By Heather L. Weaver, ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief at 4:11pm
If the freedom to worship is a fundamental right under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment – and it unquestionably is – then it follows that access to a suitable place of worship is also essential. Congress recognized as much in 2000 when it passed the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Act (RLUIPA) to redress persistent discrimination against religious institutions in the local zoning context. But if you were to visit the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro in Tennessee during Ramadan, which starts tomorrow night, you would be hard pressed to find evidence of these legal protections.
By Devon Chaffee, Legislative Policy Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Dena Sher, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 3:12pm
Yesterday Peter King (R-NY), Chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, brought congressional navel gazing to a new level by holding a hearing on his past hearings that have singled out and perpetuated dangerous stereotypes about the American Muslim community. As advertised, the hearing—which may have been the first ever of its kind—focused not on how Congress could make the homeland more secure or on the nature and scope of real security threats, but on whether King’s own past hearings were justified.
By Devon Chaffee, Legislative Policy Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 11:37am
Yesterday 22 Members of Congress sent a letter to the Inspector General of the Department of Justice urging him to launch an investigation into the Federal Bureau of Investigation's improper recording and dissemination of information about the First Amendment-protected activities of American Muslims. Several of the members who joined the letter-including Representatives Pete Stark (D-CA-13), Anna Eshoo (D-CA-14), Sam Farr (D- CA-17), Mike Honda (D- CA-15), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA-16), and Barbara Lee (D-CA-09) -represent districts in Northern California in which FBI memoranda document the use of community outreach for intelligence purposes.
By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 2:24pm
Yesterday I posted about the debate over profiling Muslims at the airport, and how Bruce Schneier persuasively argued that the concept, which seems so intuitively sensible to so many Americans, is a terrible idea even just from a security point of view. He also commented on the other, less tangible costs that such a scheme would impose, such as the alienation of Muslims from American life, and the corruption of our values.
By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 3:20pm
I finally had a chance to read this extended debate between the security-ologist Bruce Schneier and critic-of-religion Sam Harris (yes thatSam Harris) over whether we should profile Muslims in airport security.
First of all, Sam Harris performs a useful function by articulating a more sophisticated version of what is the intuitive position for many Americans, which runs something like: “we know who the danger is, it ain’t old ranchers from Texas or pretty blondes from San Diego—it’s Muslims, so let’s focus airport security on them.” (I hear this regularly myself when discussing airline security in public.) By fearlessly arguing for such profiling—which many people might quietly suspect makes sense—Harris sets it forth explicitly so that it can be explicitly debunked. And Schneier not only debunks it, he demolishes it.
By Mitra Ebadolahi, Legal Fellow, ACLU National Security Project at 1:39pm
Yesterday, Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) introduced a resolution — the first of its kind — condemning the New York Police Department's unjustified surveillance and unlawful profiling of American Muslim communities. The NYPD's illicit surveillance — documented in an extensive, Pulitzer Prize-winning series of news reports by the Associated Press — targeted law-abiding American Muslims in their places of worship, small businesses, and student- and community-based organizations. The surveillance occurred not only in New York, but as far afield as New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. Several other members of Congress joined Holt in introducing the resolution, including Reps. Judy Chu (D-Calif.), Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), Michael Honda (D-Calif.) and Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-Ill.).
By Devon Chaffee, Legislative Policy Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 7:16pm
This morning, Danger Room’s Spencer Ackerman continued to shock readers by exposing some of the most vehemently anti-Muslim training documents used by the U.S. government that have come to light to date. (See our past analysis of biased FBI materials.) The newly released military training materials not only contained erroneous stereotypes and derogatory remarks about Muslims and Arabs, they included a four-phase plan for transformation of Islam that would reduce Islam to a “cult status” and possibly result in “total war” against Islam.
Today we sent a letter to the Department of Justice Inspector General asking him to investigate the FBI’s improper collection of intelligence about American Muslim, Arab, Middle Eastern, and South Asian communities, and compilation of records describing community members’ First Amendment protected speech and activities in violation of the Privacy Act.
By Dena Sher, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 12:31pm
In 1998, Congress created the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom to draw attention to violations of religious freedom in other countries. The commissioners vote annually to list countries that are of particular concern or place others on a watch list of countries that should be monitored closely for religious freedom violations.
But, since its inception, the commission's been beset by controversy. People who watch the commission closely say it was created to satisfy special interests, which has led to bias in the commission's work. Past commissioners and staff have reported that the commission is "rife, behind-the-scenes, with ideology and tribalism." They've said that commissioners focus "on pet projects that are often based on their own religious background." In particular, past commissioners and staff reported "an anti-Muslim bias runs through the Commission's work."
