By Camille T. Taiara

Federal Bureau of Investigation agents working with the Joint Terrorism Task Force have been showing up in recent months at the homes and workplaces of Arabs and Muslims – including both immigrants and U.S. citizens – pushing for what they call "informal interviews" and attempting to interrogate people without the presence of an attorney.

This isn't the first time the FBI has conducted this sort of campaign, and local lawyers say this latest round of interviews still looks more like a witch-hunt than any bonafide antiterrorist investigation.

"This plan is part of a larger practice of targeting people based on race, ethnicity, and religion," rather than on evidence of possible wrongdoing, Jayashri Srikantiah, director of Stanford University Law School's Immigrant Rights Clinic and former associate legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union's northern California office, told the Bay Guardian.

According to Srikantiah, the latest campaign represents the fourth round of such interviews in the Bay Area since Sept. 11, 2001. As with the now-infamous Special Registration program (see "Immigration Boondoggle," 12/17/03), the practice has led to a rash of deportations nationwide so far but no "meaningful, terrorist-related investigation," she said.

In 2001 and 2002, federal agents limited their interviews to Muslim and Arab immigrants, Srikantiah said. And while immigrants continue to be the main targets, the JTTF has since begun questioning U.S. citizens as well – particularly recent converts to Islam and Arab and Muslim Americans who've recently traveled to the Middle East.

The FBI won't say how many people have been targeted. But local National Lawyers Guild program assistant Mel Campagna told us the NLG has received eight calls from people approached by the FBI for interviews since late April. "In the second week of July, we received four calls within about three days," she said. The agents "have been showing up at people's homes and workplaces and requesting quick turnarounds for interviews. People are being told that they don't need to have lawyers present."

Local lawyers say the targets have included Syrians, Iraqis, a Kurdish woman, and a black Muslim, among others. Only one, a U.S. citizen, would talk to us.

"They tried to get me to talk right away, without legal counsel," said Mohammed, an Indian-born Muslim who asked that we not use his last name. Two FBI agents called on Mohammed at his job in March – a year after he'd spent five weeks filming interviews in Palestine for Berkeley-based Middle East Children's Alliance.

Fortunately, Mohammed, who has lived in the United States since he was three years old and is an activist with Stop U.S. Tax-Funded Aid to Israel Now, is more politically savvy than most of those approached by the JTTF. He agreed to talk to the agents only with his attorney present – and refused to answer questions about family, friends, and people he'd met during his trip.

Local attorneys report that the recent interviews have included questions about particular "terrorist" organizations, individual suspects, and a religious school in Syria called Jamiat Abu Noor. (In most cases, the attorneys report, there's been little if any reason to believe that the interviewees would have any knowledge of such groups or people.) They've also included broad questions, such as whom the person had met while on trips to one of a number of Muslim countries; whether they knew any Muslims in the United States with access to government buildings, hazardous materials, or vehicles for transporting hazardous materials; what mosque people they know attend; and their opinions about the Bush administration, the war on Iraq, and about regimes such as that of Syria's Bashir Assad.

"If [they determine whom to talk to] based on specific intelligence, then what's the quality of that intelligence?" asked Mark Schlosberg, police practices policy director at the ACLU's northern California chapter, who insists that the JTTF's criteria should consist of more than a person's religion or country of origin.

"Our point is not that law enforcement should not be investigating terrorism," Schlosberg said. "It's just that any investigation that happens needs to be done in a way that respects people's civil liberties."

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