Muslims in Carolinas feel targeted by FBI
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/nation/9864782.htm
CHARLOTTE — As early as this week, the FBI will begin interviewing Muslims across the Carolinas as part of what the agency says is a nationwide push to stave off a terrorist attack before the November elections.
Muslims aren’t the only ones who will be questioned in the effort, officials say. But they are the only group in Charlotte being contacted about the interviews ahead of time.
Local Muslims say the interviews again show how they’ve been singled out since the 9-11 attacks. Last year, immigrants from countries linked to terrorists were fingerprinted and questioned as part of a “special registration” effort. Many say they were interviewed by the FBI after the Sept. 11 attacks. About 8,000 Muslims live in the Charlotte area.
Last Saturday, Kevin Kendrick, FBI special agent in charge for North Carolina, gathered 40 to 50 Charlotte-area Muslim leaders to alert them to the interviews. Similar meetings are taking place across the state, Kendrick said.
Contacted by The Charlotte Observer, Kendrick would not say whether the questioning had started or how long the effort will last. He wouldn’t say what questions will be asked, how the agency will choose the people to interview, or how many people will be questioned. He did say agents will try to hold the interviews at their subjects’ homes, but would not rule out workplace visits.
One man who attended Saturday’s meeting said Kendrick told them the visits would start this week.
Area Muslims are reacting with anger and frustration.
“We’re trying to say, ‘The people that you’re looking for are not the people that we know,’ ” said Rose Hamid, a member of Muslim Women of the Carolinas who attended Saturday’s meeting. “The people who come to the mosque on Fridays are not the ones who are going to be doing these things.”
Hamid said she worries that Muslims may lose their jobs if FBI agents or police approach them at work.
Since 9-11, local FBI officials have met several times with local Muslims to forge a better relationship. Still, tension remains.
“I admire the fact that the FBI would send their head man in North Carolina ... and have an outreach like that,” said Inayat von Briesen of Charlotte, who attended the meeting. “But it’s hard not to feel like you’re being targeted.”
Von Briesen said he’s concerned that the interviews could become a “witch hunt” for those in the United States illegally.
Kendrick said immigration status isn’t the focus. “This is not a roundup,” he said.
Agents from all 56 FBI field offices nationwide have been ordered to step up their interviews prior to the November elections, said Bill Carter, an agency spokesman in Washington.
Local and state police could do some interviewing, Kendrick said.
Carter said intelligence officers gathered information last spring that indicated al Qaeda planned to attack the United States before the elections.
“We’re stepping up the efforts now because the window of time is growing smaller,” Carter said.
Asked if presidential politics had anything to do with the timing of the interviews, Carter said it is based on intelligence reports, nothing else.
FBI: 'There was no threat'
http://abclocal.go.com/wjrt/news/100804_NW_r2_school_terror_threats.html
The FBI and school officials in Birch Run are trying to calm parents fears after plans of their schools are found on a computer disc in Iraq.
As we first told you Thursday night, Birch Run is among eight districts in six states included in the information discovered by the U.S. military.
The information, which included things like floor plans of the schools, was found in Iraq this July. But local FBI officials say there was never a specific threats to schools.
Officials say the information found is not publicly available on the Internet, but it appears to have been downloaded in Baghdad.
Why these particular school districts were selected isn't known.
One U.S. official says the CD also includes an education department report guiding schools on how to prepare and respond to a crisis.
The government became more interested in the information, following the school attacks in Russia earlier this year and has warned districts to increase security.
The FBI and school officials say they take this information seriously but don't want people to panic.
"I met the expert reporting intelligence officer that looks at information and sends out a report. I can tell you what the final report looks like and there was no threat. There never was and the community should be happy to hear that," FBI Special Agent Walt Reynolds told abc12's Bisi Onile-Ere.
The other districts included in the warnings are in Florida, Oregon, Georgia, New Jersey and California.
Birch Run Schools Superintendent Wayne Wright tells us school security will be tightened.
Well, good. She and others should have absolutely no problem calmly and firmly telling that to the Feds when they arrive for their visits. ;)