The Feeling of Being Watched (2016) - full transcript
Check. Check. Check. Check.
Switch on.
♪♪
Okay.
You're good? Okay.
Um...
I must have been 16.
And I remember like,
waking up at 3:00 a.m.
and seeing a light outside.
I got up
and I looked outside,
and there were two men
on the telephone pole.
And they were doing something
on the wires,
and there were lights
shining on them.
And it was really strange
to see it at 3:00 a.m.
So I freaked out,
I went across the hall
to my mom's room.
And I woke her up,
and I-- and I was like,
"Mom, there are these two guys
outside on the wire
"and they're putting
something--
"they're installing
something at 3:00 a.m.,
and maybe we should
call the police."
I was really upset
and disturbed,
and my mom was like,
"Girl, you know, it's okay.
"Calm down,
it's not a big deal.
It's probably just the FBI,
go back to sleep."
♪♪
♪♪
So just, you know,
don't m-- don't--
don't pat it too much.
Can you tell me
about that time
the FBI came
to the door in 1999?
Was in...
like, few months after
your dad pass away.
And someone came running,
said that someone is here
asking for you.
I went to the door,
I found already
people inside my house
by the door.
Who?
Two-- two--
it was like three--
three, I think.
It was three men
with the black suit.
I recognize them,
it was FBI, of course.
You said they sat here for one hour.
What did you talk about
for one hour?
You know,
you don't know them.
How they-- the same question,
you don't answer,
they will say another one,
and they enter the oth--
the third one, the fou--
they make you-- they make you--
they make you confused.
You start just saying stuff,
oh, they will pick.
"How about this name?"
"This one, he was
my-- my husband's friend."
"How is your relation with them?
Ah, talk about him."
You know that,
what they call it,
they put like, a micropho--
or how would you call it?
Bug.Bug, exactly.
Each morning, I would
come and look under my table.
The next day, I would say,
"Maybe I didn't see it.
I have to check again."
I would just look,
said "no."
And the kids start,
"Mom, stop do--"
I said,
"No, I think
it's so small
that I couldn't see it."
How did you know
the times where maybe
you were just
being paranoid
and the times where
really something wa--
No, excuse me, because everyone
in the community was saying,
"They came, they came,
they came, they came."
So if we wanna go
and talk to some people... Mm-hmm.
...in the neighborhood
who have stories,
who should we go to? Many, honey.
Maybe these neighbors.
All of them,
they received these people.
So...
Everyone has...
Yeah, yeah.
All right, here we go.
My least favorite thing
about journalism was...
like, an MOS,
"man on street,"
where you just have to like,
find people and ask the--
like, I would dread
doing that,
and this feels
a lot like that.
Bridgeview is a really
tight-knit neighborhood.
Everybody knows
everybody else.
All of our dads are friends
from the mosque,
and all the moms
are always looking out
for each others' kids.
...so we decided
we need to d--
No, she's not.
Oh, okay. Well, we're
doing a documentary
about the neighborhood
and all the surveillance
that's happened here,
asking people about
things that they saw
and things that they witnessed
over the years,
and so...
A lot of people
in my neighborhood
have stories about
being watched.
But most of them are afraid
to talk out loud about it,
especially when
there's a camera around.
We got some bread.
But no interview.
Well, there are two cars
in the driveway.
Kinda feel like it's
another way of saying "no."
Come this way.
If you can get an angle.
A little bit more.
Little bit more.
Yeah, right there.
And that damn car is always
just parked right there.
It's like how you see
in the movies.
Like those pizza vans
that are just sitting,
staked out in front
of your house.
When you pass the van by,
like, they'd pull up...
Newspaper.... a book or a magazine,
or act like
they're not in the car.
Like, we can see you.
They put a camera
at the corner.
So they watch all the area.
I saw a car stop right next
to garbage container,
and they're going through it.
Now I said to her,
"Maybe they are homeless."
But darn,
homeless doesn't
drive good Dodge van,
no spot on it.
♪♪
First time we saw
a car parked
was the fall of 1990.
Every time I went for
the groceries, I saw the car.
I went and drop off the kids,
I saw the car.
And we kind of thought
that our house was bugged too,
that somebody was looking into
our house all the time.
When my kids were small,
you know, they said,
"Oh, it was the bomb."
You know? Like that was
the really cool thing.
That was like the big word,
and we couldn't use it.
And I had to tell my kids "no."
Almost like a swear word,
"you don't say that."
You feel like someone's
just invading your life,
you know?
I have a feeling that
there is a camera,
there is something watching.
And you don't feel free,
you don't feel safe.
I don't remember how it felt
to just know that
I'm free in my home.
"This is my home,
it's just ours."
I don't have that feeling.
It's become to the point
where I would call
the neighbor across the street
if a car's parked over there
and you say,
"Do you have a visitor
that owns a car like that?"Mm-hmm.
Isn't that terrible?
It's crazy.
Do you think
you're paranoid?
No, no, no.
No, I'm not.
I'm not, not at all.
No, I just think e--
everything is--
it's happening,
it's going on
and it's--
it's real life.
It's not an imagination,
it's not paranoia.
Mm-mm.
You should know that
I'm a journalist.
I have a master's degree
and years of experience
working in public radio.
Like my neighbors,
I too have seen the cars
parked down the street.
I have censored myself
on the phone
and whispered things
in public places.
It all started in '97
when I was 12.
♪♪
I had two best friends,
Dee and Emma.
Our fathers were really close,
and we spent our childhood
going to picnics,
listening to R&B,
and riding our bikes
after school.
At the same time,
Dee and Emma's dads
were being investigated
by the FBI.
The government accused
their fathers
of supporting
terrorist activity.
In court, all of
the terrorism charges
were dismissed,
but they were convicted
of white-collar crimes.
Emma's dad took a plea
to lobbying without a license
and spent five years
under house arrest,
and Dee's dad
was convicted of mail fraud
and spent four years
in prison.
After serving their time,
they both continued
to get visits from the FBI.
Their families were regularly
interrogated while traveling,
and eventually tired of living
with this constant
harassment and fear.
Both fathers moved out
of the country
and their families
were split up.
Stories like this were not
uncommon in my neighborhood.
And even though
not a single person
in my community has
ever been convicted
of anything related
to terrorism,
we still feel like
we're being watched.
My best friends' lives
were turned inside out
by what happened to them.
And since then,
I have lived in fear
of the day we would be next.
That they would come for me,
for my family.
I need to understand
why the FBI
was targeting my community,
and try to figure out
whether it's still
happening today.
♪♪
Wrong way.
There it is.
"Bridgeview mosque leaders
"have been under surveillance
for years;
indictments
may be forthcoming."
"The FBI has had problems
going into the mosque.
"During the week, they have
people out on the corners
"doing counter-surveillance.
It's a very
insular community."
♪♪
"A decade-old
federal investigation..."
Wow, so since '93.
♪♪
"Federal authorities
are investigating
"the Mosque Foundation
in Bridgeview and its leaders
"for possible involvement in
terror-related money laundering.
"The house of worship,
one of the largest
"Islamic centers in Chicago,
has been under
FBI surveillance for years."
Um, when we found
this article,
it was one of
the first confirmations
for me, at least,
that there was
this surveillance that
was going on pre-9/11.
