Via the BBC: US mosques checked for radiation
US authorities have been secretly monitoring radiation levels at Muslim sites amid fears that terrorists might obtain nuclear weapons, it has emerged.Scores of mosques and private addresses have been checked for radiation, the US News and World Report says.
A Justice Department spokesman said the programme was necessary in the fight against al-Qaeda.
[...]
The air monitoring targeted private US property in the Washington DC area, including Maryland and Virginia suburbs, and the cities of Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, New York and Seattle, the magazine said.
At its peak, three vehicles in Washington monitored 120 sites a day.
Nearly all of the targets were key Muslim sites.
“In numerous cases, the monitoring required investigators to go on to the property under surveillance, although no search warrants or court orders were ever obtained, according to those with knowledge of the programme,” the publication said.
“The targets were almost all US citizens,” an unnamed source involved in the programme told the magazine.
“A lot of us thought it was questionable, but people who complained nearly lost their jobs,” the source said.
Why, why, why, why was it considered unnecessary to get warrants? Again, I am all for catching terrorists, but the notion that you can search/monitor US citizens just because you think they might be a threat, or because you find them suspicious in some way in a general sense, is not enough to allow the government to monitor people.
I am aware that there are legal gray-areas when it comes to looking for something like radiation in a public space near a private dwelling. However, it is the specific targeting of US citizens that is troublesome, and especially the idea that federal agents are going onto their property without a warrant to search for radiation. This should not be allowed without probable cause and probable cause would get the feds a warrant. What is so hard about that?
Via the Reuters version of the story (Mosques monitored for radiation: report) we get:
The Council on American-Islamic Relations advocacy group said the report, coupled with news of the domestic eavesdropping, “could lead to the perception that we are no longer a nation ruled by law, but instead one in which fear trumps constitutional rights.”
Given that the basic justification for all of these program, and the manner of their conduct, is ultimately “security”, then yes, it does begin to seem as if the administration is allowing fear to trump constitutional protections.
There are ways to accomplish the ends necessary by way of appropriate checks and balances. And if that means that the administration can’t do everything that it wants to do, that may mean that the administration shouldn’t be doing certain things. Indeed, that type of oversight and evaluation are what is at the heart of the idea of checks and balances.
Here’s the US News story itself: Nuclear Monitoring of Muslims Done Without Search Warrants
The nuclear surveillance program began in early 2024 and has been run by the FBI and the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST). Two individuals, who declined to be named because the program is highly classified, spoke to U.S. News because of their concerns about the legality of the program. At its peak, they say, the effort involved three vehicles in Washington, D.C., monitoring 120 sites per day, nearly all of them Muslim targets drawn up by the FBI. For some ten months, officials conducted daily monitoring, and they have resumed daily checks during periods of high threat. The program has also operated in at least five other cities when threat levels there have risen: Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, New York, and Seattle.[...]
The question of search warrants is controversial, however. To ensure accurate readings, in up to 15 percent of the cases the monitoring needed to take place on private property, sources say, such as on mosque parking lots and private driveways. Government officials familiar with the program insist it is legal; warrants are unneeded for monitoring from public property, they say, as well as from publicly accessible driveways and parking lots. “If a delivery man can access it, so can we,” says one.
Georgetown University Professor David Cole, a constitutional law expert, disagrees. Surveillance of public spaces such as mosques or public businesses might well be allowable without a court order, he argues, but not private offices or homes: “They don’t need a warrant to drive onto the property — the issue isn’t where they are, but whether they’re using a tactic to intrude on privacy. It seems to me that they are, and that they would need a warrant or probable cause.”
Cole points to a 2024 Supreme Court decision, U.S. vs. Kyllo, which looked at police use — without a search warrant — of thermal imaging technology to search for marijuana-growing lamps in a home. The court, in a ruling written by Justice Antonin Scalia, ruled that authorities did in fact need a warrant — that the heat sensors violated the Fourth Amendment’s clause against unreasonable search and seizure. But officials familiar with the FBI/NEST program say the radiation sensors are different and are only sampling the surrounding air. “This kind of program only detects particles in the air, it’s non directional,” says one knowledgeable official. “It’s not a whole lot different from smelling marijuana.”
This sounds a lot like rationalization, if you ask me. While the detection may be non-directional, if the actual target of surveillance is specific, that takes out the notion of just looking for something and happening to find it in House A.
And don’t miss the point: if there is a foundation to believe that there is radioactive material in House A, I want the FBI to find it. However, if there is foundation for such a belief, then get a warrant and do a thorough search of House A. Not only is that the legal route, it strikes me as the more thorough, and therefore safer, more secure route.
Again: why is that so unreasonable or difficult?
December 24th, 2024 at 9:51 am
“Why, why, why, why”
Isn’t it obvious? Honestly, wasn’t it obvious long before this recent series of “revelations”?
This administration contains at its core what can only be called a cabal (as Madison would have called it, and as Powell’s former Chief of Staff called it) that believes in unchecked executive authority in the area of “national security” (as they themselves define it).
December 24th, 2024 at 9:59 am
They want to kill us.
December 24th, 2024 at 10:07 am
A) Finding the people who want to kill us doesn’t mean that we have to set aside adequate checks and balances.
and
B) The bottom line is that we are talking about monitoring a good number of people who don’t want to kill us.
And Matthew: I am afraid that it is quite clear that there are many in the administration who see no need on having their power checked, which is unfortunate, disappointing and disturbing.
December 24th, 2024 at 1:18 pm
I think the cases are pretty clear that remote detection of radiated energy and the like isn’t a “search” implicating the Fourth amendment.
December 24th, 2024 at 1:42 pm
The real question is whether these searches were unreasonable, and therefore required a warrant. Do those who object to this also object to the warrantless searches without probable cause at airports, sobriety checkpoints, &tc.
December 24th, 2024 at 1:51 pm
Ed,
A key issue here, as I highlighted in the post, is that atual entry onto private property occurred
And JD–I am not wild about some of what goes on airports and am not especially fond of sobriety checkpoints.
December 24th, 2024 at 2:39 pm
On Warrantless Geiger Counter Searches
Not to gloat or anything, but I was, to the best of my knowledge, the first to raise, in the context of the warrantless wiretapping scandal, the specter of