ACLU sues the FBI for questioning Muslims

10/22/2004 10:30:00 AM GMT

The American Civil Liberties Union on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the FBI demanding it to reveal information about its questioning of Arab Americans and Muslims in the agency's campaign to prevent pre-election attacks.

In its lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco, ACLU said it had received a lot of reports suggesting that a huge number of individuals have been "interrogated" by the FBI since the summer "solely because they are Muslims or of Middle Eastern descent."

An FBI representative in Washington could not be reached for immediate comment.

The ACLU said that most of the interrogations were carried out by members of Joint Terrorism Task Forces, which include members of state and local police working with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.

"Many Muslims, members of immigrant communities, and persons with ties to the Middle East and South Asia believe that they are at risk of harassment and unlawful or unwarranted monitoring, surveillance and interrogation," the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit filed against the FBI seeks the internal FBI documents that would lead to information on how the government is selecting its targets for questioning and how does it use the information it gathers.

Over the past months the FBI launched a drive questioning Muslims and Arab Americans seeking information that would lead to the thwart of any pre-elections attacks. The drive involves a stepped up program of interviews.

Several Muslim groups have accused the FBI campaign of being too sweeping and unfairly selecting them out for questioning just because they’re Muslims of Arabs. Muslim groups also accused the FBI drive of abusing their civil rights.

"It's time for the FBI to come clean about this unprecedented campaign and the activities of their joint task forces in our state," John Crew, an ACLU attorney, said in a statement.

"If they want the public to believe that these interviews are truly voluntary, why won't they release policies requiring officers to respect the constitutional rights of individuals to answer these chilling questions?"