How did you know
that the neighborhood
was under FBI surveillance
for years?
These were people who spoke
on condition of anonymity
who were--
at least confirmed
that the surveillance was real,
that it was official,
that it was--
that it had been
taking place for
quite some time.
Wow, so feder--
like, federal agents?
Well, authorities,
let's say.
Okay, wow.
You know, nobody thought
anyone was bui--
I-I never heard
that anybody
was building bombs
in the basement,
but what they did think
was that there was
money being funneled
through supposedly
legitimate charities
to Hamas.Mmm.
To Hezbollah.
So we wanted to know,
what is making you
investigate people?
You know, what do you--
what do you have?
Do you have, you know,
"this person bought
something from this person
who paid this person"?
What do you--
what ties are there?
What connections? Sure.
I mean,
for the most part,
almost all of these
investigations
ended without
any indictments.
And the ones that did
result in indictments
were for things
like tax fraud.Yeah.
For things like, you know,
failure to report income.
So you were hitting a lot of walls when you were trying to get--
Yes.Because obviously,
as a journalist,
you wanna know, "Okay, well,
they're saying these things.
Well, then why?
What is it based on?" Right.
Why?
What is it based on?
And time and again,
the actual legal argument
that was presented was
to even discuss the reasons
for doing what we are doing
would violate national security.
Wow.You know,
our grandchildren
will be filing
the FOIA requests
that will eventually
bring all of this out.
But we will not ever
in our lifetimes
be able to know
what happened.
♪♪
Since August of 1999,
I've been working
to legally expose
the very real and foreseeable
Middle Eastern
terrorist threats
to American citizens
at home and abroad.
The successful investigation,
which was code-named
Vulgar Betrayal--
V-U-L-G-A-R Betrayal,
led to the June 1998 seizure
of $1.4 million
of Middle Eastern
terrorist funding.
♪♪
That's the very first document
in the whole series.
July 11, 1996.
All we know
about why they opened
this investigation
is all here.
It's about
an organization called
the North American
Islamic Trust,
which is an umbrella
organization that
has most mosques in this country
under its umbrella.
Uh, the weird thing
about this is that--
so the ti-- this title here
usually tells you
what kind of crime
they're looking for.
And in the very first ones,
it's all "white-collar crimes."
Look, they have this "IT,"
international terrorism.
So they-- they're looking
for white-collar crimes
but they're saying it's
a terrorism investigation.
So that's the first
kind of question mark
that comes up.
And the list is here.
And these are the major
Muslim organizations
in America today.
So basically,
they thought all of these
mosques and charities
were just one big front,
cover for terrorism.
I mean, what's
the justification for this?
This is the order saying,
"In June of '98,
"we're gonna seize the assets
of an organization
and a person."
And one of the things
they seized
was the house I lived in,
so that's what's
whited out here.
Our upstairs neighbor
was the first American citizen
ever designated
a terrorist.
And we were the neighbors
living downstairs
from him at the time.
In a middle-class suburb
of Chicago,
living in this house,
a man the U.S. government calls
a designated
global terrorist.
His name, Muhammad Salah.
"NBC News"
caught him peering
out the window
this weekend.
That guy peering out
the window of his own house,
that's Abu Ahmad.
He's publicly known as
the first American citizen
ever put on
the terrorist watch list.
But I knew him best
as Ahmed's dad,
my bighearted
upstairs neighbor.
Abu Ahmad was a trusted man
in our community.
When there was a humanitarian
crisis in Palestine in the '90s,
our mosque sent him
to the West Bank
with thousands of dollars
in donations.
In the Israeli-occupied
West Bank today,
two American citizens
of Palestinian descent
are being held
without charge
in an Israeli
military prison.
While the government here
describes the two Chicagoans
as "agents" for
the fundamentalist group Hamas,
they have not been charged
with a crime,
nor have they been
allowed to see an attorney.
When he was arrested
by the Israelis,
accused of collecting money
for terrorism,
our community
took to the streets
to protest his arrest.
While in Israeli detention,
Abu Ahmad was tortured
and forced to sign
a confession in Hebrew,
a language he didn't speak.
The information collected
by Israeli agents
during interrogation was sent
to FBI agents in Chicago
and became one of
the foundations
for the Vulgar Betrayal
investigation.
Salah, a naturalized
U.S. citizen,
was convicted in Israel.
But after five years
in prison there,
he was allowed
to return to the U.S.
despite protests from
the lead FBI agent on the case
who says Salah
remains a threat.
He and a number of others
should've been arrested,
should've been behind bars,
should've had
their citizenship stripped,
should've been evicted
from this country.
Carrying his eight-year-old son
on his shoulders,
Muhammad Salah reacts
to a not guilty verdict
of aiding and funding
a terrorist organization.
I have to thank
my community
and the larger community.
It didn't matter
that Abu Ahmad
was found not guilty in court.
It didn't matter
that the government
eventually removed his name
from the terrorist watch list.
Once you're labeled
a terrorist,
that red paint
never really comes off.
Come on, Usama.
It's really hard to get
all of you together.
The Gummy Worms
will be here
to lure you to the table.
What's this? These are FBI documents.
So I found 1,000 pages
of declassified FBI documents... Mmm.
...about an investigation
they were doing in Chicago
in the '90s called
Operation Vulgar Betrayal.
Um, one of the most
interesting documents,
"Request for surveillance
"to verify home addresses
and employment.
"The agent anticipates
the interviews
"of approximately
500 individuals and leaders
"of many nonprofit
organizations
"throughout
the United States.
"Individuals who have
invested, contributed,
"and/or d-- donated money
"to the North American
Islamic Trust,
"ISNA, IARA, MAS,
or the Cultural Society
will be interviewed."
Literally any Muslim American
who's involved in a community.
Here's the list
of the people
that are gonna
be interviewed.
If there's an individual's name,
it's whited out.
There's our school.Straight up.
Our school is at
the top of the list.
So the next document--
and this I'm gonna need
Mama's help with.
"On June 9, 1998,
the assets of 'blank'
"were seized pursuant
to warrants based on
"civil forfeiture
complaint filed
in the United States court,
northern district of Illinois."
So on June 9, 1998,
we lived in that house
that was seized by the FBI, right? Yeah.
So, Mama, go ahead,
tell your story.
Uh, we were, I think, shopping,
something like this.
W-- we came,
and we-- we saw these bunch
of women and men in suits--
Were we in the car
with you?
I think, yeah.
I was, "What's going on?"
Like, I wasn't aware.
I was just say--
Your father's over there.
"FBI, FBI."
They were just
forcing the door,
something like this... The door of our apartment?
Of the building.
I was-- said,
"What they are doing?"
He said, "I think
they are taking over
the-- the building."
Your father told me,
he said...
Without...
Homeless.
Without-- homeless.
So we have to think about
having another apartment.
So this event,
which is documented
in these FBI documents,
basically led
to us living in this house.
♪♪
It's been weird
to find things
that directly relate
to our lives... Yeah.
...in these very bureaucratic
and administrative documents.
Look at that.That's so creepy.
That's so creepy.
What?
Blank.It's just like,
"'blank' has been
surveilled."
I wanna find out everywhere
that our name is on a list.
And there's way
to do that.
