Aviva Stahl: Please introduce yourself and talk a little bit about how you got interested in working for CAIR?
Ameena Qazi: I’m the deputy executive director and staff attorney for the Council on American Islamic Relations Greater Los Angeles (CAIR-LA) area chapter. I’ve been working here for about three and a half years. I work here and was interested in this position because of my passion for civil rights and preserving our constitutional freedoms. And also my passion for community advocacy and grassroots empowerment. I thought that this job really coalesces all of those aspects really nicely.
AS: Could you maybe give a brief summary of Fazaga vs. FBI for people who might not be aware of it?
AQ: The facts surrounding the case essentially began several years ago. There were community reports that community members were being visited by FBI agents at their homes, etc, and this has largely continued to this day. Back in about 2006 or so, there were a few incidents that really galvanized community concerns about what the FBI was doing in the Southern California community, and whether or not the FBI was targeting students and Muslims. So, there was a town hall that occurred in Southern California at the Islamic Center of Irvine, which is in Orange County, where the then Special Agent in charge, Stephen Tidwell, of the FBI LA office, clearly stated in response to questions, that the FBI is not targeting Muslims, not observing houses of worship or looking at Muslim students with particular scrutiny. Little did any of us know that a few months later, the FBI had actually started sending an undercover paid informant into the Southern California Muslim community to gather as much information on as many Muslims as possible. His activities continued for several months, into 2007 The community became aware of what he had done, and what the FBI was doing, in about February of 2009, when at the bail hearing of a man charged with document fraud, Ahmad Niazi, –a case which the prosecution tried to paint in all these sorts of counter-terrorism terms— an FBI agent testified that they actually had sent a confidential informant, and a few days later, this informant came out publicly and started disclosing what he had been sent to do.
AS: And what are some of the central legal issues that this suit addresses?
AQ: The suit addresses a number of legal issues. Essentially, our ultimate goal in this case is to have a court say that it is unlawful and illegal for the government to surveil a community and gather information on a community because of that community’s religious practices. That that’s unconstitutional. So that’s kind of the core of the case. Other things implicated are the rights to privacy that these individuals have had violated, also the wrongful searches, the wrongful seizures, by surveiling the community using electronic devices to conduct this surveillance. And also most importantly, the implications on first amendment freedoms, the freedom of worship and freedom of assembly. And really, how the government has significantly burdened that free exercise and chilled it to a significant extent.
AS: I was reading through the initial lawsuit on the CAIR website, the one that was filed in February of last year. I was that the agents instructed the informants to ask other Muslims whether they visited the Cageprisoners website. I was wondering... if you have any additional information about that.
AQ: I don’t have any information on that particular piece to it, but what I can say is that through what we have learned during this case, and what has been coming out with the disclosure of training materials at the FBI Quantico training facilities... is how the agency seems to have equated religious ideology or political leanings with propensity for criminal activity. So whether that be listening to certain scholars, visiting certain websites, reading certain books, praying a certain number of times a day, having a little bit more religious vigour and observance than others, that all of this points to having a criminal motive, or is inherently suspicious.
AS: Something else I read, I think maybe in Mother Jones... the article said that the FBI agents encouraged the informant to have sexual encounters with women he thought might be able to inform or have information, and record [the sexual encounters] to use them as blackmail. I think elsewhere in the lawsuit itself, there was sort of a side note that the agents had discussed possible people in the community who’d be susceptible to accusations of homosexuality, and that they could also potentially be blackmailed into informing. My immediate reaction to it was that the FBI had these Orientalist assumptions about how the Muslim community would react to that. I was just curious if you’d had any thoughts on that when you’d heard about it.
AQ: Apparently this informant has stated what he has been asked to do, particularly in trying to... first damage people’s reputations in the community, and then use those reputations against them. We have been able to independently verify that he was known to be single and searching for a partner in life. Some community members had been actively trying to introduce him to women... Everyone at that time actually thought that he was a new convert to Islam, and when that happens people really open their arms to the person and embrace him or her in the community. So they thought that they were doing what was good for him and for the community, to help him find a spouse. And it’s not unheard of that the FBI would use these sorts of coercive tactics to use against people, either to become informants themselves or to provide information, or other things for the agency.
