A new report based on documents provided by Edward J. Snowden has identified five American Muslims, including the leader of a civil rights group, as having been subjected to surveillance by the federal government.
The disclosure of what were described as specific domestic surveillance targets by The Intercept online magazine was a rare glimpse into some of the most closely held secrets of counterespionage and terrorism investigators. The article raised questions about the basis for the domestic spying, even as it was condemned by the government as irresponsible and damaging to national security.
The report was based on what The Intercept described as a spreadsheet of 7,485 email addresses said to have been monitored from 2002 to 2008, and one of its writers was Glenn Greenwald, a primary recipient of the trove of documents leaked by Mr. Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor.
The document is titled “FISA Recap,” suggesting that the eavesdropping took place under the process authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Among the five identified by The Intercept as having been subjected to surveillance were Hooshang Amirahmadi, a Rutgers University professor who is the president of the American Iranian Council, a public policy group that works on diplomatic issues regarding relations with Iran, and Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil-rights organization.
Also named were Asim Ghafoor, a defense lawyer who has handled terrorism-related cases; Faisal Gill, a former Department of Homeland Security lawyer who later did some legal work with Mr. Ghafoor on behalf of Sudan in a lawsuit brought by victims of terrorist attacks; and Agha Saeed, the national chairman of the American Muslim Alliance, which supports Muslim political candidates.
The documents did not say what the suspicions or the evidence were against the men that prompted the apparent surveillance.
In interviews on Wednesday, several of the men denied wrongdoing, and Mr. Ghafoor said he believed his Muslim faith was a factor in his being monitored. “I try not to play the race card,” he said. “But there’s really no other explanation.”
Mr. Amirahmadi, a dual citizen of the United States and Iran, said he understood why the American government might want to investigate him in an era of heightened nerves; such surveillance is used not just to investigate people suspected of being terrorists, but also those suspected of being foreign agents trying to influence American policy.
Describing himself as a secular Muslim peace activist, he noted that he had tried to run for president of Iran and has organized meetings between prominent Americans and Iranian leaders. But he said he had always been open about his views.
“I am not surprised; I’m not angry,” he said, adding, “I’m honored to say that after years of looking closely at me, they have found nothing.”
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court issues about 1,800 orders annually for domestic surveillance. To obtain a court order to wiretap an American, the government must convince a judge that there is probable cause to believe the target is engaged in a crime on behalf of a foreign power; non-Americans need only be suspected of being foreign agents.
None of the five have been charged with a crime in connection with the apparent monitoring.
The government refused to confirm whether or why any of the five had been monitored. Several dozen rights organizations sent a letter to President Obama on Wednesday expressing concerns about the potential for “discriminatory and abusive surveillance,” but also acknowledged that “we do not know all of the facts,” and asked for “the information necessary to meaningfully assess” the report.
Gadeir Abbas, a staff lawyer with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, called the apparent surveillance of its executive director an outrage.
“It’s but the latest indication that the N.S.A. is spying on Americans based on the exercise of their constitutional rights,” he said.
Generally, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, not the N.S.A., is the lead agency for national-security surveillance aimed at Americans on domestic soil, although the two agencies work closely together on technical matters.
In a joint statement, the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence strongly denied such accusations, pointing to the court oversight. It added, “On the other hand, a person who the court finds is an agent of a foreign power under this rigorous standard is not exempted just because of his or her occupation.”
In 2007, the Justice Department named the Council on American-Islamic Relations as an unindicted co-conspirator in its prosecution of a Muslim charity later convicted of funneling money to Hamas. A redacted screen shot suggests that Mr. Awad’s email was monitored from Nov. 9, 2006, to Feb. 1, 2008.
James McJunkin, a former assistant director of the F.B.I.'s counterterrorism division, declined to comment on any particular target. But in general, he said, the FISA process allowed the government to follow up on allegations that an organization might be involved in aiding a terrorist group.
“We’ve got to determine whether that is in fact true,” he said. “If you’re targeting an individual for FISA collection, you are doing so because you believe he has specific intelligence that can either prove or disprove a linkage to terror financing.”
Mr. Abbas, the Council on American-Islamic Relations lawyer, said, “We have been subject to intensive scrutiny for years, and that scrutiny has resulted in nothing other than smears.”
The Intercept reported that the spreadsheet contained a column headed “nationality” and that 202 of the email addresses belonged to “U.S. persons,” 1,782 belonged to “non-U.S. persons,” and 5,501 were listed as unknown or left blank. It also identified email addresses for two other Americans on the list whose ties to a terrorist organization are well known: Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, both of whom were killed by an American drone strike in Yemen in September 2011.
The Intercept report, which suggested that anti-Muslim prejudice contributed to the surveillance, also published what it said was part of a 2005 training document about how to format a memo seeking permission to wiretap someone. It used the fake name “Mohammed Raghead.”
The White House said it had ordered a review, and Vanee Vines, an N.S.A. spokeswoman, said, “N.S.A. has not and would not approve official training documents that include insulting or inflammatory language.”
Mr. Gill, the former Homeland Security lawyer, said he had reviewed his old emails, looking to see what the government had collected about him, but could not find anything that explained it. He said his security clearance was never suspended, and The Intercept said other lawyers who did legal work for Sudan were not on the monitoring list.
Mr. Gill said he thought the government was unfairly suspicious of Muslim lawyers who took such cases. As a government lawyer, he said, he had faith in the legal process required before surveillance is approved, but now, knowing he was monitored, “It just calls the process into question.”