You can sign
this privacy waiver,
and I can submit it
to the FBI and tell them
anywhere your names exist
to release them.
All right, let's eat.
Yeah, let's eat.Yes!
So Mama was saying
that last, what,
a couple weeks ago,
she started seeing
a bunch of... cars.Bunch of what?
No, each time there is
something happening,
like a terrorist attack
or something?
You see-- you see
these people.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What, do they come
and knock on the doors
and interview people? No, no, no, no.
I see them in the car.
Wait, you're--
your doubtful?
You think
she's paranoid?
Does he have a hat
that says "FBI surveillance"?
No, no.
Usama-- Come on, guys.
What do you mean,
"come on, guys"?
What do you mean?
After everything
I just showed you
right now,
you're skeptical
that the FBI--
That was years ago.
No, that was
a month ago.
You think it ended? It's worse now,
it's open-ended.
How is it gonna end
when every other day--
do you read the news?
No.That's unconstitutional.
♪♪
He gave his name as Mr. Rose.
Several times,
he came.
And he-- he said that,
"I'm an FBI agent."
We don't think that
there's anything wrong.
So I feel fine.
I don't really worry
about being scared
or whatever.
I start seeing,
you know,
cars with no plate numbers.
No plate number.
Bed. Bed.
Bed.
Good boy.
That's not your bed.
Where you going?
Oh, you're so bad.
You're so bad.
Back to the FBI.
So I want to request information
about my family.
♪♪
I'm kinda nervous about giving
the FBI my e-mail.
I am making this request
on behalf of myself, right?
Okay, so I'm gonna...
ask them to give me
everything they have
on Vulgar Betrayal.
"All photographic,
video, and audio media
associated with
this investigation."
Invest-i-ga-tion.
All right,
first FOIA submitted.
Now for the rest.
There's Mosque Foundation
Bridgeview days.
Really?
Wow.
One year and three months.
How did you know
about the mosque?
Your dad was here
before me.
Al--He came when
he was young.
Yeah.
Like it was a temporary thing?
Yeah.
I was happy because
I was close to the mosque.
And, you know, I have a lot
of community around me.
Yeah.
Each family when they come,
we have to go
and welcome them and...
That's how it was?
Yeah.
If a lady, she's sick
or she had her babies,
we used to organize
ourself...
to cook for her,
to help her in the house.
Wow.
Yeah, because
they don't have
a family here.
So we are the family.
♪♪
In 1998, when my little brother
and the fifth kid
in our family was born,
my father decided that
we should move
to a bigger house
in Bridgeview.
While the new house
was being built,
my dad was diagnosed with
stage 3 colon cancer.
And a few months after
we moved in, he was gone.
I remember for weeks
after he died,
my house was full of
family friends and neighbors
cooking, and cleaning,
and keeping my mother company.
At my father's funeral,
hundreds of people
from around Chicago
came to the mosque.
The imam asked the community
to make a donation
in memory of my father
to help pay off the remainder
of our mortgage.
In less than an hour,
the community donated
more than $200,000.
We paid off our home.
And 19 years later,
we're still here.
It's really easy
for me to talk about
my family, my community,
but it's a lot harder
to talk about myself.
I feel like I can't even
begin to tell you who I am
without getting into
who I'm not.
I was ten years old
when I became aware
that everyone looks at us
like we're all
a bunch of terrorists.
It started with cartoons,
all the bad guys
in the movies
had accents like my parents.
I had to slit a few throats,
but I got it.
We kids were constantly
bombarded with images
of Arabs and Muslims
as radical,
backwards, violent villains.
Money is power.
And so I became aware
of how others see me,
and I learned how
not to come off to people.
Not a terrorist,
not an alien,
not a traitor.
Don't talk too loud
in Arabic at the mall,
don't argue with your parents
in public,
don't talk
with an accent,
don't fail in school,
don't ever break
the rules,
don't look un-American.
I am constantly juggling
within me two conflicting gazes.
How I see myself,
and how I see myself
through the eyes of others.
Through the eyes of a world
that views me
with suspicion and fear.
Some very exciting mail
arrived from
the U.S. Department of Justice,
Federal Bureau
of Investigation.
Three letters, to be exact.
I've been itching
to open them.
Anyway...
Oh, this is the FOIA for
Operation Vulgar Betrayal.
"You have not provided
a compelling argument
"explaining why the public
needs information
"on this subject matter
immediately.
Therefore,
your request is denied."
Okay, letter number two.
You see, the thin letters
are never good news.
It's like, you know,
when you apply to college.
When your app-- when you
get the big package,
you know you got
into the school.
When you get a little letter,
you know it's a rejection.
"This is in response
to your FOIA request--"
for my mom.
"In accordance
with FBI practice,
"this response neither
confirms nor denies
the existence of your subjects
name on any watch lists."
Okay.
This is really crazy.
So this is for my mom,
who was visited
on two separate occasions
by the FBI.
They came to the house,
they interviewed her,
they took notes,
and they left.
So... that is
definitely a record.
♪♪
"Dear Miss Boundaoui,
this is in response
"to your Freedom of
Information Act request.
"Based on the information
you provided,
"we conducted a search
of the records system.
"We were unable to identify
main file records
responsive to the FOIA."
"The mere acknowledgement
of such records
"existence or nonexistence
would, in and of itself,
"trigger harm
to national security.
"Please be advised that
unusual circumstances
applied to the processing
of your request.
"We were advised
that the records
"were not in their
expected location,
"and could not be located after
a reasonable search.
Therefore, we are closing
your request administratively."
It's amazing how many
different ways
they have sent me
rejection letters,
that they don't have things
that I know exist,
that I know are there.
♪♪
So two days ago,
I got a letter from the FBI.
You know, like these letters
that we've been getting lately.
"Dear Miss Boundaoui,
This is in reference
"to your Freedom of
Information Act request
"on Operation Vulgar Betrayal.
"The Federal Bureau
of Investigation
has located approximately
33,120 pages of records."
33,120 pages of records.
Just the amount of information
you have to collect about people
to get to 33,000
is enormous.
And knowing like,
the end result.
Knowing that these
33,000 pages of records
never resulted in convicting
anyone of terrorism?
It's shocking,
just the number.
I can't imagine what's
in this.
It's Election Day.
Millions of Americans
have voted already,
and millions more
are at the polls today.
An estimated 45 to 50 million
across the U.S.,
with 37 states
and the District of Columbia...
The end is finally in sight
to this especially
long and contentious
presidential election.
Mama, could I take
a selfie of us?
We just voted.Yeah.
Ugh, I don't want
to see your face,
you... you...
Who are you ta--I don't want to.
Who are you talking to? Trump.
We want to defeat you.
This is crazy.
"You come to this country,
"you abide by our laws
and our beliefs,
or you can go back
where you came from."
"Yep, and I plan on stocking
pork-coated ammo
"if any refugees
come near my state.
Not repeating Europe here!"
Oh, my God... You know what?
All of them--
Pork-coated...
They said they wanna
dip bullets in pork blood
and come kill us.
That's what they said.
No, I'm not responding
to them at all.
Yeah, because
they are just...
monster... Yeah, exactly.
Zero.You know what
I was saying?
What they're all
attacking me for saying?
Let me show you,
it's so funny.
I wrote,
"My Muslim vote."
