrants to Minnesota came from a Muslim-majority[7] country.  In that period, more people immigrated to Minnesota from Muslim-dominant Somalia than from any other country.[8]  Somalis taking refuge from their country’s civil unrest have been resettled in Minnesota by federal officials in large numbers since the mid-1990s, and the state now hosts the largest concentration of Somalis in the U.S.[9]  Somalis make up an estimated 60 percent of Minnesota’s Muslim population, with Pakistanis the second largest group, followed by Middle-Easterners.[10]

 

II.                The problem:  Suspicion tied to identity

Many Muslim community leaders say that in the post-September 11th environment, most Muslims living in the United States, especially those born outside the country, perceive that the broader society treats them with suspicion because of their ethnic and religious identities.  This report examines Muslims in Minnesota, primarily foreign-born.

The perception of being held in suspicion arises from sources throughout society including news media coverage and politicians’ rhetoric, but it is most concrete in Muslims’ dealings with government and most threatening in encounters with law-enforcement representatives.  Many Muslim community leaders say that Muslims often feel scrutinized and intimidated by law-enforcement officers from local, state, and federal agencies.  This project focuses on the Federal Bureau of Investigation because it is the organizing agency in U.S. counterterrorism efforts that have resulted in offenses to Muslims.  The FBI also has been the focus of the Muslim community’s fear and resentment because, symbolically, it is seen as the country’s lead law-enforcement agency, and literally, its database and background checks are used by other agencies that are perceived to discriminate against Muslims.  Therefore Muslims have perceived the FBI to be the leading source of such discriminatory policies, and Muslim community leaders have attempted to hold the FBI’s Minneapolis Division accountable for rectifying the perceived discrimination and mistreatment by multiple federal agencies.  On one hand, Muslim leaders praise the Division’s top officials and public relations staff for their extensive efforts to communicate and build relationships with the Muslim community since 9/11.  But Muslim leaders say those outreach efforts have been inconsistent and contradicted by a sometimes bullying approach by investigatory staff.

The sense of being pre-judged and treated differently based on membership in a large demographic group, without respect to the individual’s own actions, produces a sense of injustice and alienation in the aggrieved party.  This section will review actions that contributed to the current state of distrust between the FBI and many Muslims in Minnesota.

II. A.  Factor: FBI actions on the national level

After the terrorism of September 11, 2001, Muslims in the United States have faced special scrutiny from federal law-enforcement agencies.  Many have involved actions by the FBI or the Department of Justice that contains the FBI.  Some of these nationwide actions occurred in Minnesota.  Other national-level actions that did not occur in Minnesota were nevertheless closely followed by Muslims in the state, according to community leaders and observers.

II. A. 1.    Detentions following 9/11

In the aftermath[11] of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the FBI and federal immigration officers[12] detained more than 1,000 Arabs, Muslims, and South Asians in the country who had not obtained citizenship, some for many months.  The Department of Justice (DOJ) said the detainees were “suspected of having ties” to terrorism, and more than 750 of them were found to have violated immigration laws.[13]  Major civil-liberties groups said the detentions were arbitrary, based on “tenuous” connections, and yielded “few, if any … real links to terrorism,”[14] and therefore amounted to ethnic and religious “profiling,”[15] i.e., targeting individuals based on presumptions about their demographic group. The DOJ’s Inspector General concluded that detainees in New York and New Jersey were physically and psychologically maltreated while detained.[16]  (None of the detentions in this initial round are known to have occurred in Minnesota.[17])

II. A. 2.    Voluntary interviews

            In fall 2001, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft directed the FBI to approach some 5,000 legal residents selected because they had emigrated recently from the same Middle Eastern nations as, and were about the same age as, the September 11th hijackers, and to question them about any knowledge of terrorism.[18]  The interviews continued into early 2002 with assistance from local and state police.[19]  The interviews are not believed to have produced significant information useful in counterterrorism.[20]  (About 100 interviews were conducted in Minnesota; the detrimental effect of the interview project on relations between the FBI and Muslims in Minnesota is discussed in Section II.E.1.)

II. A. 3.    Infringements on privacy

The USA PATRIOT[21] Act authorizes the FBI to demand personal records without probable cause or prior judicial approval. The American Civil Liberties Union says federal documents show that the FBI has regularly monitored and infiltrated peaceful political and religious groups since 9/11.[22]  (FBI efforts to spy on Muslim places of worship in Minnesota are discussed in Section II.E.3.)

II. B.  Factor: Other federal agencies’ actions on the national level

Some national-level actions by federal agencies other than the FBI post-9/11 tended to discriminate against Muslims.  These other agencies are both within the FBI’s Department of Justice and under the separate Department of Homeland Security (see table below).  These actions contributed to a mistrust of the federal government in general that affects Muslim perceptions of the FBI.

II. B. 1.    Special registration

 In June 2002 the Justice Department announced that certain foreign visitors in the country legally on visas[23] would be required to register with the government, be fingerprinted and photographed, and questioned.  The Department’s Immigration and Naturalization Services bureau (INS) would summon certain visa holders selected based on undisclosed criteria.[24]  The extra registration procedure was named National Security Entry-Exit Registration System or NSEERS and was applied to tens of thousands of males from 25 countries, of which all but one are predominantly Muslim. No one who reported for registration was charged with terrorism.[25]  Criticized for inadequate advance notice, the federal government cancelled most NSEERS requirements in December 2003, but those already registered may depart the U.S. only via certain cities after notifying the government.[26]  (This report does not explore how many Minnesota Muslims may have been summoned for special registration.)

II. B. 2.    Airport screening

Airport security procedures impose extra screening procedures for people whose names match or are similar to those on a national database of suspected security risks.  The television program “60 Minutes” obtained a copy of the name list and concluded it was “inaccurate, outdated and a source of aggravation for thousand of innocent Americans.”[27]  Although the database is maintained by a unit created within the FBI in December 2003 called the Terrorist Screening Center, multiple federal and local agencies use the database and submit names to it, and airport screening procedures are overseen by the Transportation Security Administration.[28]

Muslims find they are repeatedly stopped and questioned in airports (including Minneapolis-St. Paul’s) while non-Muslims are not.  The government keeps the list confidential, and “60 Minutes” did not generalize about the list’s demographic makeup.  The Terrorist Screening Center’s separate, public list of most-wanted terrorists and suspicious persons held 33 names in November 2006:  All were Muslim.[29]

II. B. 3.    Immigration background checks

Attorney General Ashcroft increased background checks for immigrants applying for citizenship starting around December 2002.  Lawyers for immigrants say the portion[30] of the background check performed by the FBI results in a delay of many months or years for immigrants but no more than a month for U.S. citizens.[31]  (In Minneapolis, immigration attorney Margaret A. Russell said the local FBI Division would not explain the reason for the delays.  After numerous e-mails to the Division’s general address went unanswered, Russell met with then-Special Agent in Charge Michael Tabman[32] and other agents in summer 2005.  The agents declined to explain a delay for a specific client of Russell’s and were vague in explaining the general delays.[33])

II. C.  Background: Federal law-enforcement in Minnesota

II. C. 1.    Federal law-enforcement organizational structure in Minnesota

The FBI’s Minneapolis Field Division (FBI-Minneapolis) is responsible for investigating crime in Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota from its main office in downtown Minneapolis and 14 satellite offices.  The FBI’s national areas of focus post-9/11 are, in order of priority:  terrorism, foreign espionage, computer-assisted crime, public corruption, civil rights violations, organized crime, major white-collar crime, and significant violent crime.[34]  The local FBI investigates criminal cases and forwards them to the local U.S. Attorney’s Office to consider prosecuting.[35]

The Division had nearly 150 agents covering that territory in the three years after 9/11.[36]  To investigate potential terrorism, the Division enlists the aid of other agencies via its Joint Terrorism Task Force, formed in January 2000.  The task force includes 22 representatives of federal,[37] state,[38] and local[39] law-enforcement agencies.  The then-head of the FBI Minneapolis Division[40] said he proposed the task force in 1998 out of concern that “suspicious Middle Eastern figures were slipping into the state – home to a growing Muslim population and just hours from the Canadian border.”[41]  Minneapolis’ task force was operational before most in the country and so was poised to pursue a large share of the tips that flooded in after 9/11.[42]  FBI-Minneapolis would ask each member to pursue a share of tips;[43] members work together on selected cases.[44]

II. C. 2.    Terrorism prosecutions

Investigations by the FBI Minneapolis Division led to three high-profile prosecutions of Muslims linked to terrorism in the three years after 9/11.

a.     Zacarias Moussaoui

Moussaoui, a French native of Moroccan descent, resided in Oklahoma and was taking flying lessons in the Minneapolis area in August 2001.  When flight instructors expressed suspicion about Moussaoui’s behavior, FBI-Minneapolis and INS agents discovered his visa had expired and arrested him August 15.  Ascertaining that Moussaoui was linked to radical Islamist groups, FBI-Minneapolis sought permission to tap his phone and search his computer but were denied permission until after the September 11th attacks.[45]  In December 2001 Moussaoui was indicted for conspiring in those attacks.[46]  Moussaoui was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in May 2006.

b.     Mohammed Warsame

Mohammed Abdullah Warsame, a Canadian citizen from Somalia, was living in Minneapolis and attending community college[47] when FBI-Minneapolis agents took him into custody in December 2003.[48]  The government justified his detention by citing the federal “material witness” statute, implying he was not suspected of a crime but only a witness to another person’s crime who might flee.  In January 2004 Warsame was indicted with having conspired to help Al Qaeda since March 2000.[49]  Prosecutors said Warsame admitted training with Al Qaeda in 2000 and 2001 while primarily residing in Toronto.[50]  His trial has yet to be scheduled.[51]

