EXCLUSIVE: Nuclear Monitoring of Muslims Done Without Search Warrants

[Stephanie]

EXCLUSIVE: Nuclear Monitoring of Muslims Done Without Search Warrants
Posted 12/22/05
By David E. Kaplan

In search of a terrorist nuclear bomb, the federal government since 9/11 has run a far-reaching, top secret program to monitor radiation levels at over a hundred Muslim sites in the Washington, D.C., area, including mosques, homes, businesses, and warehouses, plus similar sites in at least five other cities, U.S. News has learned. In numerous cases, the monitoring required investigators to go on to the property under surveillance, although no search warrants or court orders were ever obtained, according to those with knowledge of the program. Some participants were threatened with loss of their jobs when they questioned the legality of the operation, according to these accounts.

Federal officials familiar with the program maintain that warrants are unneeded for the kind of radiation sampling the operation entails, but some legal scholars disagree. News of the program comes in the wake of revelations last week that, after 9/11, the Bush White House approved electronic surveillance of U.S. targets by the National Security Agency without court orders. These and other developments suggest that the federal government's domestic spying programs since 9/11 have been far broader than previously thought.

The nuclear surveillance program began in early 2002 and has been run by the FBI and the Department of Energy's Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST). Two individuals, who declined to be named because the program is highly classified, spoke to U.S. News because of their concerns about the legality of the program. At its peak, they say, the effort involved three vehicles in Washington, D.C., monitoring 120 sites per day, nearly all of them Muslim targets drawn up by the FBI. For some ten months, officials conducted daily monitoring, and they have resumed daily checks during periods of high threat. The program has also operated in at least five other cities when threat levels there have risen: Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, New York, and Seattle.

***

In Washington, the sites monitored have included prominent mosques and office buildings in suburban Maryland and Virginia. One source close to the program said that participants "were tasked on a daily and nightly basis," and that FBI and Energy Department officials held regular meetings to update the monitoring list. "The targets were almost all U.S. citizens," says the source. "A lot of us thought it was questionable, but people who complained nearly lost their jobs. We were told it was perfectly legal."

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http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/nest/051222nest.htm

[The Stranger]

1. How deep does the rabbit hole go?

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. Meanwhile the depleted uranium that litters the country of Iraq,

goes virtually unnoticed, except by the chromosomes of the unborn. Culture of lifers really should be concerned, they are not, but they should be.

I could not believe the things I saw at extremedeformities.

[DBoon]

3. "Some participants were threatened with loss of their jobs..."

disgusting.

[Warren Stupidity]

4. And after they found no radiation at all did they stop?

Nope. I'm sure however that they limited their monitoring to collecting useless radiation samples. They didn't, for example, collect information on every person entering or exiting the sites under surveillence. They didn't build a huge freaking database of every known muslim in america and start monitoring all of their communications under that other program run by the NSA. They wouldn't have done that, no never, not them.

[Stephanie]

5. I don't get the point of doing this without a warrant

A judge would have authorized a warrant for this - why do it illegally? Same as the phone-taps. What's the point of breaking the law when you can get what you want within the system?

[DoYouEverWonder]

9. Because they are going to have a hard time explaining

why they were also monitoring Democrats, peace activists and Quakers.

[TheWraith]

6. I'd be highly disturbed if those were the ONLY sites they were monitoring

Call me crazy, but I would think that you would want to be insuring that there were no nuclear bombs ANYWHERE in DC, not just at places owned by muslims. Which is not to even touch on 4th Amendment issues, and probable cause.

[Ian David]

7. They could enter any property w/out warrant if they had a geiger counter?

Agent Field Report:


"We entered the suspects house without a warrant, but we were only there to check radiation levels, so we didn't need a warrant.

"But while we were in there we found this copy of 'Cather in the Rye" and a tourist map of Washington, DC. This made us suspicious, so we went through the mail and found receipts from Radio Shack for lithium watch batteries.

"Since Lithium watch batteries can be used to make both Crystal-Meth and nuclear devices, we set-up a stake-out of the property.

"That is when we realized the apartment belonged to Osama Bin Laden's niece and we took these photos.





"We realize we did wrong, and offer our resignation, but ask that we please be allowed to keep the photos."


Related thread:

Caption....Bin Ladens Niece...in a Tub
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5676814

[Raydawg1234]

15. i don't think they entered the house, monitered from the street in a van

[Cooley Hurd]

20. This is "Onion"-worthy!

:spray::rofl:

[The Stranger]

8. I am shocked this can't get another recommendation for greatest.

[cyberpj]

10. And yet another Friday/holiday news story dump into oblivion. nt.

[Stephanie]

11. I guess it's okay to violate American citizens' rights if they're Muslims.

[Stephanie]

12. they are covering this on Nightline right now

:kick:

[SPKrazy]

13. I'm trying to understand the outrage?

Seriously.

They were using monitors for radiation, not reading their mail.

