Freedom of Religion

In addition to having selective policies of enforcement that target citizens who exercise their First Amendment rights, the federal government has also been practicing religious profiling. The First Amendment guarantees free exercise of religion but some policies since 9-11 may have the effect of chilling religious exercise.

In the spring of 2004, the FBI detained Oregon lawyer Brandon Mayfield under the material witness statute based on a fingerprint that allegedly linked Mayfield to the Madrid train bombings of March 2004. In May, the FBI admitted they had made a mistake. Mayfield believes that he was targeted because of his Islamic faith. The FBI did not conduct as thorough a check as the agency should have, and maybe would have, if Mayfield were not Muslim.

The FBI, Joint Terrorism Task Force, and local police departments have interviewed and harassed members of mosques. For examples, read the Council on American-Islamic Relations Reports.

"Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear" --Harry S. Truman