Warsame’s lawyer questions the propriety of the FBI’s holding Warsame as a witness if it considered him a suspect.[52]  That would be a misuse of the material witness law of a sort that human rights advocates say the Department of Justice used on 70 men, all but one of them Muslim, in the three and half years following 9/11.[53]  Further, if FBI agents approached Warsame as a witness, he would not have been under arrest, so his leaving his home with them should have been voluntary.  Deborah Pierce, then Minneapolis’ Special Agent in Charge, said she is confident based on the agents’ account to her that Warsame “agreed to go with” them.[54]  Warsame’s lawyer, Peter Erlinder, doubts that the agents obtained Warsame’s informed consent.  One of the agents testified at an evidentiary hearing that they came to the house after Warsame’s wife had left, then asked Warsame if he would like to come with them but did not say to where.[55]  Warsame did not tell his wife or employer he was leaving[56] although he had a tutoring appointment later that day.  Warsame was taken to a military base in northern Minnesota and questioned for three days.55

c.     Mohamad Elzahabi

Mohamad Kamal Elzahabi, a Lebanese citizen living in Minneapolis, was approached by FBI agents in Minnesota around March 2004 and held in custody under the material witness statute classifying him as a potential witness.  In June 2004 he was charged with lying to the FBI about activities from when he lived in New York: shipping field radios to Afghanistan and helping a man who planned a millennium bombing.  The FBI said Elzahabi admitted he was a terrorism instructor in Afghanistan from 1988 to 1995.[57]  He is awaiting trial.[58]

II. D.  Factor: Muslim and federal outreach efforts post-9/11

In the immediate aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks, Muslim community leaders and federal law-enforcement officials in Minnesota both took proactive steps to strengthen community relations.

II. D. 1.    Muslim outreach to federal officials and the broader community

A group of Muslim men who were leaders in their mosques, who knew each other through community work and had cooperated on Kosovo relief were concerned the 9/11 attacks would provoke hostility toward Muslims.  In response, they created the Muslim Council of Minnesota on Sept. 12, 2001.  The council met with government officials including FBI representatives and held public forums to promote understanding of the religion Islam.  Several members of the council would go on to form a local chapter of the Muslim American Society (MAS-MN) in 2002.[59]

The longstanding[60] Islamic Center of Minnesota also took action to raise awareness that not all Muslims are terrorists.  “As … American[s], we were angry just like everybody else about this tragedy ….  And then we were also under this limelight of being Muslims and somehow need to vindicate ourselves.  The media is reporting, ‘Muslim, Muslim, Muslim.’ Obviously we need to differentiate ourselves,” said Ashraf Siddiqui, then the Center’s president.  To demonstrate its outrage at the attacks, within a month the organization held a press conference with state legislators at the Minnesota Capitol, placed newspaper advertisements, and held an open house at its Fridley headquarters attended by major officeholders.[61]

Representatives from the Islamic Center of Minnesota and MAS-MN have periodically given presentations to the local FBI and U.S. Attorney’s staffs to dispel stereotypes and sensitize them to Muslim cultural differences such as female modesty.[62]

II. D. 2.    FBI and U.S. Attorney outreach to Muslim communities

Muslim leaders have praised the efforts of the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office to arrange community meetings with Muslims after 9/11.  Federal officials said those “outreach” efforts had a dual purpose: to allay Muslims’ fears of federal law-enforcement[63] and to seek allies from within the community.

a.     Community meetings

Thomas A. Heffelfinger was in the process of being confirmed as U.S. Attorney for Minnesota when the World Trade Center fell.  He took office Sept. 24, 2001.  “The first day, I said, ‘We need to reach out to Minnesota’s Muslim population,’” Heffelfinger said.  On Sept. 30, Heffelfinger met with a group of imams (prayer leaders) and other Muslim community leaders at Ummat Muhammad mosque on East Lake Street in Minneapolis.  Heffelfinger said that meeting “set the tone” for the coming relationship between federal officials and the Muslim community:

“The message from the Islamic community was, ‘…9/11 is horrible.  We’re on board.  Our people were killed.  This act of extremism is not the Muslim faith.’  It was a statement of sympathy and cooperation. Our message was, ‘A., thank you. B., we agree with you that religious fundamentalism and extremism is not a Muslim problem; it is a problem of all religions. But we’re gonna need your help.’ This was a consistent message that we sent, which was, whether one likes it or not, the fact of the matter is current Muslim extremism exists in Muslim countries and in Muslim communities.  If one is to learn what is happening, one has to go to those communities to get information.”[64]

 

Heffelfinger estimated that he met with Somali or Muslim community representatives on average every three weeks through late 2004.  High-ranking FBI officials participated in about three out of four and did additional outreach including one-on-one and town hall-style meetings.  FBI Agent Paul A. McCabe, media coordinator for the Minneapolis Division, organized those efforts.  McCabe said the Division reassured Somalis and other Muslims that the FBI would investigate any hate crimes and invited community members to come forward if they learned potential terrorists were in town:

“We wanted to make sure that we developed relationships so that if they had concerns, they could come to us. … ‘We know that people who want to do harm to this country may try to hide in your community … and you need to let us know.’”[65]

 

           When community leaders expressed concern about negative news media portrayals of Muslims, McCabe arranged a meeting with local broadcast journalists that led to coverage of the outreach efforts in 2004.  McCabe advised Muslim leaders that complaining publicly about FBI practices would make them look uncooperative in the eyes of the non-Muslim public:

“Part of what we told them was, ‘It doesn’t look good if it looks like you’re always fighting us. The FBI has great respect in this community.  If they always go on TV … the public is going to get that perception.”[66]

 

Pierce, who took office in December 2001 as Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of the Minneapolis Division, said she placed great importance in investing time to build relationships with the community.  Outreach meetings let the community see the FBI as a source of aid and allow the FBI to meet individuals who can provide future information, she said.  She described presentations to Muslim and Somali community groups:

“We gave our presentation, explained … how to get a hold of us if you have any civil rights complaints, if you feel any harassment of any kind, and also asking for their assistance, which is huge, because we don’t live in their community. We don’t know what’s going on in our community.  We need them to tell us if there’s somebody who’s not fitting in, because if they are a terrorist, not only is it going to hurt innocent people, but it’s going to hurt that community that the people come from.”[67]

 

Pierce said the attempt at cooperation was sometimes undermined by community members who questioned whether the FBI had Muslims’ interests in mind.  At a June 2003 outreach meeting in St. Cloud,[68] Minneapolis-based Somali activist Omar Jamal arrived and posed awkward questions that “made us look bad in the community,” Pierce said.  At a meeting in a Minneapolis suburb, Pierce recalls growing angry when, instead of appreciation, her visit was met by accusations:

“This older man stands up in … the room and says, ‘How can we believe you? You’re responsible for the Jews being killed.  You’re responsible for the Japanese internment.’  And he went down this list of these horrendous things that happened. I was sitting there getting really angry, thinking, I didn’t have anything to do with those things.  I’m coming with an olive branch.  I’m trying to establish a relationship.  Finally I said, ‘I was not responsible for any of those things.  I was not even alive when those things took place.  I’m trying to establish a relationship with the community.  When people like that just stand up and spout garbage, it hurts everybody.  There are a certain amount of people in the room who want to believe what he said.”67

b.     Personnel changes interrupt outreach continuity

FBI outreach efforts to the Muslim community decreased when Pierce transferred to the FBI’s Washington headquarters and was replaced as SAC by Michael Tabman in January 2005, many observers agreed.  The FBI’s McCabe had served as coordinator to the Muslim community since 9/11.  In about March 2005, Tabman decided “there were other issues [for McCabe] to address,” McCabe said.65  McCabe said he could not disclose the new tasks because they were “case-sensitive.”[69]      McCabe suggested the reprioritization was partially related to the demands of the FBI’s investigating the March 2005 shooting rampage on the Red Lake Indian Reservation.  During this period, McCabe said he continued to meet with Muslim leaders periodically “on [his] own.”  The reduction in Muslim outreach lasted for more than a year until July 2006, when Tabman restored that task as one of McCabe’s priorities.65  Heffelfinger said Tabman agreed with him on the importance of community outreach “but not to the degree that Deb Pierce did.”64

Outreach by the U.S. Attorney’s Office to the Muslim community decreased when Heffelfinger stepped down in February 2006.  The presidential nominee to replace him, Rachel K. Paulose, has avoided public comments while she awaits confirmation.[70]  Paulose would not attend community outreach meetings until confirmed, but assistant U.S. attorneys have attended “several” such meetings with Muslim representatives since March 2006, a spokeswoman said.[71]

c.     Delay and miscommunication on proposed Muslim task force

By late 2005, the Muslim American Society of Minnesota and a council of Twin Cities imams had grown upset over investigatory actions and practices (detailed in Section II.E.) that suggested FBI-Minneapolis and other federal agencies were targeting Muslims for scrutiny.  Hassan Mohamud, a leader in both groups, asked FBI-Minneapolis to form a task force with Muslim representatives to air those concerns.  Because the groups were also upset over airport screening and immigration background checks, Mohamud proposed that the task force include representatives from the Transportation Security Administration and the Citizenship and Immigration Services bureau, which oversee those areas, and the Homeland Security Department that contains both.  Tabman and his legal counsel and deputy met with Mohamud and 10 imams at Ummat Muhammad mosque in Minneapolis in late 2005.   Tabman praised the idea and said he “would look into it,” which Mohamud considered a “verbal agreement” to form the task force.[72]  Tabman delegated the idea to a counterterrorism supervisor newly assigned in Minneapolis who lacked connections in the Muslim community, McCabe said.69  Over the next six months, Mohamud and the supervisor spoke twice, then traded phone messages.  Mohamud said he had the impression the supervisor was busy and the task force proposal was a low priority.72

