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AMP Report - May 29, 2008
Surveillance of LA, San Diego mosques
spark calls for hearing
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Alarmed by a report that the mosques in Los Angeles and San Diego are under surveillance, civil rights groups have called for congressional hearings. The call for public hearings followed a San Diego newspaper report that a group of military reservists and law enforcement officers at Camp Pendleton stole the data from a federal surveillance program that monitored mosques in Southern California.
The Union-Tribune of San Diego reported on May 22:
“A group suspected of stealing secret files on potential terrorists in San Diego and elsewhere apparently operated with impunity from one of Camp Pendleton's most heavily guarded buildings, newly obtained court records and investigative reports show. Its members – military reservists and law enforcement officers – allegedly swiped the classified documents from the Strategic Technical Operations Center.
“FBI and Navy agents said in reports that Col. Larry Richards, a Marine reservist, and his accomplices had no trouble evading the building's security measures. Richards was the center's chief. When not on active military duty, Richards worked as a top specialist for the Los Angeles County Terrorist Early Warning Group, a task force largely made up of members from law enforcement agencies. While working at Camp Pendleton in January 2004, he escorted two Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies through the center's vault like doors, past guards and to the man stealing classified files for them.
“Richards arranged the meeting after learning of his pending deployment to Iraq, investigators said. He found a war buddy to replace him in raiding the center's databases. His recruit was Gunnery Sgt. Gary Maziarz, an intelligence analyst at the center and a survivor of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City. Maziarz was the linchpin of the theft group until his arrest in late 2006. He pleaded guilty the next summer and named Richards as the ringleader.”
The California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-California), the ACLU of Southern California, the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties, and the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California sent a letter to the Committees on the Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform expressing concerns over the possible civil rights violations posed by the alleged monitoring of U.S. citizens on the basis of religious affiliation.
The letter stated in part: “Holding the entire American Muslim community suspect not only threatens civil liberties and raises the specter of unconstitutional religious profiling, but undermines public safety by eroding that community’s trust in law enforcement. The San Diego breach revealed not only flawed security, but unchecked surveillance and monitoring programs that must be subjected to Congressional oversight.”
The San Diego Union-Tribune first wrote about the theft ring in October after obtaining much of the transcript from Maziarz's court-martial. The newspaper has since received more transcripts, reports from the FBI and naval authorities, and details from people close to the case. Those sources asked not to be identified because the investigation is in progress.
The newly acquired material indicates that Maziarz and other suspects gave investigators self-incriminating evidence. It suggests that a massive number of files were taken from Camp Pendleton, including those with the most confidential classification the government can bestow – Top Secret, Special Compartmentalized Information.
It also details how Maziarz helped funnel the files, hints at a financial motive for the theft and reveals that a mosque in San Diego's Clairemont neighborhood was monitored by a federal surveillance program targeting Muslim groups.
In Maziarz's apartment in Carlsbad and a storage locker in Virginia, investigators found more than 100 FBI and Defense Department files. Some documents pertained to surveillance of Muslim communities in Southern California.
Maziarz said his group broke laws to minimize the threat of terrorist attacks in Southern California. But federal officials are trying to determine, among other things, whether Richards and others shared anti-terrorism intelligence with defense contractors in exchange for future employment.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that investigators are scrutinizing possible ties between Richards and Kroll Associates, a risk-assessment company with offices in more than 65 cities worldwide. Kroll's clients have included the city of San Diego, which paid the corporation $20 million for a 2006 report on its pension and financial scandal. Some of Kroll's employees and consultants come from law enforcement or go into that field after leaving the company. A few have had ties to the Los Angeles County Terrorist Early Warning Group.
“Based on news reports, it appears that a group working out of the Camp Pendleton Marine base either conducted or had access to surveillance information about Muslim communities in Southern California,” said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of CAIR Greater Los Angeles.
Edgar Hopida, public relations director of CAIR San Diego held similar concerns, “These types of actions only encourage further unwarranted suspicion of the American Muslim community.”
Shakeel Syed, the executive director of Shura Council said: “This confirms our fears that mosques and Muslim community organizations in Southern California have been targeted for government surveillance based solely on their ethnicity and religion.”
“This incident shows the danger posed by government programs that amass large amounts of data on private individuals’ lawful activity, and do so without adequate safeguards to protect that sensitive information,” said Ramona Ripston, executive director of the ACLU of Southern California. “The fact that these programs are shrouded in secrecy not only allows the government to act with impunity, but also prevents the innocent citizens from knowing whether their personal information has been shared, stolen or sold.”
More than a year ago, several organizations, including CAIR-California and the Shura Council, filed a public records request for documents relating to FBI surveillance of their lawful activities.
After the ACLU of Southern California filed a lawsuit last year seeking responses to the requests, the government produced more than 100 pages of documents for some of the plaintiffs. The suit remains in litigation.
In 2006, J. Stephen Tidwell, then-FBI assistant director in Los Angeles, met at the Irvine mosque with about 200 people who questioned him about government monitoring. The meeting was prompted by media reports that the FBI was monitoring Muslim students at UC Irvine and USC. Tidwell denied that monitoring was taking place, telling the audience that "we still play by the rules."
The Los Angeles Times, reporting on the Union-Tribune story, said since the 2001 terrorist attacks, members of the Islamic Center of Irvine and other local mosques have complained about FBI agents questioning them about imams' sermons and how often they attend services.
In November last, the LA Police Department drew sharp criticism by the civil right groups to its program to ‘map’ (read profile) Muslims in the Greater Los Angeles where at least 500,000 Muslims reside. The program was shelved amid uproar by the Muslim community. The mosques surveillance report confirms fear of the Muslim community that more than six-year after 9/11 it remains under watch.
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