Fremont Mosque Under Surveillance as Spying Targets Muslims

The camera was installed there about a year ago, and worshippers at the Islamic Center of Fremont say they don't know who put it there. But they believe Uncle Sam could be behind it.

"Given the overall political climate, I wouldn't be surprised if an (federal agency) installed it," asserted Dr. Agha Saeed, national chairman of the American Muslim Alliance and a worshipper at the mosque.

"A perfectly moral activity of praying to your God has turned into a suspicious activity," he told India-West. "This kind of spying undermines our community."

Last week, following the revelation a few days earlier that the government has been secretly spying on U.S. citizens without court permission, federal law enforcement officials admitted that FBI agents have secretly monitored radiation levels at mosques, Islamic businesses and homes for several years in large cities to see whether nuclear or chemical bombs were being assembled.

Up until now, no suspicious radiation levels have been found in any of those places.

The disclosures have angered Muslims in the U.S. and elsewhere.

"The fact that radiation spying is targeted only at Muslims shows an erosion of our civil liberties and human rights," Saeed, who is also the statewide coordinator of the California Civil Rights Alliance, told India-West.

Rabiah Ahmed, a spokeswoman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington, D.C., said her organization has invoked the Freedom of Information Act and has asked the U.S. government to release documents that detail the spying program. CAIR is the nation's largest Muslim civil liberties group.

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