FBI-Minneapolis had felt pressure to pay attention to other minority groups.  McCabe said the effort in outreach to Muslims had left other communities feeling neglected.65  Pierce said a 2004 internal inspection report indicated local Hispanics felt overlooked because of the FBI’s focus on terrorism.67  In April 2005, Tabman announced a “Citizens Academy” program to familiarize selected business and community leaders with the internal workings of the FBI.[73]  Around January 2006, Tabman decided to form a Civil Rights Advisory Group with representatives from several ethnic communities including Hmong and Hispanic and religions including Jewish and Muslim.[74]  Its quarterly meetings are intended to improve the FBI’s relations with all the communities and inform participants how to access the FBI’s resources.  Somali community organizer Saeed Fahia attended one meeting and found it “really positive,” with members driving the agenda and increasing their understanding of each other’s communities.[75]

MAS-MN officials were invited to the advisory group.  From their perspective, FBI-Minneapolis was stalling their request for an action-oriented committee that could resolve Muslims’ concerns with multiple agencies, and was directing them instead to a powerless committee for the FBI’s benefit where Muslim concerns would be diluted with other groups’.  In mid-September 2006, MAS-MN decided to not participate in the advisory board.72  After Mohamud inquired about the status of the task force proposal, McCabe told Mohamud and a Somali journalist in late September 2006 that he was assuming responsibility for the idea.[76]  “We’re putting it together. We’re all for it. We’re trying.  We want to do it,” McCabe said in October 2006.69

II. E.  Factor:  FBI and U.S. Attorney’s investigatory actions in Minnesota

While outreach efforts ensued publicly, the FBI Minneapolis Division pursued investigations in a low-profile manner.  In the view of many Muslim community leaders, private attorneys, and civil libertarians, many investigatory actions and practices by FBI-Minneapolis have tended to harass and intimidate Muslims in Minnesota while lending the impression that all Muslims are viewed with suspicion by the federal government.  There were no accounts of FBI conduct that clearly violated laws.

II. E. 1.    Voluntary interviews in Minnesota

Like their counterparts around the country, the U.S. Attorney and FBI in Minnesota participated in the Attorney General’s late 2001 order to hold voluntary interviews with legal U.S. residents selected primarily because they came from the Middle East (see Section II.A.2.).  Of about 5,000 individuals selected nationwide, about 115 lived in Minnesota.[77]

Heffelfinger said the interview project could be viewed as a large-scale version of a “neighborhood canvass,” when police ask neighbors about a crime simply because they live nearby.  The interviewees could have crossed paths with or heard something about the 9/11 terrorists or Al Qaeda in their home countries before coming to the U.S.  Nevertheless, the project undermined the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s efforts to build trust:

“It was clearly targeted on countries that are Muslim communities.  So now we’ve got this national mandate to do this, and it’s happening right at the time that we’re trying to do outreach to establish bridges for communication. … I think it had the effect of poisoning the national relationship or creating a challenge in developing a national relationship between the federal government and Department of Justice and the broader Muslim-American population. … I think it hurt.  It set us back, because at the same time we were trying to establish trust within the Muslim community whereby people would voluntarily come to us if they heard something suspicious.”77

To limit the damage, before initiating the interview project, Heffelfinger and a high FBI official held several community meetings to explain the purpose of the interviews.  There Heffelfinger emphasized that submitting to an interview was not mandatory, that interviewees could choose the location, and that if they felt uncomfortable or intimidated, they could complain to the FBI, U.S. Attorney, or a private attorney.  Heffelfinger helped train officers in how to conduct the interviews in Minnesota.  During an interview, an FBI agent and local police officer would approach an individual, saying he or she was not a suspect in any matter, that they were interested in whether the person had information that could help the U.S. prevent terrorism, and that speaking to them would be voluntary.  Heffelfinger refused local civil-libertarians’ demand that the interviewees have their lawyers present,[78] saying that would be inappropriate because the interviewees were not suspects.  Heffelfinger did agree to have the teams provide a list of local lawyers.

Of the roughly 115 individuals selected, perhaps 10 declined to participate, and none registered complaints, Heffelfinger said.  He said he knows of no charges or leads that arose from those interviews; the data was sent to Washington to be analyzed.77  Attorney Nestor said the interviews were “threatening” to Arab communities and not truly voluntary because recent immigrants would be afraid to refuse.[79]  Heffelfinger said he “guarantees” that every interviewee was told the interview was voluntary, but he acknowledged a possible intimidating effect.  “I will also guarantee that when you’re sitting in your apartment – and most of these people, the only address we had was their home address – and two white guys or a white guy and white woman knock on your door and they hold up a badge and they say ‘FBI’ or ‘Saint Paul Police Department,’ I’m absolutely certain that people were scared.” 77

II. E. 2.    Scrutiny of Somalis

The FBI Minneapolis Division has not scrutinized individuals based on their national origin or religion but rather on the basis of tips and allegations directed at those individuals, according to the Division’s former SAC and current media coordinator and the former U.S. Attorney.[80]  However, FBI-Minneapolis did pay special attention to communities where would-be terrorists might attempt to reside undetected, such as the Muslim community including the Somali community, McCabe and Pierce said.  This attention manifested in public outreach efforts (see Section II.D.2) and in investigatory actions.  Pierce said FBI-Minneapolis paid attention to the Somali community because it is large and because terrorists based in Somalia had been linked to the firing of missiles at an Israeli airplane in Kenya in November 2002, although she added that FBI-Minneapolis paid similar attention to communities of other national and religious backgrounds:

“We’re looking at every allegation and threat that comes up that’s a potential threat to the safety of the community.  They [Somalis] receive more scrutiny because they have a large population base here of Somalians, and there had been a connection with the Israeli airline that was shot at.  There was public – it’s a matter of public record – there was Somalian terrorist support for that event.  We’re gonna be very aware of what’s going on in the Somalian community, because we have that huge population.  We want to know who’s here or not here.  So we have to reach forward and ask for assistance. … But we were doing the same thing with the Sikh community, the Jewish community, the American Indian community[81]. … It’s the same argument for any other ethnicity that’s involved in terrorism.  You’re going to look where you're being told there’s potential threats.”[82]

 

a.    Closure of money-transfer businesses

Somalis felt scrutinized and threatened in November 2001 when federal authorities raided and closed five Somali-owned money-transfer businesses in Minneapolis alleged to be funneling money to Al Qaeda.  The five businesses were placed on the federal government list of known terrorist entities and their assets frozen.[83]

Such “hawala”[84] businesses are used heavily by East African immigrants remitting funds to relatives in their home countries.  The federal government focused on these largely unregulated businesses as potential money-launderers for crime and terrorism: The Minneapolis raids occurred simultaneously with raids in four other U.S. cities.[85]  In Minnesota, two of the businesses sued the government[86] and were cleared in August 2002.[87]  Another, Al-Barakat, has succeeded in getting its officials’ names cleared,[88] but the business and two others[89] remain closed and on the terror list.  No criminal charges were filed.[90]  Heffelfinger said it would be incorrect to assume the raids yielded nothing conclusively linked to terrorism; he would not elaborate.  Heffelfinger said it was legitimate to investigate “unregulated businesses through which money flowed from the United States into a number of different countries.  Because of the nature of the clientele of hawalas, a majority flowed to the Middle East along with other countries.”[91]

b.    Welfare fraud charge dismissed

Bruce D. Nestor, who was president of the National Lawyers Guild from 2001 to 2004 and has practiced immigration and civil rights law in Minnesota since 2002, said he has advised at least 10 immigrants from the Middle East and East Africa in Minnesota who had been approached by the FBI over conduct that would not have come to the FBI’s attention if not for the high amount of time the agency has devoted to those communities post-9/11.[92]  In one instance, the FBI investigated a Twin Cities-area Somali man’s involvement in money-transfer businesses, then apparently examined his personal finances, and discovered basis to allege he had committed welfare fraud with federal medical benefits.[93]  Nestor said the amount of fraud alleged was much smaller than would normally merit federal attention.  After freezing the man’s assets for two months, federal officials decided not to pursue the charge.92

c.    Prosecution of activist Omar Jamal

A similar grievance – that federal officials discovered a potentially legitimate infraction because of extraordinary scrutiny – was voiced when federal officials alleged that Minneapolis Somali activist Omar Jamal lied on immigration forms years earlier.  Jamal, born in Somalia, sought asylum in 1998 saying he had arrived from Kenya; he did not reveal that he had also resided in Canada.[94]  After Sept. 11, 2001, Jamal became an outspoken critic of local police and the FBI for their treatment of Somalis.  Jamal was arrested in April 2003 by Homeland Security Department officials for committing fraud on his asylum application.  Jamal claimed the prosecution was retaliation for his advocacy.[95]  His attorney, Peter Erlinder, plans to argue the same: Immigration officials said they learned of Jamal’s fraud through tips from the Somali community in March 2002, but Erlinder said documents show an immigration investigator began looking into Jamal in October 2001, around the time Jamal was becoming outspoken.[96]  Heffelfinger denied the retaliation claim.[97]  The case is pending.

