New Greenwald bombshell: NSA spied on 5 politically active Muslim-Americans

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http://www.salon.com/2014/07/09/new_greenwald_bombshell_nsa_targeted_5_politically_active_muslim_americans/

New Greenwald bombshell: NSA spied on 5 politically active Muslim-Americans
Elias Isquith
Wednesday, Jul 9, 2014 10:11 AM EST

At the very least, the National Security Agency spied on five Muslim-Americans regardless of the fact that they posed no threat to national security, report the Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain in a new bombshell revelation from files delivered by former government contractor Edward Snowden.

Email messages of the five men — former Bush administration official Faisal Gill, prominent attorney Asim Ghafoor, Rutgers professor Hooshang Amirahmadi, former California State University professor Agha Saeed and Council on American-Islamic Relations executive director Nihad Awad — were being monitored from at least 2002 to 2008, the Intercept reports. (Greenwald has claimed on Twitter that the program that authorized surveillance may be still ongoing.)

According to the Intercept, all five of the men being surveilled have “led highly public, outwardly exemplary lives,” and all five vehemently deny any involvement with terrorist organizations and categorically assert their love for and loyalty to the United States. “I just don’t know why (I was a target),” Gill, who once worked in the Bush White House, told the Intercept.

“I’ve done everything in my life to be patriotic. I served in the Navy, served in the government, was active in my community — I’ve done everything that a good citizen, in my opinion, should do,” Gill continued.