[Catrina]

14. Why only Muslims?

Why not white supremicists, or Christian Fundies (who already did use bombs to kill Americans? What about the Texan (definitely not a Muslim) who was found to have enough bombs in his home, he could have blown up NYC? And he might have done so had there not been a mistake in mailing some parts for his WMDs which went to a neighbor who reported it. He might have gotten away with it had it not been for that mistake, because who would EVER think a white, Christian guy would ever bomb anyone? And Timothy McVeigh and his friends weren't Muslims, were they? So how is targeting only Muslims going to keep us safe?

One tragic event involving Muslims (or so we're told) and countless tragic events involving white Americans. Yet only Muslims are targeted with absolutely no probably cause other than their ethnicity. How many Americans are murdered every year by other Americans, mostly NOT Muslims? 30,000 maybe, more? What is our government doing about that? Since 9/11 approximately 120,000 Americans have been murdered. No one even talks about it, but this president has used the deaths of under 2000 to go kill 100,000 and to torture, to thrash the Constitution, to throw away billions of dollars, yet he apparently thinks it has all been for nothing but in his opinion, or so he says to excuse his criminal violation of the law, he needs to take away the rights of all Americans, (and even more from Muslim Americans) to stop terrorism.

How does this make sense? Do we target all white people because of Tim McVeigh?

Muslims are Americans also. Do they not have rights as American citizens? Did you agree with the targeting of German Jews in Germany? There was no outrage then ~ maybe we are outraged now because we remember what happened then!!

That's a few of the reasons why I am outraged with each new revelation of how this administration is quickly turning this country into a totalitarian state doing what all totalitarian governments do, using 'national security' as their excuse. As soon as the population is suitably cowed, they won't even bother with the excuses. They count on our fear. But I am now more afraid of them than I am of terrorists.

[Raydawg1234]

16. what they did was legal, as much as we may not like it.

It is legal for the gov. to conduct such servailence from the street, without entering the property.
We are not gonna be able to get them on this. We should spend our time focusing on the actual crimes like the NSA spying.

[Catrina]

17. I don't think you read the article

They went into homes without a warrant.

[MadHound]

18. It is legal if they only monitor from the street or other pulic lands

But they did more than that, they stepped foot on the property, even to the point of breaking into the house of some folks. And what is really sad, there are ways of monitoring the place for radiation without entering private property, or even the need for agents to hang out in the street, just place the device and leave. Dumb, asshole fools.

[Stephanie]

19. And why not get a warrant? Why not just go and get one?

THAT's the real question.

[Silverhair]

22. Probable cause can be a problem.

You need to show probable cause to get a warrant, and they may not want to disclose the source of their information, or the probable cause may be too thin.

But for radiation monitoring, why would they need to go on the property? As the other poster pointed out, that can be done from the street.

[Stephanie]

24. Well if they can't show probable cause then they shouldn't be searching

That's what the right to privacy is all about.

And they did not do it all from the street, if you read the article. That's why it's controversial.

[Ian David]

25. I think radiation checks were used as a pretext for "fishing expeditions"

[Silverhair]

21. They fear the "suitcase from Allah" - (Suitcase nuclear bomb.)

The groups you name, while they are bad guys, won't have nukes. Islamic terrorists have a very low possibility, but not zero, of getting access to a nuke.

[Stephanie]

23. Except that the Bush admin allowed LOOTING at Iraqi nuclear sites >>>

Remember Tuwaitha!

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/6068775.htm

Looting of Iraqi nuclear facility indicts U.S. goals
If we feared the loss of radioactive materials, why not guard them?
TRUDY RUBIN
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Posted on Thu, Jun. 12, 2003

TUWAITHA, Iraq - On a dusty road, just outside of Baghdad, lies one of the great mysteries of the Iraq war.

<snip>

The administration knew full well what was stored at Tuwaitha. So how is it possible that the U.S. military failed to secure the nuclear facility until weeks after the war started? This left looters free to ransack the barrels, dump their contents, and sell them to villagers for storage.

How is it possible that, according to Iraqi nuclear scientists, looters are still stealing radioactive isotopes? The Tuwaitha story makes a mockery of the administration's vaunted concern with weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. military hastened to secure the Ministry of Oil in Baghdad from looters. But Iraq's main nuclear facility was apparently not important enough to get similar protection.

<snip>

And why, in facilities other than Location C, is the looting apparently continuing? Hisham Abdel Malik, a Iraqi nuclear scientist who lives near Tuwaitha and has been inside the complex, told me that in buildings "where there are radioactive isotopes, there is looting every day." He says the isotopes, which are in bright silver containers, "are sold in the black market or kept in homes." According to IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming, such radioactive sources can kill on contact or pollute whole neighborhoods.

How could an administration that had hyped the danger of Saddam handing off nuclear materials to terrorists let Tuwaitha be looted? Maybe the hype was just hype ... or maybe the Pentagon didn't send enough troops to Iraq to do the job right.

Either answer is damning.

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More info: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=476777

[SPKrazy]

26. I hope that they spy on all of these people!

And I don't see the rights being broken by scanning for radioactive material?

I think your comparison to German Jews is at least for now, over the top.

I don't like the government spying on people period.

But scanning for radioactive materials doesn't bother me at all.