c. 2005 Religion News Service
Lawyers Predict Potential Backlash to Secret Surveillance of Muslims
(RNS) Lawyers requesting the federal government turn over addresses of sites it had monitored surreptitiously say if records show religious profiling occurred, American Muslims will be more wary of cooperating with the war on terror.
“If this demonstrates that Muslim sites were monitored just because they were Muslim sites, without law enforcement leads, it’s going to have a chilling effect on people’s free speech and hurt the war on terrorism,” said Kareem Shora, legal director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Washington.
The ADC asked for the addresses in a Freedom of Information Act request made to the FBI and the Departments of Justice and Energy on Tuesday (Dec. 27),the same day the Los Angeles-based Muslim Public Affairs Council urged Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller to meet with American Muslim leaders about civil rights concerns. The Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington filed a similar FOIA request on Dec. 22.
The requests were made after an article in U.S News and World Report said federal investigators secretly monitored radiation levels at more than 100 mosques, homes, businesses and other Muslim sites without search warrants or court orders.
“Our main purpose was to put the government on notice,” said Arsalan Iftikhar, CAIR’s legal director. He said he believes government agencies will turn over some materials, but that much of the information will be blacked-out. “From all appearances, it seems only Muslim institutions have been monitored,” he said.
The FBI has shown that it takes the concerns of American Muslims seriously, Shora said. Shora cited as an example the FBI’s tracking down perpetrators of hate crimes against Muslims after 9/11. On Dec. 22, the FBI offered a $15,000 reward for information about the bombing of a Cincinnati mosque just two days earlier.
Revelations of secret surveillance seem to have sparked little discussion among American Muslims, said Kamran Memon, a civil rights attorney in Chicago who started the Web site Muslimsforasafeamerica.org as a forum where American Muslims could talk about national security and related issues.
“They may feel like it’s not a big deal since the monitoring has been non-intrusive,” said Memom, who belongs to several American Muslim online discussion groups, or, “They feel that government surveillance and monitoring have become so pervasive that they can’t do anything about it, and they’ve come to accept it, and just go on with their lives.”
_ Omar Sacirbey
List of Top Muslim Corporations More Than Just Oil Companies
(RNS) Although the seven biggest businesses in the Muslim world are all government-owned oil and gas companies, large Muslim corporations are beginning to emerge from other sectors, according to a new analysis.
Rafiuddin Shikoh, editor of Dinar Standard, an online magazine based in Hoboken, N.J., recently released his second annual DS100 list, ranking the top 100 companies, according to revenue, from the 57 nations of the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
Saudi Aramco, based in Saudi Arabia, topped the list, followed by the National Iranian Oil Company. But overall, there were more diversified companies (22) than oil and gas companies (18). There were also 17 finance companies, 12 services companies and 12 consumer product companies.
The ranking’s companies had total revenues of $678 billion, or only 8 percent of the $8.1 trillion in revenue of the 100 companies topping Fortune Magazine’s Global 500 list. Only three DS100 companies were among Fortune’s 100 biggest companies.
Shikoh, a 34-year-old e-business consultant, launched Dinar Standard in December 2004 because he wanted to know why there weren’t any “global brands” coming out of Muslim countries.
“There is a common thread of issues and challenges they face, which are unique to them, as well as opportunities,” Shikoh said.
Muslim countries are lacking in innovation, Shikoh said, because their cultures have discouraged asking questions and challenging authority. Just as there is a Protestant work ethic, Shikoh believes there can be an Islamic business model.
“Islam has so much to offer the corporate community. It supports competition, and provides it in the context of a socially responsible objective,” he said.
The biggest challenge in assembling the list, Shikoh said, was gleaning information about government and private companies, which do not have to make their finances public. Many companies that may have made the list, such as the National Iranian Steel Corporation, were left off because of insufficient information.
Turkey had the most companies on the DS100 list, 25, followed by Malaysia, 18, Saudi Arabia, 15, and Indonesia, 11.
_ Omar Sacirbey
`Ten Commandments’ Judge Brings in More than $250,000 from Speaking, Book
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (RNS) Fees from speaking engagements and sales of his book, “So Help Me God,” generated more than $250,000 in 2004 revenues for “the Ten Commandments judge,” former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore.
Moore reported the income in a recent filing with the Alabama Ethics Commission. He did so, as state law requires, soon after his early October declaration that he would be a candidate in next year’s gubernatorial race.
The filing doesn’t include any money Moore might have received during 2005. Candidates are required to report only what was earned in the previous full calendar year.
Moore was removed from office in 2003 for refusing to abide by a federal court order demanding that he move the massive granite Ten Commandments monument out of the state’s judicial building.
That only burnished his image among many Christian conservatives, who view Moore’s efforts to place the commandments in public buildings as heroic. It is these people who have flocked to his speaking engagements throughout the country.
The ethics forms provide income categories, ranging from, “Less than $1,000” to, “More than $250,000.” Moore checked the latter category in disclosing his 2004 income from Roy Moore LLC.
The LLC was incorporated in April 2004 by Moore, his wife, Kayla, and daughter, Heather. Its stated purpose, according to state incorporation records, is “educational/religious.”
“It’s for my speaking out of state and around the country _ my speaking fees and book sales and things like that,” Moore said.
As has been widely reported, Moore is often accompanied on his speaking tours by the Ten Commandments monument, known to many as “The Rock.”
The former chief justice also performs legal work _ such as writing appeals briefs _ for the Foundation for Moral Law. He is not paid for that work, he said. Moore’s only other source of income in 2004 was less than $1,000 in bank dividends.
_ Eddie Curran
`Outdoor Bible’ Built to Withstand the Elements
(RNS) While many believers have long believed the Christian Bible to be infallible, a publishing company has made it waterproof and tear-resistant, too.
The Outdoor Bible, the flagship product of Bardin and Marsee Publishing, consolidates the New Testament onto six waterproof trail maps designed to give spiritual guidance as Christians journey through the woods.
College friends Bobby Bardin and Michael Marsee first envisioned the product upon finding the great outdoors to be less than user-friendly to traditional Bibles. The two embarked on a three-year development process to create a lightweight plastic version capable of withstanding the elements.
“We both do a lot of backpacking and mountain biking. You get into these situations where you’d love to have God’s word but you just don’t bring it with you because it will get ruined,” Bardin said.
Targeted to Christian youth camps, servicemen, missionaries and adventurers of every stripe, the 12.8-ounce product tucked into a burlap bag with a drawstring is said to endure water, sand, heat and general outdoor wear.
While the text of The Outdoor Bible is the New American Standard translation, a King James version is in the works, with a target launch date of 2006, Bardin said. The Outdoor Bible sells for $35.
_ Jason Kane
Quote of the Day: Baylor University Interim President Bill Underwood
(RNS) “If we are to be a great Christian university, we cannot be afraid to pursue the course of truth, wherever that course might lead. Indeed, if our pursuit of truth leads us to question our existing view of God, it may just be that God is trying to tell us something.”
_ Outgoing Baylor University Interim President Bill Underwood, speaking at the December commencement ceremony at his Waco, Texas, school before departing for a new position as president of Mercer University in Macon, Ga. He was quoted by Associated Baptist Press.
MO/JL END RNS