AS: I’m not sure if you have had any thoughts, hearing about those stories, about how to have conversations in Muslim communities or mosques about how to react if that happens. I mean obviously it’s a really complicated personal situation for someone to be put in, for that kind of personal information to be threatened against them.
AQ: The thing about our community in general, and the Southern California Muslim community specifically, is that we are a very moderate community, we’re very integrated. We have a large section of the community that came to Islam in the 60s and the 70s and the 80s. We have a large part of our community that immigrated here around the same time, and came for the promise of education and economic opportunity. One thing that is characteristic of our community, though, is that we are a trusting community. We really, really pride ourselves on... the term in Islam is the ummah, or the community. We pray together. We love the fact that we have these activities that encourage that, at Ramadan, or at other times of the year, and literally thousands of Muslims come. We love the fact that our Muslim community is that tight and close knit. So one of the things that the FBI has done is to really tear that community fabric apart. Because now people don’t know who to trust. If there is a new convert in the community, that a community member might not be sure if that person is a bona fide Muslim, interested in the religion, or an FBI agent. And that’s wrong, and that’s very sad, because we’re not supposed to suspect each other. So going back to how news of somebody’s homosexuality or an adulterous affair, how people would react, because we’re a trusting community, we’re a close knit community, we really pride ourselves on not being judgmental, allowing leadership to really handle these issues for us, and not ostracizing people and turning people away from our community. And so it’s kind of absurd to me to think that if our community heard someone was a homosexual, that we’d... put them on public display or run them out of the community... that just doesn’t happen.
AS: I think that was sort of the implicit assumption of how the FBI was acting, this really racist stereotype of Muslim communities as extremely homophobic... in the same way, if you look at what happened at Abu Gharib I guess...
AQ: Right, exactly. We do have our moral principles, and our religious principles, but we don’t go running around with pitchforks! We’re not this sort of absurdly primitive community that’s really prone to violence. That’s what they tried to do in this case. They tried to send in this guy in who was not just an informant but a provocateur. Who tried to get people to eventually [become violent], and that’s when the community reported him and turned him in, when he tried to get people to do violent things. It’s just this absurd notion, and could be largely placed in this Oriental fantasy, that Muslims have this inherent violent urge, or an uber-reactionism and Puritan nature when things are damaging to our community’s character, supposedly. And it’s patently offensive, it really is.
AS: I’ve done research on a lot of other entrapment cases, such as the Newburgh Four. In this case, if I remember correctly, one of the imams tried to call the FBI agent who had spoken at the public meeting, and encouraged people to call the police, and then finally took out a restraining order. I think that series of events... It’s pretty incredible that people would have to go to those lengths. Would you say as a tactic... the restraining order was successful? Do you have any advice, especially looking towards the UK where there’s recently been an entrapment case, on ways communities can respond if they suspect that there’s an informant?
AQ: We actually get this all the time... the unique part of this case is that this person went public with what he did. But it’s not unique for us to hear of these stories, and these sorts of shady characters in our community, people who might be gathering information. It’s actually largely common. We get these calls from community members at least once a month, once every two months, about somebody they suspect. And I’ve actually had to now incorporate this into the Know Your Rights workshops that I do,. I actually say, if you suspect someone, here’s what you do. If you actually are approached to become an informant, here’s what you do. If you actually are acting as an informant, here’s what you can do, if you feel coerced and pressured and like you have no other options, here’s what you can do.
So what we largely advise our community members, is one, to remember our religious principles not to suspect each other. Because if we start turning inwards and suspecting each other of working for the government in a covert way, against the interests of our Muslim community, then that tears again the fabric of our community ,and the religious principles of our community include the ummah, the people, and the community at large. So one, don’t suspect each other.
Two, if you have reasons to believe that somebody is a government informant, bring it to the attention immediately of your mosque leadership. Don’t spread rumours, don’t try to find out yourself. Because at least in the United States, it’s obstruction of justice to actually harass or threaten a government informant. So bring it to the attention of your mosque leadership right away. And what the mosque leadership should do is, they should contact CAIR or an organization like us, that has some experience in these matters. And largely, what they should do is make sure the person is staying away from youth and children, because oftentimes that’s who they target, the young people in our community. If they are saying things that are very disfavourable, that are not part of our religion, that are inciting... they should distance themselves right away from it and tell the community, this is not part of Islam. They should make very clear what those lines are.