II. E. 3.    Surveillance of and spying in mosques

FBI-Minneapolis officials effectively acknowledged that the Division has placed mosques under surveillance and attempted to recruit Muslims to serve as covert informants in mosques.  Federal officials say such actions are always triggered by allegations against individuals without regard to national origin or religion.  Muslim officials say the apparent surveillance and attempted infiltration show that FBI overtures to trust and cooperation are disingenuous.

a.    FBI asked Jordanian-American to spy on Muslim community

In proceedings related to a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis in early 2006, a local businessman alleged that FBI agents, some based in Minneapolis, asked him to act as an informant in the Muslim community, including attending mosques and telling the FBI what was said.[98]  The agents offered to reimburse the businessman for gasoline expenses.[99]  The man, from Jordan, had permanent resident status, but his application for U.S. citizenship had been long delayed.[100]  He refused the request.98  “He told them, ‘I don't have any information to give you.  If I ever heard information about criminal or terrorist activity, I would come to you.  I’m a loyal American,’” said his lawyer, Nestor.99  The FBI did not respond to a letter asking they cease contacts with the man and have not contacted him since the lawsuit filing, Nestor said.93

b.    Immigrations violators pressured to inform

Peter Erlinder, a Saint Paul attorney and legal scholar, said he represented two Muslim immigrants who were arrested by the FBI on five-year-old passport violations, detained and asked to provide information about people in their mosques and other local Muslims.  One refused and was charged with a felony; the other agreed to provide information and was allowed to plead to a misdemeanor.  Five years earlier the two had entered the country on false passports and had admitted the falsifications while requesting political asylum; after a period of detention, asylum was granted without criminal charges for the passport falsification.  Erlinder said it was opportunistic for the government to revive violations that had previously been confessed and set aside:  It’s the use of the power to pressure in an effort turn people into informants … The explicit deal was, ‘if you give us information, we will help you.’”[101]

c.    Surveilling mosques

Muslims suspect that mosques and gathering places are frequently under surveillance by the FBI.[102]  The evidence is anecdotal.   For instance, MAS-MN President Hesham Hussein said a man was seen in a mosque parking lot apparently photographing license plates with a cell-phone camera.[103]  These stories contribute to the sense of being under suspicion as a group.

Pierce said FBI-Minneapolis might have watched mosques on occasion. But she emphasized that would have been brief and related to specific allegations against individuals.  There has been no “blanket” surveillance of Muslim buildings, she said:

“What we focus on are individuals.  When we have reason to believe that an individual is involved in criminal activity, then we need to identify their associates. In the course of investigating, it is possible that a mosque would be watched. But we don’t have the resources to monitor all the mosques all the time, or even one mosque all the time.”[104]

 

Heffelfinger said the concern that mosques are routinely monitored is “an urban myth,” adding: “The manpower is such that it requires only focusing efforts on those leads that are based on fact, not on suspicions.”[105]

II. E. 4.    Persistent visits

Secondhand accounts of Muslims’ encounters with FBI-Minneapolis agents depict an aggressive approach to questioning people in their homes and workplaces that verges on harassing.[106]

Anwar Abdul Karim, president of the Islamic Center of Minnesota since November 2005, said an Arab man, an engineer who lives in a south Minneapolis suburb, told him of multiple tense visits in mid-2005 from a pair identifying themselves as FBI agents.  Visiting his home when only his wife was present, the pair left, returned when the man was home, and asked to speak to him.  “He told them ‘I cannot talk to you guys until I talk to [my] lawyer.’”  They left but came to his workplace several days later and asked to question him there.  The man asked them to show identification but they did not, he told Abdul Karim.[107]  (Ex-FBI Division head Pierce said FBI agents always show their ID badges, so she doubts the story.[108])  When the man used his cell-phone camera to photograph the pair standing in the parking lot, “They got very angry when he took the picture. They tried to grab the phone from him and they almost had a fight,” Abdul Karim said.  The pair visited the workplace again, and the engineer permitted them to search his office.  They removed some items from his office but did not arrest him.  “It is really an embarrassing situation for this person … It’s really intimidating,” Abdul Karim said.107

Somali journalist Abdirahman Aynte said he interviewed a Somali man whose encounters with FBI agents in 2003 left him shaken.  Concealing the man’s identity, Aynte told his story on Minneapolis radio station KFAI in February 2006.  The man and his wife, also Somali, had been in the U.S. about eight years when two men identifying themselves as FBI agents knocked on his apartment door and asked to interview him there.  He consented, and they asked if he knew anything about Al-Ittihad Al-Islamiya,[109] a militant organization in Somalia linked to November 2002 terrorist attacks on Israelis in Kenya.  The man repeatedly said he knew nothing of the organization and had left Somalia before the group became prominent.  The agents left, but the man told Aynte that for the next few weeks, he periodically saw the men in a sports utility vehicle in the parking lot of his suburban apartment complex.  He and his wife became increasingly unnerved.  He believed he saw them in the parking lot of his workplace as well.  About two months after the first visit, the agents phoned and said they were coming over to interview him.  On this visit they again asked about Al-Ittihad, he again denied any knowledge, and they left.  The man and his wife believed the agents continued to watch the apartment.   The man felt “huge panic,” he told Aynte, and “his wife started to have this manic mode that when she wants to go out in the morning, she would look out the window to see if she could see those two guys in the parking lot.”  Still upset many months later, the couple decided to move out of the state in 2005.[110]  (Former U.S. Attorney Heffelfinger said it is highly unlikely two agents could expend so much time watching someone merely on a vague suspicion:  “They don’t have the manpower to camp out on people’s streets.”[111])

II. E. 5.    Immigration status as leverage

MAS-MN President Hesham Hussein said the FBI took advantage of an Egyptian youth’s visa violation to pressure him to provide incriminating testimony against Mohamad Elzahabi (Section II.C.2.).  The youth had stayed in the U.S. beyond the time allowed by his visa and was apprehended during a traffic stop.  The youth said FBI agents had told him that if he testified to having witnessed Elzahabi plan terrorist acts, he would be assured of receiving permanent U.S. residency, but that if he refused, he would be deported.  He refused, and MAS-MN hired a lawyer to fight deportation.  When federal agents claimed to have found a firearm in his home that could bring him a long prison term, he acceded to being deported to Egypt.[112]

Pierce said she did not recall such events.  She generally defended the practice of linking immigration status with testimony.  The U.S. government even created a type “S” visa for foreign individuals who provide “significant information, support, [or] intelligence that would help us to defeat a criminal or terrorist act.  So we can make that kind of offer.  There’s nothing nefarious about it.”115

II. F.  Factor: Muslim community reaction to FBI actions

II. F. 1.    Generalized mistrust of U.S. government

The mistrust on the part of many Muslims toward U.S. government is generalized.  The separation of duties between multiple levels of government and multiple agencies within each level, complicated for any U.S. resident, can be more so for immigrants familiar with different structures in their countries of origin.  The complexity of U.S. government can exacerbate minorities’ and immigrants’ fear and sense of alienation in dealings with law-enforcement representatives.

Sophea Woolner, a former public defender and private criminal defense lawyer, said she has represented and consulted with many immigrant Muslim men since 9/11 who were in great fear after having been approached by FBI-Minneapolis agents.  Woolner believes the fear arose in part from the FBI agents’ overly aggressive manner but also from the men’s distorted perception of the FBI’s malevolence:

“I feel that they [FBI-Minneapolis] do harass people, generally Muslims. Some of the FBI agents are really not trained well, coming more sort of like bullies.  They want to coerce people – ‘You come to this restaurant and talk to us,’ and people get scared. … And it’s extremely.  These people are panicked when they come to me, saying, ‘Please help us, help us!’” [The men’s unfamiliarity with the FBI as immigrants] “is a factor, too. Maybe the other Muslims wouldn’t like me to say that, but ... I don’t know if it's the way that the FBI agent approaches them, or is it something internal within the client that, ‘Oh my God, this is the FBI. I can't say no to them.’ … Whereas a white American, if he or she if get [approached], they would be like, ‘My Gosh, why do I have to talk to you?’”[113]

 

MAS-MN officials have grown cynical about the motives of the FBI and have avoided appearing too close to the agency.  When MAS-MN officials declined FBI-Minneapolis’ invitation to participate in its Civil Rights Advisory Group (see Section II.D.2.), a secondary reason was MAS-MN officials’ fear that the term “advisory” would imply participants were informing on Muslim community members.[114]

Deborah Pierce said people who misunderstand the division of government tend to blame the FBI for actions by other agencies.  Asked why Muslims in Minnesota would have a sense of fear and persecution regarding the FBI, Pierce answered:

“Law enforcement is all being assumed to be under FBI.  Whether it’s security at the airport, or the knocks on the door whether it’s local police or ATF or DEA, it’s all, in their minds, FBI. And that’s what I was trying so hard to do [during outreach meetings] is explain what our mission is.  Every time I went out, I tried to do that.  There’s thousands of incidents that have never had a problem at all.  It’s always the way – the anomalies, the things that aren't good are the things that get the perception.  … Part of that goes to 25 years of being in the FBI.  When somebody feels like they’re being picked on, there’s generally a reason behind it. Whether it’s something we would be interested in or not, they might have a reason to feel persecuted.”[115]

 

II. F. 2.    Not using the system properly

A sense of alienation may explain why many Muslims are not taking advantage of the potential recourse available to them within the law-enforcement system.

a.    No complaints filed

Despite the perception of a pattern of harassment and intimidation described in the anecdotes above, no one has filed a formal complaint[116] with or about FBI-Minneapolis after investigative actions or practices since 9/11.[117]  FBI-Minneapolis’ McCabe said that when Muslim leaders raised suggestions of improper FBI behavior, “we always say, ‘Bring us a complaint. Give us a date, a time, and a place, and we will investigate it. …. Bring us the details and facts. Even if it’s just that an agent is unprofessional, we’re gonna investigate.’ That’s a fact. … We’ve never received any complaints of improper policing involving Muslims.”[118]

