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Salaam & greetings John,

COVID-19 is a real emergency. Civil rights need real protection. We need
to make sure the government addresses the real emergency without using
it as an excuse to sacrifice the Constitution's real protections.

In an actual public emergency like the present threat posed by COVID-19,
some of our constitutional liberties must temporarily be suspended for
the greater good.

MLFA and CLCMA are committed to complying with all government directives
concerning the present COVID 19 health crisis in the effort to avert a
national pandemic. We are working from home, washing our hands,
practicing social distancing and have eliminated travel except for Court
mandated hearings.

These steps do not compromise our work to protect constitutional
liberties. With the Ramadan fundraising drive - which accounts for more
than half of our funding - they do, however, pose a threat to our
ability to do the work in the future, and we ask that you - even though
we are unlikely to meet with you in person this year - remain committed
to us.

The differences between the present loss of liberty and
the loss of liberty for "national security"
demonstrate the need for our work.

****As a lawyer working in the area of national security for the past 17
years, I cannot help but notice how stark the differences are in the
steps being taken now - which are temporary, grounded in medical science
instead of fear, and felt by all - and the so called national security
measures implemented to combat the threat of international terrorism.

Like COVID-19, international terrorism posed a sudden and unexpected
threat to the United States' security. In a matter of hours, more than
2,000 people in the United States died and the United States economy was
rocked by uncertainty and thrown into a recession.

**But that is where the similarities end**. Unlike the current efforts
to prevent a pandemic where everyone is experiencing a temporary loss of
liberty, American Muslims identified as known or unknown "suspected
terrorists" suffer a loss of liberty that is neither rational nor
temporary.

The actions are not rational.

The government largely labels persons as "suspected terrorists," not by
what they have done, but out of a fear of what they might do based on
some form of contact between the individual and a known source of
terrorism. The flaw in this methodology is that, unlike COVID-19, which
has been shown medically to be highly communicable, there is no evidence
that people catch terrorism merely by being in contact with a friend or
family member, from political associations, doing charitable work or
visiting a foreign country.

The loss of liberty is not temporary.

The number of American Muslims being deprived of their constitutional
liberties in the name of national security is growing. With each passing
year, a greater number of American Muslims are identified as having some
form of contact with terrorism. As a result, there are more persons
added to the Terrorism Watch List, there are more resources devoted to
surveillance, there are greater restrictions on immigration, and more
persons incarcerated.

The actions are not protecting America.

The government argument that the continued and growing derivations of
liberty is necessary to protect the American public of an outbreak of
terrorism is false. All but a handful of the so-called plots against
America were created by the FBI rather than an actual terrorist cell. In
the handful of actual attacks that have occurred since 9/11, the
measures were shown to be ineffectual, and in some cases may have
contributed to the failure to prevent the attacks.

Social distancing is not the answer.

****Terrorism is not contagious, but so long as the government thinks it
is, American Muslims are understandably reluctant to speak up on behalf
of individuals who have been labelled as terrorists based on
guilt-by-association, out of an understandable fear that if they do,
they too will be labelled.

Nineteen years ago, the founders of MLFA came up with a solution to this
problem. They created a legal fund to ensure that there was a defense
for these individuals.

Five years ago, they created the Constitutional Law Center for Muslims
in America (CLCMA) because they had learned
that the community was only as strong as its weakest members, and they
needed a cost effective means to ensure representation for the greatest
number of American Muslims possible. Not just to protect these
individuals, but to protect the community from the threat posed by
guilt-by-association.

In this difficult time, I ask that you remember MLFA and support
it to the best of your ability.
Not just for what it will do today, but to ensure that when the
constitutional deprivations of COVID-19 end, that there are still voices
fighting to end constitutional deprivations based on
guilt-by-association.

Respectfully,

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Charles Swift
Director & Counsel
Constitutional Law Center for Muslims in America

 

Sustain the Work of Justice Today!

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Muslim Legal Fund of America, 833 E Arapaho Rd, Suite 209, Richardson, Texas 75081, United States