“Do you have any prejudice against Muslims?” We heard the judge ask a set of questions to each potential juror. To this inquiry, one middle aged white woman said, “Yes.” Judge William Duffey Jr. asked her to elaborate. “I’m afraid of them. They want to hurt us.” A former law enforcement agent also answered yes to that question. Both were chosen to sit on the jury at Ehsanul “Shifa” Sadequee’s trial in August 2009.
Sadequee was convicted of four counts of conspiring and attempting to support terrorists and a foreign terrorist organization. He did not provide material support to terrorist groups. He did not commit any acts of violence. A few online conversations, translations of Islamic texts, a video recording of Washington, D.C., landmarks, and paintball trips in the Georgia woods were presented as evidence to prove the potential of intent to provide support to a terrorist-identified group. The maximum sentence was 60 years in federal prison. The jury took less than seven hours to find him guilty. The judge sentenced him to 17 years in federal prison and 30 years surveillance, once released. [...]
Sadequee is just one victim of preemptive prosecution, in which loose application of conspiracy or material support laws, or other, similar tactics, are used to target individuals before any real harm has been committed. After 9/11, preemptive prosecution has been used to prosecute individuals whose beliefs, ideologies or religious affiliations raise concerns for the government. In the 15 years since the 9/11 attacks, the government has used preemptive prosecution liberally to root out domestic, “homegrown” terrorism. [...]
The threat of terrorism has justified detention, incarceration and mass surveillance. Post-9/11, hundreds of Muslims, South Asians and Arab community members were detained and investigated in connection with the attacks. Eight men arrested on immigration charges, who were then detained as suspected terrorists, filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of themselves and their fellow detainees alleging they were held based solely on their religion, race, ethnicity and immigration status. These individuals were beaten and suffered verbal abuse whilst in detention and were deprived of sleep and contact with the outside world. Their right to practice their religion was also violated. Not one of them was charged with terrorism. Their lawsuit against Bush administration officials was reinstated by the Second Circuit in June 2015. [...]
The Attorney General guidelines in 2008 also authorized “domain management assessments” which allow the FBI to map out communities across America by race and ethnicity, using crude stereotypes to hypothesize about the crimes they are believed to be likely to commit.
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