Activists want more transparency in counterterrorism efforts

BOSTON -- Muslim groups and civil-rights activists across the nation on Thursday called for greater transparency in a program by President Barack Obama's administration that is aimed at countering homegrown terrorism.

Organizers, including representatives from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, spoke out at events in Boston, Los Angeles and Minneapolis, the three cities where the Countering Violent Extremism program is being piloted.

Among their primary concerns is that organizers still refuse to share basic information about what these localized programs will look like. They also complain federal agencies continue to host invitation-only discussions about the program, referred to as CVE, to the exclusion of dissenting groups.

"This isn't a community-based process," Nadeem Mazen, a city councilor in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and board member of the local CAIR chapter, said at the Boston event. "This is a whole different level of federally coordinated assault on our civil liberties."

Shannon Erwin of the Boston-based Muslim Justice League said the CVE program already is dividing the local Muslim community between "good Muslims" who have been allowed to participate and "bad Muslims" who haven't.

"We need to trust one another and not programs that aren't based on sound evidence," she said.

Representatives for Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz, whose office is coordinating the Boston program, attended the city hall event but declined to comment.

Other community leaders Thursday came to the defense of the program.

Nabeel Khudairi, who has been involved with the initiative as a member of the Islamic Council of New England, noted Muslim leaders who had strong reservations participated in initial discussions. It was their decision to cut ties, he said.

Robert Trestan, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, a national organization that fights anti-Semitism, said it's still too soon to cast judgment on local efforts.

"Some of the questioning is understandable," he said. "But nothing I've seen or participated in has gone anywhere near proposing or suggesting anything close to surveillance, crossing the line of people's civil rights or profiling."