Nestor said he tried to impress upon Muslim community representatives around 2004 the importance of making formal complaints with specifics and witnesses.[119]   He attributes the lack of complaints to distrust on the part of Muslims, especially immigrants, who see no point in appealing to the same government that committed alleged abuses.  Federal actions around the country (see Section II.A. and II.B.) and FBI actions in Minnesota (Section II.E.) sealed this mistrust, Nestor said.  For example, the requirement that Middle Eastern visa-holders around the country report for special registration (Section II.B.1) or face criminal charges caused

“… tremendous fear in the community as people rushed to meet the deadline.  Lines were hundreds of people long.  Others were then arrested at the interviews without notice to families or lawyers …. [T]hese were persons with no criminal activity related to national security, but only immigration issues. They were treated differently solely due to religion and national origin. … It is in this context that people are afraid to file formal complaints.”[120]

National actions such as special registration that clearly discriminated against Muslims, combined with local prosecutions that arose amid special scrutiny of Somalis (II.E.2), shaped how Muslims perceived other, “legitimate law enforcement activities,” Nestor said.

b.    Dismissing offered remedies

MAS-MN President Hesham Hussein said he is offended that in recent years, every time he travels by airplane, he is asked to undergo manual luggage searches, questioning, and background checks that delay him by an hour or more per airport.  At first, security officials told him the checks were random; eventually it became apparent that his name or a name similar to his is listed in a federal database of suspected security risks (see Section II.B.2.).  Hussein met with a local Transportation Security Administration official at the Minneapolis airport in early 2006 and asked that his name and those of other local Muslim leaders be removed from the database.  The official said Hussein could submit a “Traveler Identity Verification Form” to the TSA that could reduce the delay if the TSA ascertained he was being stopped because of an error or mistaken identity.  The verification process only would affect how TSA acted after reading the database; it does not guarantee eliminating the delay or affecting how airlines and other law-enforcement agencies act after reading the database.  Hussein did not bother filling out the form, deciding it would be worthless:  “If it’s not going to take my name off any list, … if it’s going to be dropping a mail into an unknown person’s box, what is that going to do?”[121]

c.    Filing false allegations

Pierce said that during her tenure (2002-2004), members of the Muslim community occasionally falsely accused other Muslims of criminal activity because of personal vendettas such as women retaliating against ex-boyfriends.  She could not quantify such accusations but said, “[I]t happened enough that people in the community came to us and said, ‘What if someone says I did something and I didn’t do it?’”  These false allegations eroded the community’s trust in the FBI, she said.

d.    Fraud victims not seeking help

Somalis’ mistrust of the federal government leads them to decline to seek assistance when they are victims of fraud or violent crime, Heffelfinger said.[122] 

III.   Review of relevant analytical writings

IV. A.  American public’s view of Muslims

Non-Muslim Americans became intensely interested in Islam after 9/11.  Many of the academic and analytical articles and books that interpreted for Americans the religion and its adherents tended to portray Muslims as a distinct race of people whose lives and personas were vastly different from those of Americans.  Casting Muslims as the “other” contributed to American fear of Muslims.  These writings also tended to consolidate the diverse subgroups and nationalities of Muslims into a generalized monolithic group with the same basic characteristics from Morocco to Indonesia.  Such simplification facilitated the stereotyping of Muslims by the dominant U.S. culture.  More damaging was the conceptual compression of Islam the religion with Islamism the extremist political ideology.  That combination allowed Americans to discriminate against the former because of the obvious threat of the latter.

The most-cited of these readings was The Clash of Civilizations by Samuel P. Huntington, a 1996 book expanding on his similarly titled 1993 essay.    Huntington wrote that while economic and political differences can be negotiated, cultural differences such as religion are binary and so are destined to cause conflict.[123]  Huntington was referring to several civilizations, but a public seeking a reason for 9/11 seized on the title concept as revealing that Muslims are a different civilization from “us”; the two civilizations are in competition; theirs is trying to beat “ours,” so retaliation is justified and necessary.  The notion of a big fight involving every member of each culture echoed the frame preferred by Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Huntington’s title phrase was borrowed from a 1990 article by Bernard Lewis, “The Roots of Muslim Rage,” which described Islamist militancy as a reaction by “an ancient rival” against “our Judeo-Christian heritage [and] our secular present.”[124]  Lewis’ formulation implied that militant Islam, rather than being a violent perversion of the religion, should be viewed as a representative agent of the religion and the whole culture that follows it.  Lewis also implied that Westerners needed to choose sides against Islam or else lose their heritage and modern lifestyle.

This antagonistic framing affected the thinking of Americans in general and that of law-enforcement officials in Minnesota.  Former FBI-Minneapolis head Pierce recounted that in trying to improve relations with Minnesota Muslims, she received advice from experts.  Pierce named two.  One was Dr. Hamdi El Sawaf, director of the Islamic Center of Minnesota, who was active in interfaith attempts to prevent hostility after 9/11.  The other was Dr. Nancy H. Kobrin, a St. Paul psychoanalyst who has written about Muslim terrorists.  Kobrin arranged to meet with Pierce in summer 2004 and gave Pierce a copy of her 2003 journal article “Psychoanalytic Explorations of the New Moors.”[125]  Pierce skimmed the article, discussed it with Kobrin, and later said the meeting was “very good for understanding the big picture.”[126]

In the article, Kobrin, who is Jewish, wrote that the theology of Islam “encourages black-and-white thinking and the need to have enemies against whom one defines himself as a believer.”[127]  Kobrin’s article described terrorism not as a form of political extremism but as a group psychosis arising from subconscious conditions affecting all of Muslim culture.  Kobrin theorized that jihadists attack the West because Muslims in general are still angry that the Muslim Moors lost possession of territory in Spain 500 years ago.  She writes:

If one cannot mourn loss, the individual and the group remain locked in rage with the other who is a reminder of the insulting humiliating loss. … To this very day, Muslims have not been able to mourn the loss of its ‘crown jewel’ of the Western caliphate.  This means that every time the West is invoked in Islamic thought, this unresolved emotional baggage from the past re-surfaces.  It floods the group self with fears of shame and humiliation.  This can be seen most easily in the concrete rageful behaviors of Islamic terrorists. … The loss of [Andalusia in Spain] is as if the Muslim group self has experienced the sudden untimely death of its good nurturing mother represented by the psychogeography of Spain. … At a deeper unconscious level, the group project of reconquest is none other than the quest to rejoin in fusion with the early mother.”[128]

 

A letter to the editor in response called Kobrin’s article “inflammatory and provocative prose accusing the ‘other’ of being evil and inferior,” adding that with the U.S. attack on Iraq then imminent, the article  “borders on being a form of hate speech.”[129]  Told that Kobrin’s article seemed to promote negative stereotypes of Muslims, Pierce said she agreed but that the meeting helped her understand “other views.”[130]

IV. B.  Muslim reactions to public suspicion

The Vera Institute of Justice, a New York City think tank founded in 1961, surveyed in 16 sites around the U.S. to analyze the attitudes of Arab-Americans toward law-enforcement officials and vice versa, publishing the results in June 2006.  In every site, Arab-Americans felt under “heightened levels of public suspicion exacerbated by increased media attention and targeted government policies”; discriminatory federal policies were of more concern to respondents than hate crimes; and “many Arab Americans remained fearful and suspicious of federal efforts” despite FBI outreach.[131] 

The authors concluded that U.S. government scrutiny post-9/11 had impelled Arab-Americans either to become politically active or to withdraw from public life and even to stop participating in Muslim organizations.[132]  Recent immigrants were more likely to disengage, as were those with lower professional standing, and less political capital.[133]  Asked what was the greatest barrier hindering the Arab-American community’s cooperation with local police and the FBI, respondents from all three groups ranked Arab-American distrust of law-enforcement number one.[134]

 

IV.              Conclusions and recommendations

This research into federal actions and Muslim reactions since 9/11 is preliminary.  But it is sufficient to support the following conclusions about the dysfunctions in the relationship between the FBI and the Muslim community in Minnesota.  Recommendations for possible remedies are included.

1.  National-level federal actions discriminate against Muslims.

Federal law-enforcement officials do not deny paying special attention to Muslims after 9/11.  Their stock rebuttal to suggestions of profiling is that they target individuals, not groups.  But that rationale seems thin given the nationwide actions post-9/11 that targeted people from the Muslim world nearly exclusively – the mass detentions, voluntary interviews (Section II.A.), and special registration (II.B.).  And while federal officials say their scrutiny is driven by specific allegations of wrongdoing rather than national or religious identity, credibility is stretched given that the mass detentions, voluntary interviews, and special registration produced virtually no information or arrests related to terrorism.

Airport screening (Section II.B.2.) and post-9/11 infringements on privacy (II.A.3.) affect non-Muslims and Muslims alike.  For Muslims, they contribute to a sense of institutionalized injustice.  So does the apparent misuse of the material witness statute in many terrorism investigations, including some overseen by FBI-Minneapolis (II.C.2.).

Recommendation:  Congress should reform airport screening procedures to remove the appearance of profiling; reform the PATRIOT Act to protect personal records; and reform the material witness statute.  Congress should impose oversight on federal law-enforcement to prevent mass detention and questioning of Muslims on the basis of their demographic group.

