JOSEPH RASKAS: MOSQUES EXCLUDED FROM SURVEILLANCE….HAVE WE LEARNED NOTHING?
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/3798/have_we_learned_nothing_from_the_boston_bombings
A recent article in Investor’s Business Daily makes the claim that mosques are excluded from the wide-ranging surveillance dragnet that is being operated by the United States government. If this report is true, then that begs the obvious question: If surveillance is purposed to stop terrorism, then why would the government exclude mosques from such scrutiny?
According to the IBD report, “Since October 2011, mosques have been off-limits to FBI agents. No more surveillance or undercover sting operations without high-level approval from a special oversight body at the Justice Department dubbed the Sensitive Operations Review Committee.”
IBD goes on to describe that the FBI never examined Boston mosques until four days after the bombing at the Boston Marathon. Nor did the FBI check the radical Boston mosque where the older Tsarnaev brother, Tamerlan, worshiped. In fact, says the report, “The bureau didn’t even contact mosque leaders for help in identifying their images after those images were captured on closed-circuit TV cameras and cellphones.”
Since 9-11, there have been dozens of plots by Muslims to kill and maim innocent Americans. Before the Boston Marathon carnage, for example, 13 American soldiers were massacred by Major Hassan at Fort Hood as he shouted “Allahu Akbar.” Yet in the aftermath of this carnage, the Obama Administration still refuses to call this a terrorist attack. And General George Casey, Jr. said about the Fort Hood attack: “As horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse.”
The dangerous mentality of refusing to identify the enemy is now pervasive. It is at the core of the Muslim “sensitivity training” that FBI Special Agents are required to take, and it also is the reason why the Obama Administration has eradicated phrases like “Radical Islam” from training manuals.
The American people support the ongoing operation of a government surveillance programme that targets prospective terrorists irrespective of religious orientation. According to a recent poll conducted by Pew Research and the Washington Post, 56 percent of Americans found it “acceptable” that the “NSA has been getting secret court orders to track calls of millions of Americans to investigate terrorism.”
Arguably, America’s majority support for a government surveillance dragnet goes hand-in-hand with its efficacy as a counter-terror method. Indeed, on Wednesday, the head of the National Security Agency, Gen. Keith Alexander, said that since 9/11 government surveillance programmes have helped stop dozens of attacks, both at home and abroad.
But to be effective, a surveillance dragnet must be capable of scrutinizing every sect of society. As the IBD report notes, “Before mosques were excluded from the otherwise wide domestic spy net the administration has cast, the FBI launched dozens of successful sting operations against homegrown jihadists – inside mosques – and disrupted dozens of plots against the homeland.” Yet, since the mosque in Boston that Tamerlan Tsarnaev attended was not monitored by the government, the FBI was unaware of his increasing radicalization before the attack.
Ignorance can be very dangerous. In the case of the Boston terrorist attack, it proved deadly.
That should be of deep concern to every American. If our security services continue to close their eyes to the threat of Muslim terrorists, more innocent Americans will fall as their victims.
Mr. Raskas is a graduate student at the George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management
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