Hi there,

May 1 and 2 are Public Media Giving Days. With lies and disinformation flooding the media landscape, and the Trump administration increasing its attacks on journalists, the need for independent news questioning and challenging those in power is more critical now than ever. We do not take any government or corporate funding, so we can remain unwavering in our commitment to bring you fearless trustworthy reporting on the issues that matter most. Thanks to a group of generous donors, all donations made today will be DOUBLED, which means your $15 gift is worth $30. If our journalism is important to you, please donate today. Every dollar makes a difference. Thank you so much.

Democracy Now!

Amy Goodman

Non-commercial news needs your support.

We rely on contributions from you, our viewers and listeners to do our work. If you visit us daily or weekly or even just once a month, now is a great time to make your monthly contribution.

Please do your part today.

Donate

Snowden Leaks Reveal NSA Spying on Prominent Muslim Americans

HeadlineJul 09, 2014

Newly disclosed leaks from Edward Snowden have identified five innocent Americans who were spied on by the National Security Agency. The news website The Intercept reports all five are Muslim Americans: Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights group; Faisal Gill, a longtime Republican Party operative; two professors, Hooshang Amirahmadi of Rutgers University and Agha Saeed, formerly of California State University; and a prominent attorney, Asim Ghafoor, who has represented clients in terror-related cases. The five were among thousands of names in a database listing email accounts monitored between 2002 and 2008. None of the five have been charged with any crime. All appear to have been targeted for their Muslim backgrounds and ties to various Muslim causes or individual cases involving Muslims. In a video from The Intercept, Nihad Awad of the Council on American-Islamic Relations expressed outrage at being spied on by his government.

Nihad Awad, CAIR: “I was not aware that I was under surveillance, except recently. And I’m outraged that as an American citizen, my government, after decades of civil rights struggle, still the government spies on political activists and civil rights activists and leaders. It is outrageous, and I’m really angry that despite all the work that we have been doing in our communities to serve the nation, to serve our communities, we are treated with suspicion.”

Tune into Democracy Now! on Thursday when we’ll speak with the lead reporter on this story, Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top