The National Security Agency (NSA) and FBI have covertly monitored the emails of prominent Muslim-Americans, including a political candidate and several civil rights activists, academics, and lawyer, under secretive procedures intended to target terrorists and foreign spies.
First look.org reported that according to documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the list of Muslim-Americans monitored by their own government includes:
Hooshang Amirahmadi, an Iranian-American professor of international relations at Rutgers University;
Faisal Gill, a longtime Republican Party operative and one-time candidate for public office who held a top-secret security clearance and served in the Department of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush;
Asim Ghafoor, a prominent attorney who has represented clients in terrorism-related cases;
Agha Saeed, a former political science professor at California State University who champions Muslim civil liberties and Palestinian rights;
Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights organization in the country.
The individuals appear on an NSA spreadsheet in the Snowden archives called “FISA recap”—short for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Under that law, the Justice Department must convince a judge with the top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that there is probable cause to believe that American targets are not only agents of an international terrorist organization or other foreign power, but also “are or may be” engaged in or abetting espionage, sabotage, or terrorism. The authorizations must be renewed by the court, usually every 90 days for US citizens.
The spreadsheet shows 7,485 email addresses listed as monitored between 2002 and 2008.
Source: FARS
