
Meet the Muslim-American Leaders the FBI and NSA Have Been Spying On - bendoernberg
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/07/09/under-surveillance/
======
cup
As one of the resident HN muslim users I think I should mention that within
the muslim community nearly everyone assumes they're under some kind of
surveilance whether it be targeted or indiscriminate. I mean the fact that
Faisal Gill was nominated for special consideration is the icing on the cake.

I think over time more and more Americans are going to start to wake up and
appreciate that the freedom loving utopia that America is percieved to be has
slowly become a creeping monolithic police state. I don't say that to be
controversial or alarmist but just to state what is in my view a fact.

What I'm interested in is whether Americans:

1\. Care.

2\. Care enough to change it.

3\. Actually can change it.

My personal belief is that all three are no.

~~~
waps
To be frank, reasonable people are nervous because muslim ideology, as
published, matches the modus operandi of things like ISIS, the states of
Pakistan and generally middle eastern countries to some extent.

And frankly what also makes me horribly nervous is that when talking to
muslims that are clearly well integrated, at work, or when going out. I can't
get them to condemn terrorist behaviour. Not even when we're talking obviously
immoral behaviour, like the 1972 olympic attack (just to avoid 9/11), or today
ISIS' modus operandi. When it comes to the obvious religious extermination
policies that exist in places like Pakistan or Bangladesh, or all over the
middle east, again, it does not seem to be possible, in my experience, to hear
condemnations of that behaviour. And frankly, when going over the behaviour
that muslim history claims "the prophet" had, like exterminating Khaybar, men,
women and children over a trivial conflict, again you can't get muslims to
condemn that behavior. He, by the way, did not just kill them, but tortured
them first, forced kids to watch family members' executions and worse.

They just deny it exists, how it's all a massive conspiracy against islam,
muslims, those countries or some other such claim that they can't defend at
all. Regularly muslims suggest that the whole of the quran, hadith and other
sources has been falsified just for the purpose of that very discussion.

Knowing that these are well-integrated muslims, not "normal" ones is worrying,
very, very worrying. To be honest, if someone were to try something like ISIS
is doing in Iraq[1] in America, I am absolutely convinced there would not be
serious opposition to that from the American muslim community.

I don't get how we can ever really live together with this religion. There
simply is no interest in doing that on the muslim side. Yes there is a period
of calm that has started with the WWI extermination of the Caliphate by the
Turks. I feat that period is ending, and things will get much, much worse in
the medium term.

I know I'll get downvoted for this, but I feel this is a legitimate concern.

[1] [http://rt.com/news/166436-isis-execution-video-
iraq/](http://rt.com/news/166436-isis-execution-video-iraq/)

~~~
dang
This is religious flamewar concern trolling. Please do not attack entire
classes of people on Hacker News and please do not post anything like this
again.

~~~
param
Thanks for this comment. I actually upvoted the parent out of emotion when I
read it, for I personally would agree with almost everything it said.

However, when I read your comment, I realized that I don't know that many
muslims personally (maybe 1-2) and I have never bothered to raise these topics
with them to see how they would respond. So, it is not right for me to assume
that they wouldn't criticize these events, especially given that there is a
plethora of atheist ex-muslims online, which makes it credible(and to an
extent obvious) that there are many more closeted atheists or otherwise
liberals within the community, all of whom would prove the parent flat out
wrong

~~~
acqq
The problems still exist. The religious leaders of all Abrahamic religions
(Judaism, Christianity and Islam) are still not doing enough, see my other
comments here. Muslims alone can't be expected to change anything if others
aren't willing.

------
rikacomet
This is a very a sensitive topic to talk about, and I might be tempted to say
more on this, but I won't, For the sake of all good things. I cannot agree
100% with either of the sides, on this issue. But a good way to think about
this situation is this:

If you go search for a lion in a jungle, you would probably find one. If you
do, you will feel ever threatened to live near that jungle compared to when
you were unaware of his presence and just living in your space, and the loin
keeping to his jungle.

Spying similarly makes you ever-so conscious of anything that borders the line
of what you agree and disagree with.

People who have photographic memory suffer from a similar curse. If they have
seen a murder scene, they cannot ever forget it.

Forgetting is a good thing. This sort of spying doesn't leaves a room for
Forgetting much more for Forgiving.

------
justin66
I'm floored that I had to find out about this story on _television_ because
the story fell off the front page so quickly. Something about the process here
is broken.

------
acqq
Reading the document, all the five presented cases are the FBI cases, not NSA.
They are also listed as the FISA cases. The title is intentionally misleading.

~~~
declan
Um, which federal agency do you think files the paperwork in court on behalf
of the NSA?

(Hint: It's the other federal agency mentioned in the Intercept's headline.
Second hint: This agency is home to the National Security Branch, created in
2005. Third hint: it's listed as one of the 17 "member agencies" of the
intelligence community here: [http://www.intelligence.gov/mission/member-
agencies.html](http://www.intelligence.gov/mission/member-agencies.html))

~~~
csandreasen
The picture in the article shows "NSA", "CIA" and "FBI" listed for various
cases in the "Responsible Agency" column. The cases that were highlighted in
this article all had FBI listed as the responsible agency.

------
electic
This is one of the most profound revelations so far. Yet, HN just buried it
off their front page. Wow.

~~~
bendoernberg
Infuriating. I also just lost the ability to downvote posts and comments...

~~~
dang
> I also just lost the ability to downvote posts and comments

That is false. You really should follow the HN guidelines and take such
matters up with us at hn@ycombinator.com. Why post, or even think, untrue
things about your HN account, when it's so easy to find out what's going on?

------
aspensmonster
I come back a few weeks or months later, and find that HN is _still_ silently
killing NSA stories. This _was_ near the top of the front page, until I
refreshed and it disappeared, ranked 25 among the new stories despite 13
points and 2 comments.

Stay classy, mods. Signing off now :D

Edit: Currently ranked #72, probably well on its way to the fourth or fifth
page. At least on [https://lobste.rs](https://lobste.rs), I might be able to
see a modlog explanation if it gets removed there too.

