U.S. News & World Report broke the story on Thursday of how the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been secretly monitoring radiation levels at mosques and other Muslim-related sites, primarily in the Washington, D.C., area, but also around the U.S., without obtaining search warrants or any sort of court orders, prompting a backlash from Muslim groups.

The revelation comes just days after the New York Times broke the story of the National Security Agency conducting domestic surveillance of communications traffic crossing U.S. borders.

The legality of both programs has been questioned, though some within the bureau who raised concerns about the program’s legality say they were retaliated against and threatened with the loss of their jobs.

Federal officials familiar with the program maintain that warrants are unneeded for the kind of radiation sampling the operation entails, but some legal scholars disagree. News of the program comes in the wake of revelations last week that, after 9/11, the Bush White House approved electronic surveillance of U.S. targets by the National Security Agency without court orders. These and other developments suggest that the federal government’s domestic spying programs since 9/11 have been far broader than previously thought.

The nuclear surveillance program began in early 2002 and has been run by the FBI and the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST). Two individuals, who declined to be named because the program is highly classified, spoke to U.S. News because of their concerns about the legality of the program. At its peak, they say, the effort involved three vehicles in Washington, D.C., monitoring 120 sites per day, nearly all of them Muslim targets drawn up by the FBI. For some ten months, officials conducted daily monitoring, and they have resumed daily checks during periods of high threat. The program has also operated in at least five other cities when threat levels there have risen: Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, New York, and Seattle. . . .

In Washington, the sites monitored have included prominent mosques and office buildings in suburban Maryland and Virginia. One source close to the program said that participants “were tasked on a daily and nightly basis,� and that FBI and Energy Department officials held regular meetings to update the monitoring list. “The targets were almost all U.S. citizens,� says the source. “A lot of us thought it was questionable, but people who complained nearly lost their jobs. We were told it was perfectly legal.�

The question of search warrants is controversial, however. To ensure accurate readings, in up to 15 percent of the cases the monitoring needed to take place on private property, sources say, such as on mosque parking lots and private driveways. Government officials familiar with the program insist it is legal; warrants are unneeded for monitoring from public property, they say, as well as from publicly accessible driveways and parking lots. “If a delivery man can access it, so can we,� says one. — U.S. News & World Report

Sure, monitoring in publicly accessible areas is no problem. Once you cross the line onto private property, the line gets a little blurry. Delivery men generally bring packages, not search for radioactive materials.

And why are there so many Muslim sites in the task list?

Officials also reject any notion that the program specifically has targeted Muslims. “We categorically do not target places of worship or entities solely based on ethnicity or religious affiliation,� says one. “Our investigations are intelligence driven and based on a criminal predicate.�

Among those said to be briefed on the monitoring program were Vice President Richard Cheney; Michael Brown, then-director of the Federal Emergency Management Administration; and Richard Clarke, then a top counterterrorism official at the National Security Council. After 9/11, top officials grew increasingly concerned over the prospect of nuclear terrorism. Just weeks after the World Trade Center attacks, a dubious informant named Dragonfire warned that al Qaeda had smuggled a nuclear device into New York City; NEST teams swept the city and found nothing. But as evidence seized from Afghan camps confirmed al Qaeda’s interest in nuclear technology, radiation detectors were temporarily installed along Washington, D.C., highways and the Muslim monitoring program began.

Most staff for the monitoring came from NEST, which draws from nearly 1,000 nuclear scientists and technicians based largely at the country’s national laboratories. For 30 years, NEST undercover teams have combed suspected sites looking for radioactive material, using high-tech detection gear fitted onto various aircraft, vehicles, and even backpacks and attaché cases. No dirty bombs or nuclear devices have ever been found — and that includes the post-9/11 program. “There were a lot of false positives, and one or two were alarming,� says one source. “But in the end we found nothing.� — Ibid.

I feel better already, don’t you? We have a secret program which performs surveillance at politically sensitive sites, comes up with absolutely jack, and may not even have been legal. What’s the point of this again?

Don’t give me the terrorism crap. If terrorists were using Muslim sites as cover to hide a nuclear weapon, this program would have found them.

I’m not afraid of al-Qaeda. I am afraid of the Executive Branch. They have turned into a much greater threat to the U.S. than any other known terrorist organization. The problem is, many people are so blind that they can’t see the threat right in front of their faces. Indeed, some of them are part of it (such as Ann Coulter).

Stephen Gordon puts it nicely:

First they came for the Ragheads,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Raghead.
Then they came for the Japanese,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t Japanese.
Then they came for the media,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a member of the media.
Then she came after me,
and by that time that she was through
she had no readers left. — Hammer of Truth

Update 12:37 pm: Something ate my post! I’ve restored it based on a cached copy of the original.