Tag: legislation

Dear Leaders At MPAC and CAIR:

I hope this letter finds you well.

I am a citizen of the United States and a Muslim. Ever since I was in high school I have been aware of your organizations and the work they have done protecting Muslim civil rights. I thank you for this invaluable service. Please do not desist from challenging negative stereotypes and fighting Islamophobia.

However, in recent weeks I have become extremely disappointed by the scarcity of resources that your organizations make available to average American Muslims. Not only that, but I have become quite concerned with the fact that your groups provide almost nothing in terms of legislative monitoring (certainly nothing which is easy to use or efficient).

I hope I can impress upon you the value of being able to monitor legislation. In 1996, the US Congres passed the Antiterrorism and Death Penalty Act which was primarily aimed at Mexican nationals. In 2001, elements of the AEDPA were part and parcel of what became the Patriot Act which affected Muslims terribly. Aside from a few talking heads at the national level, no average Muslim was ever aware of something called the AEDPA, or had the ability to find out about it. I remember a few American Muslims fought for the rights of individuals implicted in the Secret Evidence Act. However, individual, case by case battles, in the absence of broadly available information about the issue at hand, go largely ignored, which is precisely what happened with the Secret Evidence Act.

That information gap exists to this day. Unless an American Muslim happens to know someone who works in DC, we have no way of finding out about proposed and actual legislation that ends up affecting us (and our neighbors) directly.

I request that you immediately set aside funds to create a comprehensive legislative monitoring database. I request that this database be easy to use, and ideally, should be linked to a blog of some kind so as to provide commentary in plain-speak. Certainly you have access to, and funds for, eager interns and staffers who could spend a few hours of their day looking at the daily activity in Congress and could write a few short snippets and provide summaries. Where legislation might be controversial, we should be provided easy to use ways of contacting our representatives.

At the current time the American Muslim community is living in a political blackhole in terms of information. The only time we ever contact our representatives is if we receive an email in our in-box from someone who happened upon some mainstream organization's call to action. Usually these organizations happen to be Hispanic or African-American. I hope you don't think it unreasonable for me to expect major American Muslim organizations to work at the same level as Latino and African-American groups.

Challenging Islamophobia and providing awareness about the religion of Islam is only a part of your responsibility. The other, equally important part, relates to asuring that average Muslims such as myself and my friends have up to date and accurate information about legislation in this country. Considering this proposal is the least you can do in light of the fact that you regularly hold yourself out as the face of the American Muslim communities.

I am the founder of Eteraz.Org; an interactive web portal dedicated to the religion and politics of Islam, and our thousands of readers are very interested in what you have to say.

Sincerely,

Ali Eteraz

This is a great blog.

I recommend hotlisting this link.

Just today Congress talked about Muslims a bunch:

Title XIV to H.R. 1 seeks to improve the image of the U.S. around the world by a series of cooperative initiatives in the Muslim countries. Some of the programs are vague and are probably unlikely to make it into the conference agreement, but what they do right now is attempt to increase “educational opportunities” for Muslims in the international community. Instead of studying hatred in madrases, this bill hopes to spread Western education. It also establishes a fund for translating Western reading materials into Arabic and other local languages. Finally, it gives a list of not-exactly-binding ways for the U.S. to repair its image with the international community by expanding the U.S. scholarships for Muslim students to come to the other side of the lake to study.

Elaine Cassel writes an interesting piece from way back in 2002. Note how one piece of legislation leads to the next. Not especially how the 1996 antiterrorism law transubstantiated into the 2001 Patrior Act:

As the authors discuss, even before there was an "antiterrorism" statute, in the 1980's, the FBI conducted surveillance of Americans involved with activists who supported rebel groups in El Salvador, and who were opposed to American aid to the El Salvadoran military. These were people whose only crimes were to have attended rallies, signed petitions, and possessed reading materials associated with the Committee in Solidarity with People of El Salvador (CISPES), whose activities were variously described by the FBI as "terrorist" or "leftist."

These investigations did not gain public prominence like the anti-communist and anti-war "sympathizer" activities of the 1950's and 1960's. They went on for more than two years, until they were finally halted by Congressional hearings and the exposure of documents obtained under Freedom of Information Act requests filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR).

The 1996 Antiterrorism Act

The Antiterrorism Act of 1996 was a response to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. Cole and Dempsey describe the Act as a massive assault on First Amendment rights of speech, assembly, and petition, and a deeper entrenchment of the "guilt by association" tradition active in the FBI.

As noted above, the Act removed barriers to FBI investigation of activities protected under the First Amendment. It also removed some restrictions on the famous FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Court--where federal judges sit in secret to consider, and mostly approve, Justice Department requests for widespread surveillance of "terrorists," including pen registers and "trap-and-trace" surveillance, methods that can capture income and outgoing telephone calls. The law also opened the door for the Immigration and Naturalization Service to deport mostly Muslim citizens. The deportations were based on largely secret evidence, and no overt acts needed to be alleged.

