The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) has weighed in with its contribution to the controversy over reports that American Muslim leaders were part of a list 202 individuals designated for surveillance targeting by the US National Security Agency. According to the ICNA statement, the individuals in question “have been targeted for their tireless positive contributions for our country.”:
(NEW YORK, NY, July 9, 2014) – The Islamic Circle of North America denounces the unconstitutional surveillance of Muslim Americans by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
A new report co-written by Glenn Greenwald, based on documents leaked by Edward J. Snowden identifies five prominent American Muslim leaders whose emails were illegally monitored for several years. The documents acknowledged that it was impossible to determine why the men were monitored and the extent of the surveillance. ‘
Such actions are a severe and outrageous violation of basic rights.’ said Naeem Baig, president of ICNA. ‘The government must immediately provide a transparent account of its actions and safeguard civil rights.’ Several dozen civil rights, human rights, privacy rights, and religious based organization wrote a letter of condemnation to President Obama, expressing outrage at the blatant violation of the sacred rights of Americans to freedom of speech, association, and worship.
The five Americans who have been under surveillance are Agha Saeed, Nihad Awad, Asim Ghafoor, Faisal Gill, and Hooshang Amirahmadi.
‘We are troubled that senior community leaders such as Agha Saeed and Nihad Awad have been targeted for their tireless positive contributions for our country,’ said Baig. ‘Such unconstitutional governmental actions restrict the ability of individuals to serve their communities and the nation.’
Read the rest here.
As we noted when we first reported on this issue and the claim that “ethnic backgrounds had something to do with the NSA spying on them”, the ICNA statement a;so fails to mention that two of the five individuals in question were heads of US Muslim Brotherhood organizations including Nihad Awad, the leader of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), and Dr. Agha Saeed, the head of the American American Muslim Task Force (AMT). The GMBDW reported earlier today that the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), another part of the US Brotherhood, had also issued a statement saying that it is “deeply concerned” over the reports but failed to mention ISNA’s own connections to both CAIR and the AMT. The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) is itself part of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood and considered to be closely tied to the Jamaat-e-Islami organization of Southeast Asia. The claim by ICNA that the individuals in question were targeted because of their “tireless contributions.” just raises the bar on preposterousness.