That's the hashtag
everybody is using
if you're gonna vo--
"My Muslim vote
"is for empowerment
and taking a stand
"with fellow communities
of color to say we matter
and we will
make change."Yeah.
Okay...
They're going crazy.
They said leave if you
don't like our laws.
Leave, go back
where you came from.
Oh, yeah,
you go back to...
you go back.
Are you native? Yeah, exactly.
If you are native,
you stay. Yeah.
You have the right
to stay.
If you are not native,
you are immigrant.
♪♪
♪ Happy birthday to you ♪
♪ Happy birthday
to you ♪
♪ Happy birthday,
dear Nohah ♪
♪ Happy birthday to you ♪♪
Can you talk to me
a little bit about
the investigation, um,
that you worked on, the very large one?
The name of the investigation
was called Vulgar Betrayal,
do you remember that?
Of course,
how can I forget?
And, um... It's a curious name.
It was a curious name.
FBI always comes up
with very curious nicknames.
I don't know w--
they have a whole department
of people in DC
that do that.
Pretty dramatic, right?
But it was-- it was
an investigation
into how, um, money
was being laundered
through the United States
to support terrorist activity
in the Middle East.
And, um, there was...
an individual
who was targeted,
Muhammad Salah.
And he was ultimately
convicted of--
very, very minor offenses.
And I didn't try that case,
'cause I'd already left--
That's right,
you left in 2000.Yeah, yeah.
Okay, do you think that
this long investigation
was justified?
If there had been
crimes uncovered...
uh, or crimes prosecuted,
that would have been justified.
Um, if the reason
nothing ever came
of the investigation
because there was indeed
nothing there, then--
I mean, it's not a matter
of being justified.
The FBI...
declines cases
all the time--
or the U.S. Attorney's Office
declines cases all the time
'cause there's just
not enough evidence.
Um, but if your...
I think your question
is probably wanting
to go deeper in that.
A-- are you trying to say,
"Do you think
the investigation,
you know, was as a result
of Islamic phobia or prejudice?"
Excuse me. I-I do not.
That certainly
was not my worldview,
c-- certainly is not.
Um, and had I ever thought
that that was
what was happening,
I would've not
been part of it
'cause that is not,
obviously, who I am.
Maybe not so obvious,
but it isn't who I am.
I mean, if it's
a bigger question...
Yeah.
...which is there--
Is there Islamic phobia
in this country?
Of course there is.
I mean, there i--
In the FBI?
Well, I can't say that.
It wasn't the first time
that he's thought about
whether or not
it was justified.
Clearly he's thought
about that before.
And in fact,
he gave such--
kind of a dismissive
answer to it,
I feel like he knows
more than he was saying.
You know what is my problem?
I'm like,
"I'm gonna go in there
and I'm gonna be tough and
I'm gonna call this guy out."
But I'm really nice,
and it annoys me.
Maybe not too nice,
but too reserved.
Like you don't wanna
come off too strong.
Because I wanna be liked,
that's it.
I want them to like me,
I want them to be like,
"Oh, look at this
nice Muslim girl.
She speaks good English,
and she seems normal."
Like, honestly,
that's a part of it, too.
I kinda want them
to like me.
♪♪
To the families
and victims...
of September 11th,
on behalf of John Vincent,
Barry Carnaby,
and myself,
we're sorry.
♪♪
I heard that
there's a big case
called Vulgar Betrayal
in Chicago.
Just based on the little bit
that I know,
I'm sure there was
a legitimate reason
to start the case.
The expansion
was very questionable.
To expand to too many
other organizations--
anything with the name
"Islam" or "Muslims"
or "Islamic"
to be under it
was very questionable.
Who was Robert Wright
and how did he
see the world
from your encounters
with him?
Well, he-- he saw himself
as a hero
and a bigger figure.
Was it...
who he was or more?
I don't know.
He-- he thought that
all the Palestinians
were part of Hamas,
and they're all
against Israel.
And...
he-- he went on
that premise, okay?
He continued on this path
without vetting
what he's getting.
Hi, my name
is Assia Boundaoui.
I'm just calling back,
somebody from your offices
just gave me a call
about my FOIA request.
Um, he informed me that
the processing
for this FOIA will be,
um, over two years?
Can you-- can you send that
to me in a letter, please?
Because the letter--
Oh, my God.
This is weird,
they've never
called me before.
I'm like, "Can you
e-mail me this, please--"
Okay."That it's gonna
take three years."
He said "no."
I'm like,
"I need it in writing.
Can you put it in a letter?"
And he said "no."
That's strange, right? A little bit.
Well, not just a little bit.
It's pretty strange.
This feels,
to me, just like
slowing the whole process
down as is.
Yeah, I mean,
this is how bureaucracy
tends to be used
to kind of mitigate
against exposure.
Yeah.
That's what the federal courts
are there for at this point.
I think we need to
go ahead and sue them.
Okay.
We need to file the lawsuit.
Okay. I mean,
the complaint's ready, so...
Okay.
Fuck.
♪♪
A week after I moved
into this apartment
a few miles away
from my mom's house,
the City of Chicago put up
a speed bump
right in front of my door.
Right away,
I suspected it had
something to do with
surveillance.
You know, so cars
could have an excuse
to slow down just as they
passed my living room windows.
I'm aware that
this sounds crazy.
When I was a teenager,
one of my good friends
started talking about being
followed around
all the time
by men in cars.
Of course we all believed her,
because it was happening
all around us.
A couple of years later,
she had a psychotic break
and was diagnosed
with schizophrenia.
It has weighed on me
for years
that we were all so paranoid
we couldn't even see
that she was sick,
that this was madness.
The line between
what's real and what's not
is really blurry in the place
that I grew up.
And that gray area between
paranoia and the truth
is a dangerous place.
Department of Justice
basically confirmed
that there are 500 files
on individual people
in these 33,000 documents.
And that I can't
have access to them...
You can't--Unless I have people
sign privacy waivers.
I wanna join forces to get
as many people as possible
to sign privacy waivers
so we can flood the courts
with these waivers and say,
"Ha, anywhere that you see
such-and-such person's name,
"we want their file
and we want
their name unredacted
in the documents."
It's a tough conversation.
To approach community members
who are not active...
Mm-hmm.
...who are not in this field,
Who don't have like,
a clear understanding... Yeah, yeah.
...and are conscious
of FBI surveillance
and repression.
Yeah.
It's gonna be
a hard conversation.
I mean--
But let's not forget
that these visits
did not stop.
No, they haven't.
They haven't.
The last time--I told you the other day,
I was visited.
Another prominent person
in the community was visited.
An organizer.
When? When?
I would say about
two months ago.
They knocked
on your door?
They knocked on
my family's door.
At home?
Yeah.
And they asked
for you by name?
Yeah, and they had
pictures.
Oh, wow.And what did
they ask you?
I mean, they-- they
spoke to my mother.
But my mother
knows what to do.
Mm-hmm.She goes, "I'm sorry,
I can't talk to you.
"Leave your card,
leave your name.
His lawyer will call you."
I think the community,
believe it or not,
is ready to come out there.
The younger generation...
Yeah, I think so too.... Arab Americans are ready
to come out
and say stop this terror,
stop this violation,
stop this hate.
I mean, correct me
if I'm wrong.
