Cranes haul supplies into the building being built at One World Trade Center at the World Trade Center construction site in New York September 8, 2010. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

DEARBORN — The ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon finds the United States of America at-large in an uncertain place, with a massive budget deficit, a costly war against Afghanistan raging on as another war in Iraq begins to finally cool down, and a population deeply divided on many key issues all at the forefront.

But for Arab Americans and American Muslims in the U.S., that uncertainty is heightened to an even greater level as the communities continue to face unique challenges post-9/11.

Perhaps the greatest concern for Arab Americans and American Muslims according to local scholars is the erosion of civil liberties that Americans have seen in the time since the attacks.

The communities in question have seen a sharp rise in profiling against them in various sectors leading to many detainments and arrests that various civil rights groups have deemed unjust.

“The major impact of post-9/11 policies is the erosion of civil liberties, that’s the most alarming thing to me,” said Nabeel Abraham, a professor of Anthropology at Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn and co-author of the book “Arab Detroit: From Margin to Mainstream.”

“What we’re facing now is that it seems that every time some event occurs, something happens to further erode our civil liberties,” he said.

Abraham cited the many powers granted for spying by the federal government through the Patriot Act including wiretapping of citizens without a warrant as an example, along with a pending bill drafted by Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, the Terrorism Expatriation Act, which aims at stripping terrorism suspects of their citizenship allowing them to be held for an indefinite amount of time without representation. Habeas corpus (a legal action through which a person can be released from unlawful detention) abuses have also been well documented as Abraham pointed out.

Ron Stockton, a professor of political science at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and author of the book “Citizenship and Crisis: Arab Detroit After 9/11,” said that a study highlighted in the book of 508 people from the general public show a similar level of concern over the loss of civil liberties following 9/11 as Arab Americans, of whom 1,016 were sampled.

“The study showed that both Arab Americans and non-Arabs largely have the same values and interests in terms of September 11th, they’re very concerned about security and willing to take sacrifices but they’re both concerned about civil liberties,” he said.

“In terms of the extra surveillance of Arab Americans, however, those surveyed are not very happy with situations where only Arabs are being targeted.”

Abraham said that the abuses have continued under the Obama administration from George W. Bush’s, including the expanding of targeting U.S. citizens in other countries such as Yemen, accusing them of aiding terrorism and not giving them the right to due process.

The danger of the practices spreading to other groups was also noted by Abraham as he referenced FBI Director Robert Mueller’s labeling of environmental and animal rights protestors destroying property as domestic terrorists, blurring the lines of the meaning of “terrorism” and adding to concern over increased targets of anti-terrorism protocols among other groups.

Sally Howell, an assistant professor of history in the Center for Arab American Studies at Michigan-Dearborn, believes that the policies of the government in response to the attacks has helped bring about a “sense of conflict and mistrust between the U.S. and the Arab and Muslim world while contributing significantly to (the country’s) sense of conflict and crisis.”

Those feelings along with a media that leans toward sensationalism created a tenuous situation, she said.

It’s no secret that that the media’s portrayal of the communities since the attacks has had a great role in leading to the discrimination and hate the communities have faced from many segments of the general public, but other secondary factors have contributed to the problems, according to Stockton and Howell.

Stockton talked about one particular tactic that causes the communities to become entrapped in a no-win situation furthering the agenda of those who seek to demonize them in the public eye.

“When someone asks an Arab American or American Muslim ‘Why have you not renounced terrorism,’ it’s not a question, it’s an accusation and a way to discredit a person,” he said.

“The question basically implies that the person asking the question knows the other person hasn’t (renounced terrorism) when they really have no idea and implies that they’re morally superior and have the authority to demand such a thing. It’s like saying ‘Why haven’t you stopped beating your wife?’ It implies that you know something they have no idea about and also that their treatment of women is so good that they can challenge you on your treatment of women, it’s a very hostile effort to discredit a person and/or a community.”

While both Howell and Stockton said positive signs have come about in the past nine years such as an increased interest in people seeking to understand Islam and Arab culture, there is much work to be done.

Howell cited the example of the Cordoba Islamic community center near the Ground Zero site in New York City. While many right-wing politicians have used it to further their political standing among conservatives and fuel anti-Islam sentiments, the project has also brought out a bevy of supporters and increased interfaith dialogue at all levels.

At the same time, however, Howell wondered aloud why such supporters aren’t as visible or active in helping Arab Americans and Muslims confront everyday problems such as profiling in airports and FBI informants spying in mosques.

One issue that the general public has come out in strong opposition to is the practice of torturing suspects, which Abraham lamented.

“That’s why evidence derived under duress is inadmissible in U.S. courts of law, torture can get anybody to say anything, you know, ‘2+2 is 3 instead of 4,’ it makes it a kangaroo court and it’s an absurdity,” he said.

But in regards to the general direction of the country post-9/11, Abraham agreed with Stockton and Howell: the future could be cloudy at best if the war on terror continues down its current path.

“Who knows what the future holds…the whole world is a battlefield and no evidence needs to be presented in many cases, just an official declaration of so and so as being a terrorist and you don’t need anything at all for them to take action,” he said.

“What’s the point of fighting the bad guys if you’re stripping your own constitutional rights at the same time,” he said. “It’s like you’re fighting barbarians and yet you’re becoming barbarians at the same time.”

Howell said the negative effects of the war on terror could be lasting and wonders about the cost America has paid in its uneven quest for security from further attacks.

“Look what it has done to our economy and our moral standing in the world, it’s been a disaster for us and the real damage done by the war on terror is the reduction of our rights,” she said.

“You’ve got the rise of the secret intelligence gathering apparatus alive in this country and outside this country we still don’t know much about and the economy in dire straits due to two hugely expensive wars…these are problems we’re going to be living with for a long time and the consequences of this war on terror are self-inflicted.”