CA Muslims Sue FBI

Courtesy Xinhuanet

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 18 (Xinhua)–Muslims in Southern California sued the FBI on Tuesday, saying the agency has been unresponsive to their Freedom of Information Act requests.

The lawsuit was filed in the federal court in Los Angeles by 11 groups and individuals, but it will be assigned to a judge in the U.S. District Court in Santa Ana in the Los Angeles area.

This followed claims by the Islamic Shura Council that the FBI failed to respond sufficiently to requests made on May 15, 2006, for information about the surveillance of Muslim leaders.

The council represents 60 mosques in Southern California with about 500,000 worshippers.

“The agency released only four pages of documents and claims it could not locate any additional responsive documents,” the lawsuit states.

The four pages, said Michael Soller of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in Southern California, were on two subjects: a report the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, made to the FBI about a threatening caller, and a report on a conversation an agent had with Hussam Ayloush, the head of CAIR.

The ACLU is supplying lawyers on behalf of the plaintiffs.

FBI agents in Los Angeles referred calls to the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., where spokesman Andrew Ames said the lawsuit would be reviewed and, once served, “we will make a determination how to respond in court.”

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