Judge orders review of FBI Muslim inquires

Judge Cormac J. Carney ordered the FBI to turn over more than 100 pages of documents to determine whether the information should be released to the public or protected under federal law. Carney also said the FBI must search for any electronic surveillance records on the Council on American-Islamic Relations as the agency did for the other plaintiffs.

The decision comes amid a nearly three-year battle by the American Civil Liberties Union and 11 Muslim groups and activists to obtain records they say would prove the FBI is unlawfully targeting Muslims in Southern California.

“There's a reason why they don't want to disclose this information,” ACLU attorney Jennie Pasquarella said after the court hearing. “It will show why they've surveilled people and we think it might show they're surveilling people on the basis of their religion.”

Marcia Sowles, an attorney for the Department of Justice, told the court the FBI may seek to keep some information private due to national security or privacy concerns once Carney has reviewed the records.

“They (the records) do concern investigations of others because they were identified through cross references and the plaintiffs were not the subjects of those investigations,” Sowles told the judge.

The ruling comes amid growing complaints by Muslim community leaders that the FBI has been spying on them.

In California, Muslims' concerns were heightened this year when an FBI agent testified in court that an informant had been planted at a local Islamic Center. The informant gave the FBI information about Ahmadullah Niazi, an Afghan native and brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden's bodyguard who was arrested in February on charges of lying about alleged ties to terrorist groups on his citizenship and passport applications.

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