Time to Name Names: Greenwald Reveals American Targets of NSA Snooping

The Intercept

Glenn Greenwald promised he had at least one more major story originating from the documents leaked by Edward Snowden. Tonight, he provided what he had pretty much promised: the names of a handful of Americans who were under surveillance by the FBI and National Security Agency (NSA). He and Murtaza Hussain detail five targets at The Intercept:

• 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;

• Hooshang Amirahmadi, an Iranian-American professor of international relations at Rutgers University;

• 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.

Read much, much more here. There are also video interviews with three of the targets. 

Comments

[Jerryskids]

I think the US government has a long history of keeping a close eye on civil rights leaders, sometimes locking them in cages just so they can get a closer look at them. I'm not shocked at all that the government is protecting us from these people who are every bit as dangerous to the American way of life as a Juggalo.

[Los Doyers (prev. RannedPall)]

Urrggh, errrff, what? I'm trying to sleep here. Geez.

[Danconia]

Greenwald is such a joker. Like Russia Today, he'll do anything to overthrow the Amerikakapitalistimperialsystemahhhhhhhhhhh. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

[Atanarjuat]

#6: Some NSA guy's ex-girlfriend.

[AdamJ]

And her new boyfriend

[PM]

Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights organization in the country.

Unindicted co-conspirator in a terrorism-funding case as well. CAIR ain't exactly the ACLU and to pretend it is is beyond disingenuous. Doesn't justify snooping on its executives, except in the context of an actual criminal investigation with a warrant though.

[Brian Macker]

Yeah, these people sound like the types to be talking with terrorists. If this is the best Greenwald has, and I'm sure e cherry picked, then I don't see the problem.

[Jordan]

The problem is that even suspected terrorists have constitutional rights, asshole.

[Brian Macker]

Constitutional rights that no one has claimed were violated. There is no right not to ever be monitored by the government and each of these were approoved by a judge and renued every 90 days in front of a judge. Perhaps you should read the article. Of course, the people monitored are claiming they have no idea why they would be monitored, and the article doesn't investigate why, but a simple google search will show why.

[Adam330]

The article doesn't say these were under a FISA warrant. It speculates that might be the case because the title of the document is FISA recap, but FISA has many provisions, not all of them requiring warrants.
"It is also unclear under what legal authority it was conducted, whether the men were formally targeted under FISA warrants...."

[Adam330]

In fact, it also says "Last week, anonymous officials told another news outlet that the government did not have a FISA warrant against at least one of the individuals named here during the timeframe covered by the spreadsheet."

[db]

In front of a judge in a court the proceedings of which are so secret that the judges are not permitted to keep any records of their own.decisions? Sounds legit.

[Cap'n Krunch]

While some believe the constitutional rights guaranteed under our federal constitution somehow extend to everyone in the world I believe they only extend to American citizens on American soil. I"m not sure how anyone ever came up with the idea that every citizen of every nation has the same rights as a U.S. citizen, whether they're on our soil or not.

[np]

Unless there is evidence of a real crime, there is always a problem, warrant or not.

[Suthenboy]

I was expecting a list that included the H&R commentariat, not a list of suspicious characters that probably do need watching. I was also hoping it would have some pols on the list who support NSA snooping. D. Feinstein comes to mind.....

What a disappointment.

[db]

Quite frankly, until the publicized list includes non-brown people with non-funny sounding names, this is going to have as much impact with "normal" Americans as posting this at 0027 did.

[Suthenboy]

You are correct.

Govt agents are using illegal methods against unsympathetic persons when legal methods are available to them. The legal methods are just too much trouble, and because the targets are unsympathetic the 'cops' think they can get away with it, and mostly they do.

I was hoping that the list would include people that would raise the public's ire.

[Jerryskids]

Judging by most of the comments here, this revelation is going to draw the same attention a video showing a cop beating the shit out of somebody draws, after you find out the guy the cop is beating the shit out of is an accused child molester who spit on the cop when the cop tried to arrest him.

These guys may need watching, the same way MLK needed watching because of all the law-breakers he hung around with and probably supported with a nod and a wink, but the law still needs to be followed - at a minimum - and the law still goes way too far in allowing shit that shouldn't be tolerated by any decent American.

As Nat Hentoff says, when you start defending rights on principle you find yourself defending some pretty despicable characters because nobody's out there trying to shut down 'nice' people, it's the American Nazi Party and NAMBLA and David Koresh.

[db]

I think you may be confusing a realistic assessment of the impact this.will have on the opinion of "Joe sixpack" with approval of that reality.

[AD-RtR/OS!]

Did you ever consider that this list just may be a confirmation of the stereotype?
That Mr.&Mrs;. John Doe of Main Street, Everywhere, USA, are not anti-government terrorists, but that people who associate with, have dealings with, and contribute to, the Muslim Brotherhood and other movements associated with them, are?

[Brian Macker]

it has nothing to do with being brown you fucking moron. If a white convert to Islamism was on the list we would expect that too.