2.  National-level federal actions detrimentally affect the local relationship.

The Minnesota FBI and U.S. Attorney expended great effort to cultivate a positive relationship with Muslims, but those efforts were undermined by the aforementioned national-level actions.  To quote Ashraf Siddiqui of the Islamic Center of Minnesota:

“Dealing with the FBI back in 2001, after 9/11 initially I don’t know if there was any negative feelings that we had, and when I say ‘we’ I mean the Muslim community in Minnesota.  Because obviously everybody was looking to help out in finding the bad guys who had done, perpetrated that tragedy that happened on 9/11. … Initially it was a very positive relationship. ...  Their discussion was, ‘Hey, how can we help you?’  However, later on, when the FBI went out and just arrested and discriminated against a lot of Muslims and Egyptians and Pakistanis, and … came out with those people who had to go out and register with the INS – when people went there, they thought they were just going to register, but they got arrested and deported…. We were very scared.  Whoever did not have the citizenship or whatever, they were all concerned. … That’s where the negative started.”[135]

 

The raids on money-transfer businesses left the impression of discriminatory scrutiny upon Somalis (II.E.2.), but it is not clear that those investigations were improper or failed to produce any evidence of alleged criminal action.

Recommendation:  Local FBI scrutiny of the Somali community should be examined more closely.

3.  Local FBI recruitment of informants within mosques undermines trust.

Federal officials can plausibly contend that recruiting informants is a legitimate and necessary tactic for law-enforcement.  Nevertheless, if one set of employees from the local FBI are publicly asking a group for voluntary cooperation, and another set of employees is privately arranging surveillance or spying on that group (as suggested by Section II.E.3.), then the message of cooperation is undermined.

Recommendation:  FBI-Minneapolis should minimize surveillance and infiltration of mosques of Muslim organizations.

4.  Anecdotes suggest local FBI investigators verge on harassing Muslims.

The anecdotes depicting FBI harassment (II.E.4. and II.E.5.) are unverified.  Nevertheless, the consistencies in the stories from different sources suggest a credible concern that merits deeper investigation.

Recommendation:  FBI-Minneapolis investigators’ conduct toward individual Muslims should be examined.  FBI-Minneapolis should be more responsive to public inquiries about questioned individuals, and the Division should notify individuals when they are no longer under suspicion.

5.  Federal outreach improved relations but was inconsistent.

Community outreach, while well received, was not sustained (II.D.2.).  The amount, manner, and prioritization of outreach appear to be determined by the personal priority of the current officeholder rather than by an institutionalized standard.  Pierce and Heffelfinger traveled to open-attendance gatherings in the communities’ own facilities.  That contrasts with their respective successors: Tabman has favored inviting small groups of community members to structured programs inside FBI facilities, while Paulose has virtually hidden from the public eye for nine months to avoid controversy before her confirmation hearings. 

Beyond officeholders’ preferences, the high level of time-intensive outreach to Muslims after 9/11 probably was not sustainable on a long-term basis given staff workloads.  Yet even if FBI-Minneapolis felt the need to decrease the frequency of outreach to Muslims, the format should have been more responsive to the preferences of the community.

Recommendation:  FBI-Minneapolis should formalize its community outreach procedures to ensure consistency.

6.  Muslim mistrust has legitimate sources but may be exaggerated.

            Muslim mistrust in the federal government, while exacerbated by real instances of discrimination, may be amplified by misperceptions or cultural differences.  This mistrust can lead to a withdrawal from potentially helpful aspects of the federal system (Section II.F.2.).  This retreat could reduce Muslim cooperation with the FBI, which could increase FBI mistrust of Muslims, leading the FBI to use more of the covert methods that lead to Muslim distrust.

Recommendation:  Minnesotan Muslims should participate in FBI citizen programs to gain understanding and reduce fear; and they should take advantage of available complaint procedures.  Muslim community leaders can consider creating channels within the community to facilitate individuals alerting the FBI to suspicious activity.   Muslim community organizations should consider helping the FBI recruit Muslim employees to improve cross-cultural understanding.

7.  Law-enforcement’s suspicion of Muslims reflects broader societal attitudes.

Official practices arise from attitudes widely held and deeply rooted in American culture.  These are attitudes that view Muslims as something “other” than American.  This view was reinforced by the civilization-clash framing in analytical writings that were influential on the public post-9/11 (Section III).  These attitudes seem to be reflected in statements by FBI officials that cast Muslims as a community separate or distant from non-Muslim mainstream society (pp.14-15).  An estranged view of Muslims helps justify discriminatory security practices toward Muslims.

Recommendation:  Muslims and their allies should use the mass media to promote positive images of Muslims in politics and the entertainment industry.

 


Bibliography

Documents

Ahmed-Ullah, Noreen S., et al. Sept. 19, 2004.  “Struggle for the Soul of Islam: A rare look at secretive Brotherhood in America.”  Chicago Tribune newspaper.  Downloaded Sept. 17, 2006.

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).  Sept.   19, 2005.  “ACLU response to HRC’s request of August 3, 2005, for information on counter-terrorism measures adopted by the United States following the events of September 11, 2001.”  Downloaded Oct. 29, 2006. www.aclu.org/FilesPDFs/acluhrcsubmissionsept2.pdf.

American Civil Liberties Union.  June 20, 2006.  Dimming the Beacon of Freedom U.S. Violations of the International Covenant on Civil & Political Rights.  www.aclu.org/pdfs/iccprreport20060620.pdf.  Downloaded Oct. 29, 2006.

Associated Press.  August 3, 2004.  “Terror Suspect Pleads Innocent.”  http://wcco.com/topstories/local_story_216123123.html. Downloaded Oct. 22, 2006.

Associated Press.  Sept. 11, 2006. “In wake of 9-11, justice delayed in terror probe of Somalian student Warsame.”  International Herald Tribune newspaper.  www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/09/11/america/NA_GEN_US_Sept_11_Somalian_Student.php.  Downloaded Sept. 27, 2006.

Aynte, Abdirahman. May 3, 2006(a). “Local Muslims poised to abandon dual loyalty.” Mshale newspaper, Minneapolis, and Hiiraan Online, www.hiiraan.com.

Aynte, A. Aug. 29, 2006(b). “Employees of Money Transfer Company Taken off a Terrorism List.”  Minnesota Monitor web site.  www.minnesotamonitor.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=151.  Downloaded Oct. 31, 2006.

Bernard, Daniel L.  May 2006.  “Somali community’s political involvement matures: Immigrants overcome a past when activism could be fatal,” in Sharing Stories of Civic Engagement brochure, Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota.  www.tc.umn.edu/~berna127/SomaliPoliticalEngagement/.

Cable News Network (CNN).  Dec. 12, 2003.  “Canadian detained in U.S. as al Qaeda witness.”  www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/12/12/al.qaeda.witness/index.html.  Downloaded Oct. 31, 2006.

CBS News, “60 Minutes.”  Oct. 8, 2006.  “Unlikely Terrorists on No-Fly List.”  www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/05/60minutes/printable2066624.shtml.  Downloaded Nov. 24, 2006.

Chanen, David and Greg Gordon.  July 22, 2004. “Minneapolis FBI racks up terror arrests.” Star Tribune newspaper, Minneapolis.  www.startribune.com/stories/462/4888121.html.  Downloaded Sept. 1, 2006.

Connor, Mark.  Jan. 27, 2006.  “Mohammed Warsame Detained in Secrecy for One Month.”  Pulse of the Twin Cities newspaper, Minneapolis.  www.pulsetc.com/article.php?sid=871.  Downloaded Sept. 27, 2006.

Economist, The.  Sept. 21, 2006.  “Muslims in Minnesota: Finding a voice.”  www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7946252.  Downloaded Nov. 4, 2006.

Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) Minneapolis Division web site. Undated. http://minneapolis.fbi.gov/.  Downloaded Oct. 21, 2006.

FBI Minneapolis Division (FBI-Minneapolis).  July 8, 2004.  “Mohamad Kamal Elzahabi Indicted for Making False Statements to the FBI.”  http://minneapolis.fbi.gov/pressrel/2004/press070804.htm.  Downloaded Oct. 20, 2006.

FBI Minneapolis.  April 20, 2005.  “First Annual Minneapolis’ Citizens’ Academy” press release.  http://minneapolis.fbi.gov/pressrel/2005/citizensacademy042005.htm.  Downloaded Nov. 29, 2006.

FBI Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) web site.  Undated.   www.fbi.gov/terrorinfo/counterrorism/tsc.htm and www.fbi.gov/terrorinfo/ counterrorism/redress.htm.  Downloaded Nov. 24, 2006.

Gartenstein-Ross, David. Dec. 11, 2005.  “Extremists among us?”  The Dallas Morning News. www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/points/stories/DN-mas_11edi.ART.State.Edition1.3d859b9.html.  Downloaded Sept. 17, 2006.

Henderson, Nicole J., Christopher W. Ortiz, Naomi F. Sugie, and Joel Miller.  June 2006(a).  Law Enforcement & Arab American Community Relations After September 11, 2001: Engagement in a Time of Uncertainty.  New York:  Vera Institute of Justice.  www.vera.org/publication_pdf/353_636.pdf.  Downloaded Nov. 30, 2006.

Henderson, N., C. Ortiz, N. Sugie, and J. Miller.  June 2006(b).  Law Enforcement & Arab American Community Relations After September 11, 2001: Technical Report.  Vera Institute of Justice.  www.vera.org/publication_pdf/353_637.pdf.  Downloaded Dec. 2, 2006.

Human Rights Watch.  Nov. 14, 2002.  We Are Not the Enemy: Hate Crimes Against Arabs, Muslims, and Those Perceived to be Arab or Muslim after September 11.  Report.  www.hrw.org/reports/2002/usahate/usa1102-04.htm   Downloaded Oct. 22, 2006.

Human Rights Watch.  June 27, 2005.  “Scores of Muslim Men Jailed Without Charge.”  http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/06/27/usdom11213.htm.  Downloaded Nov. 25, 2006.

Huntington, Samuel P.  1993.  “The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72, No. 3.

Kobrin, Nancy H.  March 2003.  “Psychoanalytic Explorations of the New Moors: Converts for Jihad.”  Clio’s Psyche, Vol. 9 No. 4:157.