That part is not entirely correct. The primary victims of the Act were Mexican nationals, although there were five or six Muslims also implicated.

The authors tell the stories of several individuals who were targeted under the law, as a result of racial and ethnic profiling. More than two dozen Muslim immigrants were detained and then deported, typically for visa or immigration regulation violations. Most were never charged with any crime. They were, in the government's eyes, "guilty" of being associated with people or organizations labeled as "terrorist."

The Post-9/11 USA PATRIOT Act

Then came 9/11--and the USA PATRIOT Act. The Act expanded "guilt by association" to the point that the most tenuous connection to an organization labeled by the Secretary of State as a "terrorist" organization can now lead to the charge of conspiring, or taking action to, give "material support" to "aid and abet" terrorism.

Was the expansion necessary? Sheik Abdel Rahman and others implicated in the 1993 World Trade Center attack and acts of violence on American embassies, as well as Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, were tried and convicted before the 1996 and 2001 laws were enacted.

Was the expansion abusive? Consider recent indictments of defendants in Buffalo and Portland--which suggest that it is sufficient for the defendant simply to have been in the presence of people labeled as terrorist sympathizers, or to have given money to a non-profit organization that has (according to our government) mixed humanitarian and political activities associated with "terrorism." Consider, too, the indictment of Lynne Stewart, which I have discussed in a prior column, for what amounts to the "crime" of zealously representing a convicted terrorist.

The First Amendment consequences are dire, as Cole and Dempsey point out--given that there is no specific definition of "material support," no apparent intent requirement, and no ability on the part of defendants to question an organization's appearance on the list.

In light of this vagueness, most Muslim citizens and immigrants may reasonably believe that the course safest for their families is simply to avoid Muslim associations and organizations, period. And that is the tragedy: legitimate First Amendment activities have been criminalized, and even worse, criminalized so vaguely that the safest course would be to avoid exercising free speech rights at all. Muslims should be able to attend their mosques without fear that they may be jailed because they happen to pray next to someone under government suspicion.

I'm not sure how much the American Muslim communities cared about these things in 1996 when the most likely targets of the AEDPA were Mexicans. However, the fact is, that every day, in every area of life, there are pieces of legislation which get passed, which can and will affect Muslims, but, for the time being, appear to directly affect someone else (and so we don't care). So, even if Muslims don't want to stand up and help their neighbors by virtue of being good universalists, they should be monitoring legislation for the simple reason that it could come back and bite them in the ass.

Having said all that, I am terribly disappointed by the legislation monitoring services provided by CAIR and MPAC. Look at the links! I mean, to call these things a "service" is to abuse the English language. There is nothing comprehensive; nothing easily accessible; and nothing that concerns itself with any kind of legislation except which directly affects foreign policy. I am tired of Muslim organizations with their mugs all over TV and their websites hollow and empty and devoid of actual substance.

Didn't CAIR just get $50 million? Come on now, spread the wealth. 

Why can't CAIR and MPAC set up something like this? 

Daily Times:

The president urged voters, especially women, to reject the “hypocrites” and extremists at the polls and elect the “moderates” who had supported the bill. “Remember, you have to vote for moderates. Reject those who do not want to see you progressing.” He also announced a five-point strategy for women’s emancipation. First, women must be empowered politically by giving them representation in elected bodies. Second, they must be empowered economically through equal job opportunities. They must be given equal education opportunities to bring them into the mainstream of national development. They must be empowered legally by enacting new laws. And finally, all unjust social practices and violence against women must be eliminated.

He said the government had already given women 33 percent representation in elected bodies. “However, more steps are needed,” he added. Though job quotas for women had been increased and they had started entering new fields such as the armed forces, “their capacity-building is very important to get maximum benefit from their talent”.

He said the government would try to push through a bill submitted by PML President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain in parliament. The bill would address six major issues: inheritance rights, selling of women, forced marriages, marriages with the Quran, ‘vani’ and laws related to divorce.

He said he backed NGOs trying to eliminate violence against women, but urged them not to raise the issue at international forums, as this hurt Pakistan’s image. The president also announced a Rs 2,000 monthly allowance for women councillors.

There it is people. Another bill. Please keep your eyes open for all news sources on the subject. We did a great job in covering the Women's Protection Bill (we're still the only group in the West or Pakistan) who were able to obtain the bill in English. And for the most part, all the analysis involved, I did by myself. It will be even more spectacular if we all get involved.

In addition to this new women's bill -- which I don't have a cool name for -- we're going to start covering the public morality bill (Hisba Bill) in Pakistan. Other legislation involves getting involved in Iranian criminal law reform, and potentially, a world wide project about Islamic Criminal Law thunk up by some nerds at some big name university (they need to hurry their slow butts up though).