City takes first steps to address domestic spying by federal agents

[Editor’s Note: This article has been slightly condensed for publication. Read the article in its entirety at www.baynewsmovement.org]

Civil-rights advocates concerned about “domestic spying” on San Francisco’s Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim and South Asian (AMEMSA) communities are celebrating new legislation signed into law, May 9.

Under the Safe San Francisco Civil Rights Ordinance, which will take effect by midsummer, all city and county law enforcement officers working with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force will be strictly bound by local and state laws governing intelligence-gathering of First Amendment-protected activities like religious worship.

The Board of Supervisors, which unanimously passed the ordinance, does not have the jurisdiction to influence FBI activity, but AMEMSA advocates and community members view the new legislation as part of a larger push to end what they consider unlawful federal surveillance.

“This is a first step in a long way to go for this issue our community is facing,” said Adel Somaha, a Yemen-born Arab-American civil rights activist.

Advocates are also hopeful that the law will begin to repair the icy relationship between San Francisco law enforcement and AMEMSA communities.

“We want to see these agents stay away from our mosques, which are places of worship, not spy stations,” Somaha said. “They turn our community environment into a warzone for no reason.”

Revised Ordinance
Mayor Ed Lee had previously vetoed a more detailed version of the ordinance, approving the final version only after direct references to existing local intelligence gathering policies and financial restrictions were removed.

District 6 Supervisor Jane Kim, who authored the original and revised versions of the legislation, said the approved ordinance still contains the same protections, just under a broader reference to the California Constitution.

“The new legislation doesn’t include as many specifics,” she said, but added that it does address the core concerns about racial and religious profiling and imposes transparency on future agreements between local police and the FBI by requiring the SFPD to fully report to the city’s Police Commission on all Joint Terrorism Task Force activity.

Unlawful Surveillance
Kim said that individuals and organizations from AMEMSA communities were filing complaints about “domestic spying” by the FBI as early as 2009.

“A lot of mosques are in our district, and a lot of our small business owners are of Arab and Muslim background,” Kim said. “Our constituents said they were fearful of harassment and racial profiling. They were really scared to come out and talk because they were afraid of being further targeted.”

Saadi Nasim, a board member of one of the mosques in Kim’s district, said his congregation was one of those affected.

“We have open-house Ramadan events where we invite everyone from the community and anyone from the government who wants to come,” Nasim said. “Unfortunately, someone betrayed our trust by approaching individuals and gathering information about them. That’s not why we’re inviting people. If you’re doing that then go get a warrant.”

FBI documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, the Asian Law Caucus and the San Francisco Bay Guardian confirm FBI surveillance activities in San Francisco and other Northern California cities between 2004 and 2008.
Nasim’s mosque, Al Sabeel, is mentioned in a 2008 FBI document describing “mosque outreach” activities, which civil rights organizations allege gathered First Amendment-protected information.

“We have students, business leaders and community members that have been interrogated by the FBI at home, at work, at school, at the border,” said Summer Hararah, coordinator for the National Security and Civil Rights Program at Asian Law Caucus. “We know because the people that are questioned come to us.”

While local lawmakers cannot directly affect FBI activities, advocates hope the ordinance will begin to restore trust between local law enforcement and AMEMSA communities.

Careless remark has consequences
In May 2010, former Police Chief (now District Attorney) George Gascón, was attending a celebration breakfast for a $415 million earthquake retrofitting bond. At the event, he said that the San Francisco Hall of Justice was susceptible not only to earthquakes, “but also to members of the city’s Middle Eastern community parking a van in front of it and blowing it up.”

Gascón made several public appearances in an attempt to explain his remark, but his efforts mostly backfired and the negative impact reverberated throughout Somaha’s community.

“The whole Arab and Muslim community was very upset and angry at those racist comments he made,” Somaha said. “It cost him the trust of our community.”

Nasim said even the mosque was no longer seen as a safe place to go, adding that attendance at his mosque’s youth group meetings dropped significantly after Gascón’s statement.

“Many parents became afraid of letting their children come here because they might be getting spied on,” he said.
“It’s destruction of community, and I don’t use those words lightly,” Hararah said.

The Coalition for a Safe San Francisco was formed in response to Gascón’s comments, and members brought their concerns to the city’s Human Rights Commission. The commission recommended upholding civil rights protected by the California Constitution; increasing transparency and oversight of the SFPD; and advocating against federal law enforcement, religious and racial profiling.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the recommendations in April 2011.

A Secret Agreement
That same month, the SFPD released a 2007 memorandum of understanding that it had secretly entered into with the FBI.

The agreement expanded the abilities of Joint Terrorism Task Force officers to include the use of informants and surveillance without criminal predicate. It also gave local officers permission to infiltrate meetings of law-abiding organizations.

SFPD Chief Greg Suhr issued an order in May that contradicted the FBI agreement, ordering SFPD officers to abide by California law and remain under the department’s chain of command, but Hararah said Suhr’s gesture was inadequate.

“Civil rights don’t work through verbal assurances,” Hararah said. “We have a Constitution. We have a Bill of Rights. It needs to be law.”

The Compromise
The mayor’s office reached out to the coalition the same day the board passed the original ordinance, said Nasrina Bargzie, an attorney with the Asian Law Caucus.

“The mayor’s concern was that he didn’t like the level of specificity in our version of the ordinance,” Bargzie said. “In particular, picking out parts of particular [police] department general orders.”

He added that the mayor was also concerned with the original ordinance’s requirement that the Police Commission approve any future agreements between the SFPD and FBI.

“The commission already has a lot of power over the chief,” he said.

Under the approved ordinance, the commission will not have the power to approve or reject future agreements. It does require the police chief to provide the commission with an annual report outlining the department’s work with JTTF during the previous year.

Regardless of the outcome, Nasim said he is proud of his community’s journey throughout the process.

“In our culture, if something happens to you, you don’t come out and tell everybody, but my community is finally waking up,” Nasim said.

“That’s been a great victory. If something happens, even a 6-year-old kid at my mosque will say, ‘Know your rights!’”

*At publication time, Mayor Ed Lee and Chief of Police Greg Suhr and were unavailable for direct comment.

Alex Emslie and Ramsey El-Qare contributed to this article.