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Muslim group blasts U.S. judge over ‘sea monster’ comparison

A Muslim rights group criticized a federal judge on Wednesday, complaining he had
compared the civil liberties of Muslim Americans to a “hideous
sea monster” while tossing out a lawsuit over the infiltration
of California mosques by an FBI informant.

U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney dismissed the lawsuit on
Tuesday, which charged that the undercover FBI informant had
violated civil liberties of U.S. Muslims by spying on them,
ruling that allowing the case to proceed could risk disclosure
of government secrets.

In his 36-page order, Carney invoked the fictional Greek
hero Odysseus, who was forced to sail his ship between a
six-headed sea monster and a dangerous whirlpool during an epic
voyage home from the Trojan War.

“Odysseus opted to pass by the monster and risk a few of his
individual sailors, rather than hazard the loss of his entire
ship to the sucking whirlpool,” Carney wrote. “Similarly, the
proper application of the state secrets privilege may
unfortunately mean the sacrifice of individual liberties for the
sake of national security.”
Carney allowed the case to go forward only against five
current or former agents named as individual defendants, who the
plaintiffs claim violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act. Plaintiffs attorneys have said they will appeal.

“Our civil liberties are not a hideous sea monster, but
they are instead the most stalwart defense against the real
threats of tyranny and oppression,” Ameena Mirza Qazi, deputy
executive director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations
(CAIR), said in a written statement.

The lawsuit, jointly filed by CAIR and the American Civil
Liberties Union last year in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana,
said the FBI sent undercover informant Craig Monteilh into
Orange County mosques to collect personal information on
hundreds, or possibly thousands, of Muslims.

According to the suit, Monteilh took hundreds of hours of
surreptitious video and audio recordings of religious lectures,
classes, cultural events and other meetings in 2006 and 2007 as
part of a counterterrorism investigation, known as “OperationFlex,” that did not produce a single conviction.
“It is deeply troubling that the prisoners at Guantanamo Bayhave more access to judicial review than U.S. citizens,”
plaintiffs attorney Reem Salahi said. “Where plaintiffs and the
informant himself describe act after act of illegal government
surveillance, the government should not be allowed to skirt
liability by using its wild card — state secrets.”

The FBI and U.S. Department of Justice declined to comment
on Wednesday. The FBI has acknowledged in court documents that
Monteilh was used as a confidential informant during the
operation but denies any wrongdoing, saying it took reasonable
measures to investigate credible evidence of possible terrorist
activity.

Carney wrote in his ruling that he did not reach the
decision lightly and conducted a careful review of classified
government filings with “a skeptical eye” before ruling.

SOURCE: Thicago Tribnne

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Comment by wyroby z betonu — August 17, 2012 @ 4:56 am

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