Letzing, John.  Oct. 27, 2004.  “A Knock on the Door: Will FBI contacts keep fearful Somalis away from the ballot box?”  City Pages newspaper, Minneapolis.  www.citypages.com/databank/25/1247/article12604.asp.  Downloaded Sept. 15, 2006.

Lotto, David.  September 2003.  “Psychoanalytic Explorations of the Other as Rationalization of Vengeance.” Letter to the editor.  Clio’s Psyche, Vol. 10 No. 2.

McGee, Jim.  Nov. 28, 2001.  “Ex-FBI Officials Criticize Tactics on Terrorism:  Detention of Suspects Not Effective, They Say.”  www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A24919-2001Nov27.  Washington Post newspaper.  Downloaded Nov. 24, 2006.

Minneapolis Foundation.  Undated.  “Africa – focus on Somalis” on web page “Immigration in Minnesota: Discovering Common Ground.” www.minneapolisfoundation.org/immigration/africa.htm.  Downloaded April 6, 2006.

Minnesota Office of the State Demographer.  July 11, 2006(a).  “Immigrants to Minnesota by Region and Selected Country of Birth.”  www.demography.state.mn.us/documents/ImmigrationJuly2006.csv.  Downloaded Nov. 4, 2006.

Minnesota State Demographer.  2006(b).  “Annual estimates of county population, households and persons per household, 2000 to 2005.”  www.demography.state.mn.us/documents/CTYEST2000_2005.csv.  Downloaded Nov. 4, 2006.

Muslim American Society of Minnesota (MAS-MN).  April 12, 2005.  “‘Muslim Day at the Capitol’ Tomorrow.”  Press release posted on www.masmn.org.

Muslim American Society national and Minnesota web sites. Sept. 2006.  www.masnet.org and www.masmn.org.

Olson, Alison.  April 24, 2006.  “Delays in processing naturalization applications: How the applications get delayed, who[m] it affects, and how to expedite the process.”  Memorandum for Legal Aid Society of Minneapolis.

Olson, Dan.  April 1, 2003.  “Somali advocate Omar Jamal arrested.”  Minnesota Public Radio. http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2003/04/01_olsond_jamal/ Downloaded Oct. 31, 2006.

Prather, Shannon.  Oct. 2, 2006.  “Wait’s too long, say terror suspect’s attorneys; Motion seeks dismissal of charges for Warsame.”  (Saint Paul) Pioneer Press newspaper via Canadian Embassy, Washington.  www.canadianembassy.org/pressclips/ article.asp?intID=35440.  Downloaded Nov. 25, 2006.

ReligionLink.org.  Sept. 27, 2004.  “Elections 2004: Muslims engage faith and politics.”  www.religionlink.org/tip_040927b.php

Rosario, Rubén.  Oct. 24, 2006.  “Moscow on the Mississippi.”  (Saint Paul) Pioneer Press “St. Paul Roll Call” blog.  http://blogs.twincities.com/roll_call/ 2006/10/moscow_on_the_m.html.  Downloaded Nov. 14, 2006.

Rowley, Coleen.  May 21, 2002.  Memorandum to FBI Director Robert Mueller. 
As abridged by Time Magazine, June 3, 2002. 
www.time.com/time/covers/1101020603/memo.html.  Downloaded Nov. 25, 2006

Schey, Peter A.  August 2004.  Complaint for injunctive relief, mandamus relief, declaratory relief, and petition for hearing on naturalization application (draft).  United States District Court for the Central District of California. 

Schimke, David.  Oct. 16, 2002.  “Starving Somalia to Fight Terror: Wire-transfer services cleared by the feds, dumped by local banks.”  City Pages. www.citypages.com/databank/23/1141/article10790.asp. Downloaded Oct. 31, 2006.

Schmidt, Susan.  June 26, 2004.  “Terrorism Witness Charged With Lying.”  Washington Post. www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6755-2004Jun25.html

Simkin, John.  Undated.  “McCarthyism.”  Spartacus Educational web site.  www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAmccarthyism.htm.  Downloaded Nov. 19, 2006.

Toness, Bianca V.  July 11, 2005.  “The new Girl Scouts.”  Minnesota Public Radio http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2005/06/30_tonessb_girlscouts/

U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).  December 2001.  Indictment of Zacarias Moussaoui.  www.usdoj.gov/ag/moussaouiindictment.htm.  Downloaded Sept. 23, 2006.

U.S. DOJ, Office of Inspector General.  June 2003.  Ch. 2 and 10, “September 11 Detainees: A Review of the Treatment of Aliens Held on Immigration Charges in Connection with the Investigation of the September 11 Attacks.”  www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/0306.  Downloaded Oct. 29, 2006.

U.S. DOJ.   January 21, 2004.  “Minneapolis man charged with conspiring to provide material support to Al Qaeda.”  Press release. www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2004/January/04_crm_033.htm.  Downloaded Oct. 20, 2006.

U.S. DOJ.  Undated.  “Jan. 20, 2004 Grand Jury Indictment - Mohammed Abdullah Warsame a/k/a Abu Maryam a/k/a Abu Zaynab.”   http://news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/terrorism/uswarsame12004ind.html.  Downloaded Nov. 6, 2006.

U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.  June 6, 2002.  “Text: Hearing on FBI Counterterrorism Efforts.” www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/transcripts/fbitestimony_060602.html

U.S. Department of Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Nov. 7, 2001.  “Recent OFAC Actions.”  www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/ actions/20011107.shtml Downloaded Nov. 26, 2006.

U.S. Department of Treasury OFAC.  August 27, 2002.  “Recent OFAC Actions.”  www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/actions/20020827.shtml.  Downloaded Nov. 26, 2006.

U.S. Department of Treasury OFAC.  Updated Sept. 7, 2006.  “Terrorism: What You Need to Know About U.S. Sanctions” brochure.  www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/programs/terror/terror.pdf.  Downloaded Nov. 26, 2006.

 U.S. Transportation Security Administration web sites www.tsa.gov and https://rms.desyne.com.  Downloaded Oct. 7, 2006.

York, Anthony.  Sept. 18, 2001.  “Why can’t Uncle Sam spy?”  Salon web site.  http://archive.salon.com/news/feature/2001/09/18/spooks.  Downloaded Nov. 18, 2006.

 

Interviews

Abdul-Karim, Anwar.  President, Islamic Center of Minnesota.  By telephone, Nov. 8, 2006.

Ahmed, Nimco.  Political activist, Minneapolis.  By telephone, Oct. 26, 2006.

Ahmed-Ullah, Noreen S.  Chicago Tribune reporter, Chicago.  By telephone, Sept. 19, 2006.

Aynte, Abdirahman.  Minneapolis journalist.  By telephone, Oct. 11, 2006(c).

Cooney, Jeanne F.  Director of external relations, U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Minnesota.  E-mails of Nov. 9 and 14, 2006.

Erlinder, Peter.  Law professor, William Mitchell College of Law.  By telephone, Nov. 6, 2006(a).  By e-mail, Nov. 27, 2006(b).

Fahia, Saeed.  Executive director, Confederation of Somali Community in Minnesota.  Confederation office, 420 15th Ave S., Minneapolis, Nov. 6, 2006.  By telephone, Oct. 31, 2006.

Heffelfinger, Thomas A.  Former U.S. Attorney for Minnesota.  Best & Flanagan LLP law offices, 225 S. Sixth St., Minneapolis, Oct. 19, 2006(a).  By telephone, Nov. 2, 2006(b).

Hussein, Hesham.  President of Muslim American Society, Minnesota Chapter (MAS-MN).  Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, 4100 E. 66th Street, Inver Grove Heights, Sept. 7, 2006(a).  By phone, Sept. 25, 2006(b).  Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, Nov. 8, 2006(c).

McCabe, Paul A.  Special agent and media coordinator, FBI Minneapolis Division.  Division office, Oct. 4, 2006(a).  By telephone, Oct. 31, 2006(b).

Mohamud, Hassan.  Minneapolis Legal Aid Society attorney and MAS-MN vice president.  Legal Aid Society office, 430 First Ave. N., Minneapolis, March 2(a), Aug. 31, 2006(b).  By telephone, Oct. 3, 2006(c).

Nestor, Bruce D.  Attorney.  De Leon & Nestor, LLC, 3547 Cedar Ave. S., Minneapolis, Sept. 28, 2006(a). By e-mail, Oct. 6(b), Oct. 8(c), Nov. 1(d), Nov. 27(e), 2006.

Pierce, Deborah S.  Former Special Agent in Charge, FBI Minneapolis Division.  Minneapolis Central Library, Nov. 20, 2006(a).  By e-mail, Nov. 30, 2006(b), and Dec. 1, 2006(c).

Russell, Margaret A.  Managing attorney, Legal Aid Society of Minneapolis.  By telephone, Sept. 28, 2006.

Samuelson, Charles.  Executive director, American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota.  By telephone, Oct. 31, 2006.

Siddiqui, Ashraf.  Vice President, Islamic Center of Minnesota. By telephone. Oct. 31, 2006.

Woolner, Sophea.  Criminal defense attorney, Saint Paul.  By telephone, Nov. 16, 2006.

 


Footnotes



[1] Abdirahman Aynte and Nimco Ahmed provided insights into the diversity within Minnesota’s Somali community.  Humphrey Institute Professor Katherine Fennelly’s work on cross-cultural relations informed the analysis.  Harry Boyte and Dennis Donovan of the Humphrey Institute’s Center for Democracy and Citizenship provided valuable advice regarding the recommendations.

[2] Bernard’s background is as a political journalist for the Duluth News-Tribune, InternetBroadcasting, and others, and later a communications consultant for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Egypt.