But I don't know,
I feel like my age--
our age generation is stronger
than our parents'.
Yeah. I think like,
we've been ready
since day one,
but now like,
with Sessions'
Department of Justice.Yeah.
With Trump in the White House.Yeah.
Like, that has an impact
on the community
whether we like it or not.Oh, absolutely.
Our community's living in fear.
Yeah, yeah.
So i-- it's a very
sensitive topic,
but I think
it could be done.
All right,
let's do this.
♪♪
I am suing the FBI
for information
about surveillance,
about Bridgeview.
And I need as many people
as possible to sign
privacy waivers so
if the FBI has a file on them,
they will release it.
So we're going
door-to-door
trying to get people
to sign these forms.
♪♪
Basically,
the FBI told us
they have 500
individual records
on people in our community.
♪♪
So we have a law firm
representing us
for the lawsuit.
One of the biggest
law firms in New York
that took on this case
because they believe
our community
has a right to know.
♪♪
I tried to explain this
to my mom yesterday.
And she was just like--Confused.
"We left Algeria
because of the police,
now we're gonna come here
'cause of the police."
Yeah, exactly.She's like,
"Don't get involved."
Oh, that's so funny.
Yeah.
So it's like
a cultural mentality
that we're really
trying to change,
'cause that's a lot
of people's mind-set
is that like,
"Don't get involved,
keep your head ducked down,
and that will keep you safe."
But we know staying quiet
actually hasn't
kept anyone safe
in this community.
Hi!
Good to see you.
Good to see you.
Give me a hug.How're you doing?
This'll actually be really
straightforward, I think.
Okay, cool.I think the judge
is gonna kind of say,
you know, "Have you
come to any agreement?"
And we're gonna say "no,
and this is
what's happened."Yeah.
And it'll be nice to meet him,
and it's good for him
to kind of... see you.Okay, yeah, cool.
Yeah, it'll be good.Yeah, so--
A few people will come.
It's a status hearing,
so they know it'll be short.
Yeah.
But maybe a handful of people
from the community
will show up?
So we'll see, yeah.Great, great.
That's excellent.
♪♪
Good morning, Your Honor.
This is Alexa Poletto
for Assia Boundaoui,
the plaintiff.
One year ago, my client,
who is a journalist,
submitted this FOIA request
to the government
asking for information
which is very much
in the public interest.
This request was denied
by the government.
One year later, we don't
have a document in hand.
The FBI currently has
the Russian investigation,
James Comey, other things
that are headline news.
"Headlines" doesn't
cut it for me
as being more important
than a request
from a citizen
for documents.
Today, my real interest
is having the government
compelled to a schedule
to produce documents.
The standard
the FBI uses
is review 500 pages,
and processing them
on a monthly basis.
I don't think
500 pages per month
is going to be acceptable
in this case
for a FOIA request
that's been pending
since September
of last year.
Absent something telling me
I can't do it,
I'm going to order processing
at a faster rate
than has occurred.
I don't think we need
to discuss this more.
I'll have you back
next week.
I think Muslim Americans
are aware of the threat
of increased...
As racist groups
of the past
have gotten new life,
like it or not, from Trump.
An Islamic center
in Houston, Texas
burns down in a fire
still under investigation.
You have individuals
who are driven to act
on their prejudices
and take it out on women
who visibly appear
to be Muslim.
♪♪
Wow. Look.
"Google may have detected
government-backed attackers
trying to steal your password."
I clicked on
the "Learn More,"
and this popped up.
That's really frightening.
This is all--
all of it is hard.
Suddenly it becomes hard
to communicate.
It's interesting.
Once you're under investigation,
it's not that you're--
you stop talking to people
because you don't trust them,
it's because you're afraid
that any f-- like, medium of
communication is being watched.
And so nothing
is secure anymore,
and so you keep to yours--
I mean, the idea--
like, you become alienated,
you can't talk to people
about what the fuck
is going on.
You can't even get
the help that you need
because you're afraid.
So one thing I did
that was proactive
other than freaking out
was I e-mailed
that woman
at the Freedom of
the Press Foundation,
Harlo, and I took screenshots
of all those things.
And I was like...
"Is this legit?
Because the URL looks legit.
Is it legit? And if it is,
like, what should I do?"
And she responded
this morning and she said,
"Google has methods
of detecting
"this type of attacks
on people's accounts.
"And for some reason,
a lot of alerts
have been going out
to people this past week."
So I am going
to my mother's house
to sleep over for the night.
And, uh, been having
to find a way
to hide all my shit
whenever I leave the house
because I'm afraid
that someone might
break into the house,
whoever it is
that's watching me,
and steal my hard drives
for the film.
So every time
I leave the house now,
I hide the stuff.
♪♪
Apparently there was
a robbery nearby,
and there's three me--
or two men on the loose.
They already caught one,
two more waiting to be caught.
So all of our parents
are stuck in the mosques
and they can't get out till
the other two are caught.
Your house?
No, no, Assia.
Please, please.
Assia, please.
Please...
What are you hearing
about what happened?
The lockdown?
I heard that it
was an FBI sting
that went wrong.
Shh.
Warrants.
So let me-- okay,
so that's your theory.
Here's what--
we're sitting with
one of our neighbors yesterday,
and she was saying that
they told us that this
was a sting or bank robbers.
But this was actually
a test run...
...to see how
Bridgeview reacts?
And she said if it was really
people with assault rifles
that were in our
neighborhood loose,
why wasn't there
a single ambulance? Yeah, exactly.
Why wasn't there
a single fire truck?
Don't you have
EMTs waiting?
There are three guys loose
with assault rifles
in the neighborhood,
not a single ambulance.
Also, if there was
no coordination,
why exactly when
it happened we had
seven police departments'
cars here?
How did they
show up so quick?
How was there a-- a tank
rolling down
in front of the mosque?
Many times.Many times.
The next day
in the press,
they said this was
not a bank robbery.
So they told us it was
a bank robbery on the day of,
and the next day
they denied it.
They said there
was no bank robbed.
W-- what?
They said,
"We refuse to say why."
See?
That means this--
what we thought
was true.
I received, yesterday,
a motion for
an Open America stay
seeking essentially to stay
any production
or at least delay it.
The period
was some 64 months.
We tried to negotiate
with the government
again this week,
and were informed immediately
that they would not be entering
into any discussions with us.
We discussed it
with the FBI
at the highest level,
and they felt
that they could not
do anything more.
It's a fairly
extraordinary request,
going from saying
it will take three years
and now requesting essentially
a five-year timetable.
This is an old
criminal investigation,
and there's just
no justification for that.
This is a very serious issue
that is very pertinent today
to very many Americans.
My client is entitled
to expedited processing.
Whether the FBI thinks
that it's a nuisance to have
to respond to this,
it's still the federal law.
I can't change that,
you can't change that,
and you can't ignore the law.
Next Tuesday
you'll get a ruling.
My name is Assia Boundaoui.
I'm a researcher
and a journalist,
and I actually grew up
in this community
just a few blocks away
from the mosque here.
I just wanna begin
by saying that,
um, I believe strongly
that a healthy relationship
between law enforcement,
government, and our community
has to be one
that's predicated
on trust and transparency.
For the past few years,
I've been digging
into the long,
wide-reaching investigation
of this Muslim community.