And if the person does cross a line, and actually starts hinting at violent activity, or thinking about violent activity, report it to law enforcement right away. Don’t hesitate. Report it the FBI, report it to your local law enforcement agencies. Make sure that you’re prepared to have any witnesses represented by attorneys. Because sometimes, unfortunately, what happens is the FBI will send in an informant, who does all these things, and then actually go and question people about that informant. “Oh, so we heard this person saying these things.” Actually, one of my first FBI cases, was actually just that, is that the FBI agents were asking community members about this informant person, who later came out as an informant. So, make sure that everyone has representation, to ensure that their best interests are protected, that their rights are protected. But do not hesitate to bring it to law enforcement’s attention when it crosses that line.
So the question of restraining orders. Yeah, I think it’s a perfectly good remedy. If there is someone at the mosque who is going around, saying these sorts of things, and is not listening to the community advisement to stop this, then I think a restraining order is a great thing to do.
AS: I don’t know if you want to say any more about the impact that informants have had on the community, in terms of distrust in general of new people, or new converts.
AQ: One of the greatest causalities in this entire incident is that it has not served our national security, and there is no law enforcement interest in these sorts of tactics. Because what it has done is destroyed the trust between the Muslim community and law enforcement, especially federal law enforcement. It completely affronts all sorts of models and philosophies about how communities and law enforcement really need to work together to protect our communities and serve our national security interests. It’s the common line that’s heard, that “we can’t be treated as partners when we’re treated as suspects at the same time”. How can we trust law enforcement to do what’s right when it’s doing the things that are so patently wrong? And I think that’s one of the greatest misfortunes of this entire incident. I get clients all the time, when they’re visited by FBI agents for these sorts of “voluntary” interviews, they say, “I’m American! Of course if I see something criminal or suspicious, I’m going to report it. That goes without saying! But why this way? Why do I have to be treated like I’m suspect? Why like this?” And I think that really speaks to the character of our community. Again we’re invested, we’re integrated. It’s in our interest to make sure that we’re all safe. We go to the same schools, we have the same jobs... But that safety for all of us is undermined when a huge part of our population is targeted in the way that the Muslim community has been targeted by the FBI.
AS: And did CAIR ‘s relationship [with the FBI] change as a result of this particular case?
AQ: No, not in terms of this particular case. The community’s’ relationship has been altered a bit by this revelation, and also just the persistence of FBI scrutiny. Everyone in our community knows someone very close to them who’s been visited by the FBI. A lot of people are facing border stops, secondary searches, immigration delays, all these sorts of things, some of which are noted as injury in our complaint that we filed in Fazaga. A lot of this goes back to the FBI’s nominations of people on the terrorist screening centre watch list. This is something that is constant and pervasive. Our community is getting a little bit fatigued by it all. And now, with the continuing things that are going on, the rampant Islamaphobia, and failed policies that are destroying our constitutional freedoms one by one. This week, the Congress is passing the defence appropriations bill [2012 National Defence Authorization Act], which essentially allows for the indefinite detention of Americans, even on US soil, who are suspected of terrorist ties. So, it’s difficult but I think that if there’s any community that can really stand together with other communities of conscience, and say, we’re not going to allow our constitutional freedoms to be so easily disposed of, that it’s the Muslim community,. Because we’re motivated by our faith principles, and we’re motivated by our love for the principles established by our constitution.
AS: I was curious too if you thought that the lawsuit itself had impacted the Muslim community, in the sense of feeling more empowered, or feeling like there was something they could do to take control of the situation?
AQ: I do think that it has really assisted our community to understand that it’s not a lost cause, that we’re not going to be victimized by this, that we can actually stand up and do something about it. So I think it really has had an empowering effect for our community. Especially, that yes, we - CAIR, we are attorneys, so it is some of the community’s own pushing back on this, but it’s also our great allies, such as our co-counsel the ACLU and the law firm of Hadsell and Stormer [who are also supporting us].
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