By Nasim Ahmed

September 08, 2019 "Information Clearing House" - Civil rights groups have long suspected security agencies of keeping what they call a “Muslim registry”, in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attack.  The tide of anti-Muslim hostility that has spread across the US, and subsequently throughout Europe- with little resistance it should be said- they argue has created a climate in which civil rights and legal protection guaranteed under the American constitution were denied, in the so called “war on terrorism”.

In the two decades since the terrorist attack, attitudes towards Muslims have hardened, Islamophobia has been normalised, and most worrying of all, political groups that were discarded to the underbelly of western societies as enemies of free society (following the defeat of the Nazi’s during the Second World War), are once again being embraced on both sides of the Atlantic.

As this menacing tide of right-wing populism grows, many will have met with rare delight and re-assurance of the legal victory secured this week against a security agency that civil rights groups claim to have been one of the main enablers of hostility towards Muslims since the 9/11 attack. On Wednesday, a US federal judge ruled that the FBI’s terrorism watch list violated the constitutional rights of American citizens. The case not only highlighted some of the sinister practices of the US intelligence community, but it now also raises serious questions about the source of hostility generated against Muslims in wider society.

In his decision over the lawsuit filed by 23 Muslim-Americans against their inclusion in the Terrorist Screening Database, US District Judge Anthony J. Trenga challenged the FBI’s practice of keeping a database of mainly Muslim individuals, containing the records of nearly 1.2 million people. Inclusion in the FBI database, ominously named “known or suspected terrorists,” had serious and adverse consequences. The judge noted that the list restricted the ability to fly and engage in everyday activities. He also supported the plaintiffs’ concern that they had been flagged secretly, and without a clear methodology.

“There is no evidence, or contention, that any of these plaintiffs satisfy the definition of a ‘known terrorist’, ” Trenga is reported stating by the Washington Post. Expressing concerns over the methodology, he claimed that “an individual’s placement into the [watch list] does not require any evidence that the person engaged in criminal activity, committed a crime, or will commit a crime in the future.” Furthermore, he elaborated that “individuals who have been acquitted of a terrorism-related crime may still be listed.”