These investigations
profiled entire communities
based on ethnicity
and religion,
and used a really
broad brush to paint
law-abiding American citizens
as suspect.
These might have
happened in the past,
but people are still
living with the effects
of these long-term
investigations.
They've caused, um,
profound impacts
on our community.
Um, and one of them,
one that aught
to be of concern
to government institutions
is the lack of trust
in law enforcement.
We did a survey
a couple years ago.
40 % of residents
around this mosque here
have received visits
from the FBI.
And so after every
terrorist attack
in Paris, in Boston,
people get visits around here.
And right before
the elections,
many people
in this neighborhood
received knocks
on their doors,
asked a number
of questions about
political affiliations,
et cetera.
Say we brought that to you,
what would--
what are the steps
internally within the FBI
that you would take
to address
what we would consider
maybe a civil rights concern?
Tha-- that's exactly
what happened.
We-- I actually
have it documented.
They have--
we have cards,
business cards that
they handed out.
I'm telling you
it actually happened.
Mm-hmm.
Right before the election,
so we--
That was in November.
I mean, these are just
like, things that people
in the community have--
have talked about--
If something happens
to you and you needed--
the FBI is your champion.
So at one time,
he is your savior.
And another time,
he is your
Halloween nightmare.
No, I mean,
you have to--
that's the kind of education
we need to tell people.
It's gonna continue
to take education...
♪♪
He is part of the group
of community leaders we have
that thinks just saying,
you know...
just being "yes men"
to the FBI, and law enforcement,
and local politicians is the way
to get a seat at the table.
The whole point of having
a seat at a table
is to advocate
on behalf of the community.
You know? It's to like--
it's to make sure
our community's
rights are protected
and our interests
are being served.
Otherwise, what the fuck
is the point of having
a seat at the table?
♪♪
It's so hard.
The hardest part is
dealing with this community
that's not even fighting
against the FBI...
What's the point?
They're treating me
like I'm their enemy.
Like, I have to fight them
to do this.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Hello?
What happened?
Oh, my God.
You don't ask him,
"Who are you"?
Mama!
Okay, I just
took a picture.
I'm sending it to
your WhatsApp.
Look a-- look at it
and tell me if that's him.
I mean, this picture
is about
maybe 12 years old.
Oh, my God,
I'm so scared!
He's Robert Wright,
the FBI agent
who started
Vulgar Betrayal.
Oh...
What's that?
Say that again?
I missed that.
Yeah...
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah, I usually record
all of my phone calls.
Um, but if you
opt out of that,
I don't have to do that.
Okay, okay.
I cannot record you.
I hung up with
Bob 20 minutes later.
He talked and talked,
but didn't say
very much at all.
The most illuminating part
of the conversation
was when he told me
he had a job to do,
and me and my neighbors
had a job to do.
We're the bad guys
doing our bad guy jobs,
and he's the good guy doing
his good guy job
of keeping America
safe from us.
I thought as
a good journalist,
I should try and see
if Bob would be a source.
I reached out
for an interview,
but when he didn't
answer my text
I immediately stopped trying.
There's no way for me here
to separate the personal
and the professional.
The truth is I don't want
anything to do with this guy,
and I don't care if that
makes me a bad journalist.
Can you move it
back a little?
That's pretty good, though.
We can see the whole walkway.
We can see the cars.
Yeah.
But the front door,
a little more
of the front door,
we wanna be able to see.
Move it back.
Any more of the front door,
it'll just be that dark.
Back a little more?
That's perfect.
I know...
I don't know.
I don't know.
When I called him,
he said,
"Did I scare your mom?"
Was that your goal? Were you trying
to scare her?
Yeah, is it you--
yeah, is it your goal?
What do you think?
And he laughed.
So what came out
of your phone call?
I was trying very hard
to sound very cool, calm,
and collected on the phone--
This was all
by the phone? Yeah, and not scared.
But I was really shook.
I was super shook.
I was really-- I know
I have no reason to be afraid,
but I was really afraid.
Like, why is
he coming t--
he knows where we live,
he knows who my mom is,
he knows what her face is.
Because he had been--
He sauntered into
the neighborhood like,
"Oh, yeah, my old
stomping grounds."
Like, that makes me so mad.
What's the purpose? Mm-hmm.
Why he's here?
Yeah, well, I still don't have
an answer for any of that.
♪♪
Before the court
is plaintiff's motion
that compel expedited
processing of her request
for FBI records concerning
the anti-terrorism operation
Vulgar Betrayal.
Plaintiff is informing
the public of the FBI's
alleged profiling
and surveillance
of communities based on race,
religion, and ethnicity.
In particular, the Arab-American
community in Bridgeview.
Significant questions
about privacy rights
are implicated by
the plaintiff's project.
The court finds
that the anticipated
five-year timeline
for production
is patently unreasonable,
and plaintiff is entitled
to expedited processing.
The court orders
the defendants to review
3,500 pages per month,
and give priority
to the subfiles of individuals
for whom plaintiff
provides privacy waivers.
I'm very happy, you guys.
I'm so happy.
We couldn't have
expected--
we couldn't have asked
for anything better.
Can we do like
a, you know,
jumping in the air
and the kicking thing now?
You get arrested...
♪♪
Nobody would like to be
the target of
a government program
called Operation
Vulgar Betrayal.
Assia Boundaoui grew up
in Bridgeview,
and she's now uncovering
what happened there
in the '90s.
You've been having some
interesting encounters
with the government,
trying to get files
from the government.
Um, wha-- how did
that spiel out?
Because you ended up with
an enormous volume
of documents.
3,500 pages a month.
Which is setting a really
important FOIA precedent,
in fact,
in FOIA litigation
that, you know,
that you--
if this is in
the public interest
and you can prove this serves a public interest,
that the government
has to release.
And so the whole idea
of this entire project,
this entire mission,
was to shine a light
on something that's been
secret for such a long time.
When you won
your court case,
did people make
a big deal out of that?
Is th-- is that a big--
I mean,
'cause it seems like
it would be almost
national news.
I mean,
we were very excited.
We were super excited
about it.
The community
was really excited.
I-I think they were
really surprised.
I think they didn't think
you go up
against the government
and win.
And that's a very interesting thing,
by the way.
The FOIA law is very unique
to the United States.
You know, that while
the government can
conduct this surveillance
and can violate
your privacy
and freedom of association,
freedom of religion,
you also have the right
to know that they do that.
You know? And that's
an incredible thing
about this democracy is
you have the right to know,
and you can get the records
of them violating your rights.
This is the first batch.
It looks like,
in terms of redacting,
like they redacted
as much as they--Heavy-handed.
Heavy-handed.Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
but, um, we can--
I think we'll be able
to glean some things out of this.
Okay.
♪♪
This paper here
says in 1989,
the FBI field office
in Indianapolis
opened an investigation
on the Islamic Trust,
and then closed it.
I mean, this is
really interesting.
I had no idea that there
was an investigation
on the same topic
before Vulgar Betrayal.
♪♪
Pending questions
and answers.
What were the tactics used
in Vulgar Betrayal?
Informants.
Culling informants
from the community.
Sending FBI agents
to people's houses
and places of work.
Use of immigration
officers
during FBI interviews.
They monitored phone calls,
and they monitored
who you're sending it to.