[3] This anonymity met the IRB’s confidentiality requirement, and in some cases the interviewee would not have named the individual anyway because of client-attorney privilege.  Nevertheless, the anonymity of the individuals reduces the credibility of their accounts and limits the accounts’ impact as evidence in a public forum.  Future research outside of the IRB limitations could attempt to identify these individuals, with their consent, at least for internal purposes.

[4] Minnesota State Demographer, 2006b.

[5] Economist, 2006.

[6] Muslims may have lived in Minnesota as early as 1900, according to the Islamic Center of Minnesota.  Muslims formed a student association at the University of Minnesota in 1946 (www.icmorg.com).

[7] As designated by the CIA World Factbook, https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook.

[8] Minnesota Demographer, 2006a.  After India, the next most common country of origin was Ethiopia, which is slightly majority-Muslim.

[9] Minneapolis Foundation, undated.  Somalis most commonly live in Minneapolis, other Twin Cities metro cities, Rochester, and Owatonna.

[10] Bernard, 2006, p. 8.

[11] Most detentions occurred in the first three months after 9/11.

[12] The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) was then part of the Department of Justice. Immigration functions were moved into the Department of Homeland Security when that department was created in March 2003.  INS’ service functions such as application-processing were split into a new entity named Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (the term Bureau was dropped in October 2004).  INS’ law-enforcement functions were merged with those of the Customs Services in a new entity named Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

[13] Albeit violations that “(i)n other times … might not have” led to detention (DOJ, 2003, Ch. 10).

[14] ACLU, 2005, p. 1.

[15]  ibid., p. 3.

[16] DOJ, 2003, Ch. 10.

[17] Samuelson interview, 2006. About 75 percent of the arrests were in New York and New Jersey; DOJ did not disclose the locations of the other arrests (DOJ, 2005, Ch. 2).

[18] McGee, 2001.

[19] Heffelfinger interview, 2006a.

[20] ibid.; Nestor interview, 2006c.

[21] An acronym for Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.

[22] ACLU, 2006.

[23] Such as visas for students, workers, researchers, and tourists.

[24] Senate Judiciary Committee, 2002.

[25] ACLU, 2006, p. 58.  About 150 registrants were found to have committed unrelated crimes; almost 14,000 registrants were placed into deportation proceedings (Henderson, et al., 2006a, p.4.). INS’ service functions including the NSEERS program were transferred to the Homeland Security Department in March 2003.

[26] ACLU, ibid.

[27] CBS, 2006.

[28] TSA is part of the Homeland Security Department.  See table, p. 7.

[29] TSC web site.

[30] The National Name Check Program (A. Olson, 2006).

[31]  Schey, 2004.

[32] Tabman succeeded Pierce.  The FBI Minneapolis Division did not grant an interview with Tabman for this project.

[33] Russell interview, 2006.

[34] FBI-Minneapolis, undated.

[35] Cooney interview, 2006.

[36] Pierce interview, 2006b.

[37] Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; U.S. Department of Agriculture; U.S. Marshals; Federal Air Marshals; Internal Revenue Service; Transportation Security Administration; and the Postal Inspection Service (FBI-Minneapolis; DOJ, 2004).

[38] Minnesota State Patrol, Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, and the Minnesota Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management (ibid.)

[39] City police departments from Minneapolis, St. Paul, Bloomington, and Sioux Falls, S.D.; Hennepin and Ramsey county sheriff’s offices; and the police unit of the Minneapolis/Saint Paul Airport (ibid.)

[40] Doug Domin.

[41] Chanen and Gordon, 2004.

[42] Heffelfinger interview, 2006b.

[43] Pierce interview, 2006a.

[44] Rowley, 2002.

[45] Rowley, 2002. Permission from FBI headquarters and the Department of Justice.

[46] DOJ, 2001.

[47] Letzing, 2004.

[48] CNN, 2003.

[49] DOJ, 2004.

[50] Connor, 2006.

[51] Associated Press, 2006.

[52] Erlinder, 2006a.

[53] Human Rights Watch, 2005.

[54] Pierce interview, 2006a.

[55] Erlinder interview, 2006a.

[56] Erlinder interview, 2006b.

[57] Schmidt, 2004.

[58] Prather, 2006.

[59] Hussein interview, 2006a.

[60] Founded in 1969, the Center operates four Muslim community buildings in Minneapolis and its suburbs (www.icmorg.com).

[61] Siddiqui interview, 2006.

[62] Pierce, McCabe, Mohamud interviews, 2006.

[63] Including to raise awareness that hate-crime victims can turn to the FBI for assistance (McCabe, Pierce).

[64] Heffelfinger interview, 2006a.

[65] McCabe interview, 2006a.

[66] ibid.

[67] Pierce interview, 2006a.

[68] Pierce interview, 2006b.

[69] McCabe interview, 2006b.  MAS-MN President Hesham Hussein said he sensed that FBI participation in outreach meetings decreased earlier, in mid-2003 (Hussein interview, 2006a).

[70] Rosario, 2006.

[71] Cooney, 2006.

[72] Mohamud interview, 2006c.

[73] FBI-Minneapolis, 2005.

[74] McCabe, 2006a.  McCabe declined to provide documents of the advisory group or participants’ names.

[75] Fahia interview, 2006.

[76] Mohamud interview, 2006c; Aynte, 2006a.

[77] Heffelfinger interview, 2006a.

[78] A group of Twin Cities immigration lawyers and civil libertarians met with Heffelfinger and demanded that the interview teams state the equivalent of a Miranda warning:  telling interviewees that they had the right to remain silent and to have a lawyer present, that what they say could be used against them; and to offer to provide a lawyer (Heffelfinger, 2006a).

[79] Nestor interview, 2006c.

[80] Pierce, McCabe, and Heffelfinger, respectively.

[81] Pierce said the Division received tips, later found to be baseless, that terrorists were hiding on Native American reservations after crossing the Canadian border.

[82] Pierce interview, 2006a.

[83] OFAC, 2001.

[84] From a Hindi word. cf. www.interpol.int/Public/FinancialCrime/MoneyLaundering/hawala/default.asp

[85] Boston; Columbus, Ohio; Alexandria, Va.; and Seattle.

[86] Schimke, 2002.

[87] Aaran Money Wire Service Inc., Global Service International, and Garad Jama (Nor) of Minneapolis. (OFAC, 2002).

[88] Aynte, 2006b.

[89] Barakaat International, Inc. and Somali International Relief Organization.

[90] Schimke, 2002.

[91] Heffelfinger interview, 2006a.

[92] Nestor interview, 2006c.  Nestor this scrutiny apparently did not constitute illegal discrimination, but it was “motivated by investigative priorities based on the national origin and religion of the targeted community.”

[93] ibid., 2006e.

[94] Erlinder interview, 2006b.

[95] Letzing, 2004

[96] Erlinder interview, 2006a.

[97] D. Olson, 2003.

[98] Nestor interview, 2006e.

[99] Nestor interview, 2006a.

[100] The businessman filed the lawsuit to try to obtain a ruling on the citizenship application (Nestor, 2006e).

[101] Erlinder interview, 2006a.

[102] Letzing, 2004; Hussein, 2006a.

[103] Pierce said an FBI agent would never be so obvious (interview, 2006).

[104] Pierce interview, 2006a.

[105] Heffelfinger interview, 2006a.

[106] Somali community activist Saeed Fahia disputes this characterization, calling the FBI’s relationship with Muslims “cordial,” adding he has heard no credible stories of FBI harassment (Interview, 2006).

[107] Abdul Karim interview, 2006.

[108] Pierce interview, 2006a.

[109] Arabic for the Islamic Union.

[110] Aynte interview, 2006.

[111] Heffelfinger interview, 200b.

[112] Hussein interview, 2006c.

[113] Woolner interview, 2006.

[114] Mohamud interview, 2006c.

[115] Pierce interview, 2006a.

[116] Complaining requires simply telephoning the U.S. Attorney’s Office, FBI (local or Washington, D.C.), or any federal agency, and verbally requesting to file a complaint, according to Pierce (interview, 2006a).

[117] McCabe and Heffelfinger said there had been none filed, and no sources claimed to know of any filed.

[118] McCabe interview, 2006a.

[119] Nestor interview, 2006b.

[120] Nestor interview, 2006c.

[121] Hussein interview, 2006a.

[122] Heffelfinger interview, 2006a.

[123] Huntington, 1993.

[124] Per Huntington, 1993, p. 32.

[125] Kobrin e-mail to Bernard, Nov. 28, 2006.  Pierce and Assistant SAC Chris Briese met over lunch with Kobrin and her guest Yoram Schweitzer, a Tel Aviv University researcher whose resume includes working for Israeli intelligence.  Schweitzer has written about the psychology of suicide bombers and co-authored The Globalization of Terror: The Al Qaeda Challenge and the Response of the International Community, 2003.  (Kobrin, ibid.; Pierce, 2006b.)  Pierce noted that Hennepin County Sheriff McGowan invited Israeli law enforcement officers to Minneapolis to speak on “the role of religion in the suicide bombers they had studied” at a conference McGowan hosted. (Pierce, 2006b.)

[126] Pierce interview, 2006b.

[127] Kobrin, 2003.

[128] ibid.

[129] Lotto, 2003.

[130] Pierce interview, 2006c.

[131] Henderson, et al., 2006a, Executive Summary.

[132] ibid., p. 14.

[133] ibid., p. 15.

[134] ibid., p. 21. An example of political capital was knowledge of and acquaintance with informed and reliable officials in municipal governments and police department (Henderson, et al., 2006b, p. 100)

[135] Siddiqui interview, 2006.