(WASHINGTON, D.C., 6/12/2023) – The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today released a report, titled “Twenty Years Too Many, A Call to Stop the FBI’s Secret Watchlist,” which details the FBI’s use of the Terrorism Screening Database to target Muslims, and called President Biden to take action to address the watchlist.
CAIR’s report found that the overwhelming majority, estimated to be around 98 percent, of names on the watchlist are Muslim names. More than 350,000 entries alone in the portion of the watchlist acquired by CAIR include some transliteration of Mohamed or Ali or Mahmoud and the top 50 most frequently occurring names are all Muslim names.
An individual’s watchlist status is used by government agencies to harass and humiliate people when they travel, to outright forbid people from flying, to deny individuals licenses and permits, to refuse to hire people or fire people already employed, to delay or deny visas and applications for U.S. citizenship or a US passport and subject the innocent people on the list to dangerous and invasive law enforcement actions.
CAIR announced the release of “Twenty Years Too Many, A Call to Stop the FBI’s Secret Watchlist” during US Council of Muslim Organization’s (USCMO) 8th National Muslim Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill.
READ THE FULL REPORT
WATCH CAIR’S NEWS CONFERENCE
The introduction to CAIR’s watchlist report states in part:
“For now over twenty years, the FBI has detained, surveilled, harassed, and destroyed the lives of innocent Muslims. The public record amply documents how these abuses, inflicted via always-expanding FBI powers, led not to a reduction in terrorism, but painful, farcical, and often dangerous abuses of Muslims…
“Of the watchlist entries we’ve reviewed, we estimate that more than 1.47 million of those entries regard Muslims – over 98 percent of the total…”
CAIR’s mission is to protect civil rights, enhance understanding of Islam, promote justice, and empower American Muslims.
La misión de CAIR es proteger las libertades civiles, mejorar la comprensión del Islam, promover la justicia, y empoderar a los musulmanes en los Estados Unidos.
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CONTACT: CAIR Senior Litigation Attorney Gadeir Abbas, Gabbas@cair.com, 720-251-0425; CAIR Trial Attorney Justin Sadowsky, jsadowsky@cair.com, 646-785-9154; CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell, 404-285-9530, e-Mitchell@cair.com; CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw, 202-742-6448, rmccaw@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, ihooper@cair.com CAIR National Communications Coordinator Ismail Allison, 202-770-6280, iallison@cair.com