♪♪
Chicago FBI field office
sends out requests
to like 20-some other
FBI field offices
asking them, get information
on this person,
get information on
this organization.
Here's one from Louisiana.
And they're like,
"We can't find anything."
"That he doesn't believe
there is sufficient evidence
of asset forfeiture."
Again, one from Denver.
No response.
"In the future,
Springfield requests
"that Chicago articulate
the reasonable belief
"that each named person
is engaged in criminal activity
in support of
international terrorism."
The things that they found
as suspicious about us
are actually the things
that are most important
characteristics of our community.
Yeah.
We're very philanthropic,
and we're connected
to each other.
♪♪
I always thought that
paranoia is an effect
of the investigative tactics
that they used.
The way they did
the investigation
caused us to be paranoid.
But what if-- what if some
of these things are reversed?
It's not that this
is the cause
and that's the effect,
what if this
was the purpose?
Based on historically
how the FBI
has dealt with
communities of color,
it's not a stretch
of the imagination to say
their surveillance methods
created paranoia.
But in fact,
they wanted to create paranoia
within the Muslim community.
Shake the cage,
rattle the cage
and see what comes out.Right.
And they thought there
were terrorists there,
so that if they put enough
heat and pressure on us,
they would come out
of the woodworks
and they would catch them
on a phone call
or whatever
when they did.
But w-- when you
rattle a cage
and there aren't
any criminals crawling out,
what does that do
to the people
in the cage,
you know?
♪♪
♪♪
Everybody in this room knows
exactly what we're
talking about
when we're talking
about the increase
in surveillance
in the community,
increase in this presumption
that the community
is something of a threat.
That started from Operation
Vulgar Betrayal in the '90s
and that informed not
just methods of investigation,
but also legislation
that was enacted post-9/11.
Law enforcement
and the FBI in particular
feel like they can roll
into our community
and kind of do
whatever they want.
We want to send the message
that no, they can't.
And we do that
by reporting
every single time
they come.
Checks and balances
starts with people.
Um, the balance
are the courts and Congress.
The check is the people.
As long as we're scared,
and we hide, and we say,
"Talking about it somehow
makes us more of a target,"
it actually plays into the entire secrecy of the whole game.
As long as people
are afraid to talk,
then there is no check
against the system.
We cannot be asleep
any longer.
This is our country.
I wanna raise my boys
to be proud of who they are
as Arab, as Muslims,
as Palestinians,
and as Americans.
Whether you are
a citizen born here
or a citizen
naturalized,
or an immigrant,
don't feel that you are
less of a citizen
than the white man.
They definitely
understand the fears
that our immigrant communities
come to this country with.
They know we wanna
invite them in
to have a cup of tea
or coffee
and prove to them that
we're great American citizens.
And I just wanna say...
It's very simple,
do not invite them
into your home.
♪♪
A 20-minute drive
from my mom's house
is the only panopticon prison
ever built in the U.S.
The panopticon
is designed to ensure
that the prisoner is seen
without ever seeing,
and that the guards
see everything
without ever being seen.
The prisoners feel like
they are under
such constant surveillance that
they change their own behavior.
Their paranoia becomes
as effective a tool of control
as actual surveillance.
They become silent,
docile, alienated.
I still don't know for
a fact whether the FBI
has ever stopped
watching us,
and perhaps there's nothing that
I can do about being watched.
Maybe the only thing
I can do is make sure
that the government
is not invisible,
that the systems of power
are kept in check.
It's in the act
of looking back
and talking out loud that
we become less alienated,
less petrified by
our paranoia.
Perhaps the only way
to disrupt surveillance
is to make sure that those
who do the watching
are also being watched.
♪♪
Switch on.
♪♪
Okay.
You're good? Okay.
Um...
I must have been 16.
And I remember like,
waking up at 3:00 a.m.
and seeing a light outside.
I got up
and I looked outside,
and there were two men
on the telephone pole.
And they were doing something
on the wires,
and there were lights
shining on them.
And it was really strange
to see it at 3:00 a.m.
So I freaked out,
I went across the hall
to my mom's room.
And I woke her up,
and I-- and I was like,
"Mom, there are these two guys
outside on the wire
"and they're putting
something--
"they're installing
something at 3:00 a.m.,
and maybe we should
call the police."
I was really upset
and disturbed,
and my mom was like,
"Girl, you know, it's okay.
"Calm down,
it's not a big deal.
It's probably just the FBI,
go back to sleep."
♪♪
♪♪
So just, you know,
don't m-- don't--
don't pat it too much.
Can you tell me
about that time
the FBI came
to the door in 1999?
Was in...
like, few months after
your dad pass away.
And someone came running,
said that someone is here
asking for you.
I went to the door,
I found already
people inside my house
by the door.
Who?
Two-- two--
it was like three--
three, I think.
It was three men
with the black suit.
I recognize them,
it was FBI, of course.
You said they sat here for one hour.
What did you talk about
for one hour?
You know,
you don't know them.
How they-- the same question,
you don't answer,
they will say another one,
and they enter the oth--
the third one, the fou--
they make you-- they make you--
they make you confused.
You start just saying stuff,
oh, they will pick.
"How about this name?"
"This one, he was
my-- my husband's friend."
"How is your relation with them?
Ah, talk about him."
You know that,
what they call it,
they put like, a micropho--
or how would you call it?
Bug.Bug, exactly.
Each morning, I would
come and look under my table.
The next day, I would say,
"Maybe I didn't see it.
I have to check again."
I would just look,
said "no."
And the kids start,
"Mom, stop do--"
I said,
"No, I think
it's so small
that I couldn't see it."
How did you know
the times where maybe
you were just
being paranoid
and the times where
really something wa--
No, excuse me, because everyone
in the community was saying,
"They came, they came,
they came, they came."
So if we wanna go
and talk to some people... Mm-hmm.
...in the neighborhood
who have stories,
who should we go to? Many, honey.
Maybe these neighbors.
All of them,
they received these people.
So...
Everyone has...
Yeah, yeah.
All right, here we go.
My least favorite thing
about journalism was...
like, an MOS,
"man on street,"
where you just have to like,
find people and ask the--
like, I would dread
doing that,
and this feels
a lot like that.
Bridgeview is a really
tight-knit neighborhood.
Everybody knows
everybody else.
All of our dads are friends
from the mosque,
and all the moms
are always looking out
for each others' kids.
...so we decided
we need to d--
No, she's not.
Oh, okay. Well, we're
doing a documentary
about the neighborhood
and all the surveillance
that's happened here,
asking people about
things that they saw
and things that they witnessed
over the years,
and so...
A lot of people
in my neighborhood
have stories about
being watched.
But most of them are afraid
to talk out loud about it,
especially when
there's a camera around.
We got some bread.
But no interview.
Well, there are two cars
in the driveway.
Kinda feel like it's
another way of saying "no."
Come this way.
If you can get an angle.
A little bit more.
Little bit more.
Yeah, right there.
And that damn car is always
just parked right there.
It's like how you see
in the movies.
Like those pizza vans
that are just sitting,
staked out in front
of your house.
When you pass the van by,
like, they'd pull up...
Newspaper.... a book or a magazine,
or act like
they're not in the car.
Like, we can see you.
They put a camera
at the corner.
