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U.S. Committed to Protecting Civil Liberties of Arab Americans

By Ralph Dannheisser
Washington File Special Correspondent

Washington -- U.S. law enforcement agencies are committed to protecting the civil liberties of Arab Americans and increasingly are reaching out to that community to demonstrate their commitment, according to federal officials who spoke at a gathering of Arab Americans.

Speaking at the 25th anniversary celebration of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) in Washington May 27-29, the officials said that the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on U.S. targets made cooperation between the government and the Arab-American community more vital and, in some respects, harder to achieve because many Arab Americans felt they had been unfairly stigmatized in the wake of the tragedy.

Nongovernment speakers made it clear they believe that U.S. law enforcement agencies must do more to protect Arab Americans' rights.

Director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Daniel Sutherland said that engagement with the community and doing the “right thing” on civil liberties are vital on moral and “utilitarian” grounds.

Organizations like ADC and the government “have a common goal of protecting the civil rights of all of our people,” Sutherland said.  “We need to place a top priority on assuring that Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, Sikh Americans and other South Asian communities are given full and equal opportunity in education, in employment, in housing and in interactions with government officials.”

Sutherland said that protecting the civil rights and civil liberties of religious and ethnic minorities also "has a strong strategic value in the war on terror.” 

“A critical element [in counterterrorism strategy] must be to better connect the federal government; to listen to your concerns and ideas for improvement, to develop and build a level of communication, trust and confidence that is unprecedented in our nation’s history,” Sutherland said.

He cited successful cooperation with ADC and other concerned groups in modifying the government’s policies with regard to aviation watch lists -- the so-called “no fly” lists of persons suspected of posing a threat to airline or passenger safety.

“They worked with us and they came up with solutions” in that area as well as others including training of law enforcement officers in Arab-American culture and customs, Sutherland said. 

“There are all sorts of pressures that will seek to pull us apart and we have to resist those,” Sutherland warned. “We have to make sure that those who believe in cementing positive relationships are the voices who shape opinions, that these are the people who are influencing the debate. It won’t be easy but we have to do it.”

ADC President Mary Rose Oakar presented the “Friend in Government” award to R. Alexander Acosta, assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.

Oakar, an Arab American who served in the U.S. Congress from 1977 to 1993, noted Acosta’s own minority credentials as the first Hispanic to be appointed assistant attorney general.

In accepting the award, Acosta urged unity in combating terrorism. “We’re all in this together and we’re all Americans,” he said.  “September 11th was not an attack by one people or one religion against another, but it was really an attack by a few desperate radicals against all of us.”

He gave examples of Muslims among those killed in the attack on the World Trade Center -- an ambulance driver, a waiter in the restaurant atop one of the towers. “The victims were citizens of the United States of all nationalities, of all origins, and they were citizens of the world,” he said.

During the three-day conference, representatives from the Justice Department, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the Secret Service and the Bureau of Prisons fielded questions from the conference attendees.

When one questioner asked whether federal agencies are targeting Muslims, Russ Knocke, public affairs director for the department’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said, “We prioritize national security risks … not by group, not by any ethnicity whatsoever, but simply by risk to public safety and national security.”

During the conference, ADC legal staff presented a workshop to show Arab Americans how to react when they believe their rights have been violated -- when, for example, a Muslim woman wearing Islamic garb is singled out for special attention at an airport security checkpoint.

Michael Rollince, special agent in charge of the counterterrorism division in the FBI’s Washington Field Office, detailed the bureau’s sudden shift of resources to fighting terrorism and expanding links with the Arab-American community after the September 11th attacks.

Before September 11, 2001, only 530 of the bureau’s 11,300 agents worldwide had been assigned to combating international terrorism, but that number swelled to 7,000 within days after the attacks, he said. 

“I was amazed how little we knew about the community, how little outreach there was, how little time we spent in your neighborhoods,” he said

“How can we understand you, how can you understand us and our responsibilities if we’re not out there working with you on a regular basis?” Rollince asked. “We don’t want the knock at the door to be seen as, ‘Oh-oh, somebody’s going to jail,’” he said. 

Rollince noted he had created the first Arab-American Advisory Committee in the FBI to enhance trust and cooperation, but acknowledged, “This is going to take time.”

Walied Shater, a Cairo, Egypt, native who became a U.S. Secret Service agent, described his job of protecting presidents and assured his audience, “The opportunities that were available to me are available to all of you.”