[WestMALocals] Romney: Wiretap, Monitor Mosques

[Owen Broadhurst]

 Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2005 02:26:55 -0400
From: "Mark Rausher/Present-Day Products" <presentdayprods at mindspring.com>
Subject: MA Gov. Urges Wiretapping of Mosques and Monitoring of Attendees


Groups Criticize Romney's Comments


Massachusetts Governor Urged Wiretapping of Mosques and Monitoring of
Attendees


By David A. Fahrenthold

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 16, 2005; Page A09

BOSTON, Sept. 15 -- Civil liberties and Muslim groups criticized
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney on Thursday for suggesting that authorities
should spend more time monitoring mosques and their attendees, possibly with
wiretaps.

The comments came during a speech on domestic preparedness that Romney (R)
gave Wednesday at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in
Washington.



Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) might run for president in 2008. (By Tina
Fineberg -- Associated Press)

Romney, said to be considering a run for president in 2008, used the speech
to offer suggestions for beefing up domestic intelligence-gathering, saying
that too much effort is spent protecting buildings and too little on
surveillance that might detect an attack in the planning stages.

After asking whether students from "terrorist-sponsored countries" should be
tracked more closely in the United States, Romney asked: "How about people
who are in settings -- mosques, for instance -- that may be teaching
doctrines of hate and terror?

"Are we monitoring that?" Romney continued, according to a video posted on
the foundation's Web site. "Are we wiretapping? Are we following what's
going on? Are we seeing who's coming in, who's coming out?"

In a telephone interview Thursday, Romney said he was not calling for a
loosening of the rules governing when and how the government can conduct
surveillance. But he defended his focus on mosques as potential surveillance
targets, saying that attacks by Islamic terrorists in the United States,
London and elsewhere justify a particular focus on Muslim places of worship.

Authorities "should be watching what's being taught in a mosque more closely
than what's being taught at the local 4-H Club," Romney said.

After Romney's speech was reported on the front page of Thursday's Boston
Globe, groups in Boston and Washington expressed alarm, seeing in his speech
a call for blanket surveillance of mosques and Muslims.

"It's irresponsible for the top elected official in any state to suggest
blanket wiretapping of houses of worship," said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman
for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Ali Noorani, the executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and
Refugee Advocacy Coalition, said his group plans to demand a retraction.

"There's a need for the U.S. government and the intelligence system to
better understand the Muslim community," Noorani said. "The way not to do it
is to wiretap and surreptitiously surveil an entire community."

In general, mosques and other houses of worship do not have special
protection from surveillance under U.S. law. As in other cases, wiretaps are
supposed to be authorized when there is probable cause to believe a crime
has been committed, or -- in cases involving the secret Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act court system -- when the surveillance relates to an ongoing
terrorist investigation.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, several federal investigations
have used informants, surveillance and electronic eavesdropping to gather
information about mosques.

Earlier this month, for instance, federal authorities in California said
they had watched two mosques in Sacramento for months, recording both sound
and video in an investigation of possible terrorist activity.