NEW YORK — In what will likely constitute another blow to the fragile trust between American Muslims and American intelligence-gathering agencies, the ACLU has revealed that the FBI’s San Francisco office conducted a a ‘Mosque Outreach’ program through which it collected and illegally stored intelligence about American Muslims’ First Amendment-protected beliefs and religious practices. 

The news comes through a press release by the American Civil Liberties Union from a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the ACLU of Northern California, Asian Law Caucus and the San Francisco Bay Guardian issued earlier this week. 

According to the release, San Francisco FBI’s own documents show that it recorded Muslim religious leaders’ and congregants’ identities, personal information and religious views and practices. The documents also show that the FBI labeled the info as “positive intelligence” and disseminated it to other government agencies, placing the people and organizations involved at risk of greater law enforcement scrutiny as potential national security threats. None of the documents indicate that the FBI told individuals interviewed that their information and views were being collected as intelligence and would be recorded and disseminated.

“Everyone understands that the FBI has a job to do, but it is wrong and counterproductive for the bureau to target American Muslim religious groups for secret intelligence gathering and place innocents at risk of investigation as national security threats,” said Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project. “The FBI is casting a cloud of suspicion on American Muslim religious organizations based on their faith alone, which raises grave constitutional concerns. The bureau’s documentation of religious leaders’ and congregants’ beliefs and practices violates the Privacy Act, which Congress passed to protect Americans’ First Amendment rights.”

The obtained “Mosque Outreach” documents, from between 2004 and 2008, detail information and activities that include:

– FBI visits to the Seaside Mosque five times in 2005, documenting the subject of a particular sermon and congregants’ discussions regarding a property purchase for a new mosque. Despite an apparent lack of information related to crime or terrorism, the FBI’s records of these discussions show they were classified as “secret,” marked “positive intelligence” and disseminated outside the FBI.

– FBI meetings with members of the South Bay Islamic Association four times from 2004 to 2007, documenting discussions about the Hajj pilgrimage and “Islam in general.” FBI documents show this information was classified as “secret,” marked “positive intelligence” and disseminated outside the FBI.

– FBI contacts with representatives of the Bay Area Cultural Connections (formerly the Turkish Center Musalla), describing the group’s mission and activities, as well as the ethnicity of its members. A memo indicates the FBI used a meeting participant’s cell phone number to search LexisNexis and Department of Motor Vehicle records and obtained and recorded detailed information about him, including his date of birth, social security number, address and home telephone number. FBI documents show this information was classified as “secret.”

“The FBI can only be successful if the American public supports its mission and methods, and community outreach plays an essential role in building the trust and mutual understanding to ensure the FBI is effectively and appropriately protecting both our security our civil rights,” said Mike German, ACLU senior policy counsel and a former FBI agent. “By exploiting the good faith of Muslim groups and their members, the FBI is undermining community support for the government’s legitimate law enforcement activities.”

Following the examination of the documents, the ACLU said that it is renewing its call on the Justice 

In light of these new documents, the ACLU is renewing its call on the Justice Department’s Inspector General to investigate Privacy Act violations in the FBI’s San Francisco Division and to initiate a broader audit of FBI practices nationwide to determine the scope of the problem and identify solutions. The ACLU is also urging the FBI to stop using community outreach for intelligence purposes, to be honest with community organizations regarding what information is collected and retained during community meetings and to purge all information collected improperly.

A detailed description of examples (with links to FOIA documents) showing the FBI’s improper collection of information at community outreach meetings is available at: www.aclu.org/FBI-mosque-outreach, and more on the ACLU’s documentation and analysis of the FBI’s improper surveillance and intelligence gathering activities is available at: www.aclu.org/mappingtheFBI.