[NotSure]

Converting to Islam is not a crime, being a Muslim does not give the government the right to put you on some spy list.

[AD-RtR/OS!]

No one said it does.
But, when you email, text, phone someone who is on a terrorism watch list, you raise people's suspicions....it's called "Connecting the Dots".

[db]

What?

[np]

We already know that list does include it as detailed by the previous article on all sorts of regular folks, regular emails, IMs, intimate pictures, etc.

It's just that they haven't named them and I don't think most folks caught in the dragnet would volunteer to be put in the spotlight.

[Jordan]

Whether they "need watching" or not, they still have rights. The real disappointment is reading posts like this on a libertarian site.

[NotSure]

The articles are libertarian but many of the people posting are not.

[db]

Look, I'm outraged about this kind of surveillance too, but if the "big reveal" is that the primary targets are people likely to be considered unsympathetic by the general voting public, it's unrealistic to expect a public outcry. If this is all they have, it's less a climax to the NSA spying story in the public eye than a denouement.

[NotSure]

I don't think there would be a public outcry if they were spying on Taylor Swift, Tom Cruise or Michael Phelps (I used those as examples because I don't actually know who the most popular people in America are), it seems most don't care about living in a surveillance state.

[RJ The Terrible]

^^^ THIS ^^^

[AD-RtR/OS!]

Reminder:
The Constitution is not a suicide pact.

[Avnatanyel]

There might not be an outcry, but there would be a loud grumbling if they "looked like Americans". But you're right, most don't care living in a surveillance state and many even support it.

[walkthejosh]

Reading the comments, I was confused and thought I had inadvertently ventured onto the Fox site.

[RishJoMo]

Slap Sammy says that isnt gonna happen dude.

http://www.WentAnon.tk

[Rich]

Careful, AnonBot. "RishJoMo" ain't a normal name, if you catch my drift.

[Kaptious Kristen]

He's probably one o' them Mohammadans we keep hearing tell of.

[Jensen]

Oh man, that picture of Hilary with Ghafoor is just plain creepy. It's like some horror show ventriloquist doll.

[Brian Macker]

Despite the glowing reviews by Greenwald for thesepeople when you look up their bios you can see why they were and maybe should continue to be watched. http://iransnews.wordpress.com.....ia-in-usa/

[Brian Macker]

"Faisal Gill served as spokesman and "Director of Government Affairs" for the American Muslim Council, an organization founded and led by Abdurahman Alamoudi, who in 2003 was sentenced to 23 years in federal prison for bringing over one million dollars in cash provided by the Libyan government into the U.S. Gill served in a similar capacity as Director of Government Affairs for the Islamic Free Market Institute in 2001, an organization founded by conservative activists including Nina Reese, Grover Norquist and Randa Hudome."

[Bill]

Free Market Institute!! He does sound like a terrorist!

[AD-RtR/OS!]

Many Soviet fronts during the Cold War had the most innocuous of names.
The whole point is to not draw attention to yourself.

[Adam330]

So unconstitutionally and illegally spying on a guy is justified because he once worked for an organization that was founded by a guy who went to prison, and for another that was founded by some conservative activists? By this logic, everyone who who worked at Enron should also be under surveillance.

[AD-RtR/OS!]

Enron was never declared a 'criminal conspiracy', several of these Islamist organizations have been.
Of course, with your logic, no member of MS-13, or anyone who associates with them, need be monitored, because they're just 'guys in the neighborhood', like Billy Ayers.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Don't these people know they have nothing to worry about if they didn't do anything?

Sheesh. Get over yourselves!

[Stilgar]

Greenwald dropped the ball on this one. There are many others in that spread sheet which he was unable to identify but did not reveal. Thats BS.

[mrvco]

I'd say that Greenwald and the $250M WordPress Blog that he posts on have fallen out of favor with Snowden and whatever (supposedly) remains of his classified data trove.

[Loki]

So... basically they're targeting any brown person with an Arab looking name who have dared to dissent or speak out against the government's civil liberties destroying WoT bullshit.

"I am Jack's complete lack of surprise."

[anon]

It's unfortunate that 4/5 have islamic names.

Not that it actually matters to me: It's still a disgusting blatant violation of privacy. But to the public, I get the feeling most people won't care.

[Anon E. Mouse]

So, we're spying on muslims with possible or know associations with terrorist groups. What a fucking surprise.

[Ama-Gi Anarchist]

Come on Greenwald, shit or get off the fucking pot. This "list" is not in any way, shape or form what we were told was going on. Shitheels in government using unaccountable secret courts to spy on brown people was a given, since so many Statist cocksuckers loved the idea of 'stickin it to the Muzzies'. Where are the rest of the names!

[AD-RtR/OS!]

I'm confident that many of the people on that list were put there with the same justification as 1000's are on No Fly Lists....because they pissed someone off and a little pay-back was being extracted.