So they watch all the area.
I saw a car stop right next
to garbage container,
and they're going through it.
Now I said to her,
"Maybe they are homeless."
But darn,
homeless doesn't
drive good Dodge van,
no spot on it.
♪♪
First time we saw
a car parked
was the fall of 1990.
Every time I went for
the groceries, I saw the car.
I went and drop off the kids,
I saw the car.
And we kind of thought
that our house was bugged too,
that somebody was looking into
our house all the time.
When my kids were small,
you know, they said,
"Oh, it was the bomb."
You know? Like that was
the really cool thing.
That was like the big word,
and we couldn't use it.
And I had to tell my kids "no."
Almost like a swear word,
"you don't say that."
You feel like someone's
just invading your life,
you know?
I have a feeling that
there is a camera,
there is something watching.
And you don't feel free,
you don't feel safe.
I don't remember how it felt
to just know that
I'm free in my home.
"This is my home,
it's just ours."
I don't have that feeling.
It's become to the point
where I would call
the neighbor across the street
if a car's parked over there
and you say,
"Do you have a visitor
that owns a car like that?"Mm-hmm.
Isn't that terrible?
It's crazy.
Do you think
you're paranoid?
No, no, no.
No, I'm not.
I'm not, not at all.
No, I just think e--
everything is--
it's happening,
it's going on
and it's--
it's real life.
It's not an imagination,
it's not paranoia.
Mm-mm.
You should know that
I'm a journalist.
I have a master's degree
and years of experience
working in public radio.
Like my neighbors,
I too have seen the cars
parked down the street.
I have censored myself
on the phone
and whispered things
in public places.
It all started in '97
when I was 12.
♪♪
I had two best friends,
Dee and Emma.
Our fathers were really close,
and we spent our childhood
going to picnics,
listening to R&B,
and riding our bikes
after school.
At the same time,
Dee and Emma's dads
were being investigated
by the FBI.
The government accused
their fathers
of supporting
terrorist activity.
In court, all of
the terrorism charges
were dismissed,
but they were convicted
of white-collar crimes.
Emma's dad took a plea
to lobbying without a license
and spent five years
under house arrest,
and Dee's dad
was convicted of mail fraud
and spent four years
in prison.
After serving their time,
they both continued
to get visits from the FBI.
Their families were regularly
interrogated while traveling,
and eventually tired of living
with this constant
harassment and fear.
Both fathers moved out
of the country
and their families
were split up.
Stories like this were not
uncommon in my neighborhood.
And even though
not a single person
in my community has
ever been convicted
of anything related
to terrorism,
we still feel like
we're being watched.
My best friends' lives
were turned inside out
by what happened to them.
And since then,
I have lived in fear
of the day we would be next.
That they would come for me,
for my family.
I need to understand
why the FBI
was targeting my community,
and try to figure out
whether it's still
happening today.
♪♪
Wrong way.
There it is.
"Bridgeview mosque leaders
"have been under surveillance
for years;
indictments
may be forthcoming."
"The FBI has had problems
going into the mosque.
"During the week, they have
people out on the corners
"doing counter-surveillance.
It's a very
insular community."
♪♪
"A decade-old
federal investigation..."
Wow, so since '93.
♪♪
"Federal authorities
are investigating
"the Mosque Foundation
in Bridgeview and its leaders
"for possible involvement in
terror-related money laundering.
"The house of worship,
one of the largest
"Islamic centers in Chicago,
has been under
FBI surveillance for years."
Um, when we found
this article,
it was one of
the first confirmations
for me, at least,
that there was
this surveillance that
was going on pre-9/11.
How did you know
that the neighborhood
was under FBI surveillance
for years?
These were people who spoke
on condition of anonymity
who were--
at least confirmed
that the surveillance was real,
that it was official,
that it was--
that it had been
taking place for
quite some time.
Wow, so feder--
like, federal agents?
Well, authorities,
let's say.
Okay, wow.
You know, nobody thought
anyone was bui--
I-I never heard
that anybody
was building bombs
in the basement,
but what they did think
was that there was
money being funneled
through supposedly
legitimate charities
to Hamas.Mmm.
To Hezbollah.
So we wanted to know,
what is making you
investigate people?
You know, what do you--
what do you have?
Do you have, you know,
"this person bought
something from this person
who paid this person"?
What do you--
what ties are there?
What connections? Sure.
I mean,
for the most part,
almost all of these
investigations
ended without
any indictments.
And the ones that did
result in indictments
were for things
like tax fraud.Yeah.
For things like, you know,
failure to report income.
So you were hitting a lot of walls when you were trying to get--
Yes.Because obviously,
as a journalist,
you wanna know, "Okay, well,
they're saying these things.
Well, then why?
What is it based on?" Right.
Why?
What is it based on?
And time and again,
the actual legal argument
that was presented was
to even discuss the reasons
for doing what we are doing
would violate national security.
Wow.You know,
our grandchildren
will be filing
the FOIA requests
that will eventually
bring all of this out.
But we will not ever
in our lifetimes
be able to know
what happened.
♪♪
Since August of 1999,
I've been working
to legally expose
the very real and foreseeable
Middle Eastern
terrorist threats
to American citizens
at home and abroad.
The successful investigation,
which was code-named
Vulgar Betrayal--
V-U-L-G-A-R Betrayal,
led to the June 1998 seizure
of $1.4 million
of Middle Eastern
terrorist funding.
♪♪
That's the very first document
in the whole series.
July 11, 1996.
All we know
about why they opened
this investigation
is all here.
It's about
an organization called
the North American
Islamic Trust,
which is an umbrella
organization that
has most mosques in this country
under its umbrella.
Uh, the weird thing
about this is that--
so the ti-- this title here
usually tells you
what kind of crime
they're looking for.
And in the very first ones,
it's all "white-collar crimes."
Look, they have this "IT,"
international terrorism.
So they-- they're looking
for white-collar crimes
but they're saying it's
a terrorism investigation.
So that's the first
kind of question mark
that comes up.
And the list is here.
And these are the major
Muslim organizations
in America today.
So basically,
they thought all of these
mosques and charities
were just one big front,
cover for terrorism.
I mean, what's
the justification for this?
This is the order saying,
"In June of '98,
"we're gonna seize the assets
of an organization
and a person."
And one of the things
they seized
was the house I lived in,
so that's what's
whited out here.
Our upstairs neighbor
was the first American citizen
ever designated
a terrorist.
And we were the neighbors
living downstairs
from him at the time.
In a middle-class suburb
of Chicago,
living in this house,
a man the U.S. government calls
a designated
global terrorist.
His name, Muhammad Salah.
"NBC News"
caught him peering
out the window
this weekend.
That guy peering out
the window of his own house,
that's Abu Ahmad.
He's publicly known as
the first American citizen
ever put on
the terrorist watch list.
But I knew him best
as Ahmed's dad,
my bighearted
upstairs neighbor.
Abu Ahmad was a trusted man
in our community.
When there was a humanitarian
crisis in Palestine in the '90s,
our mosque sent him
to the West Bank
with thousands of dollars
in donations.
In the Israeli-occupied
West Bank today,
two American citizens
of Palestinian descent
are being held
without charge
in an Israeli
military prison.
While the government here
describes the two Chicagoans
as "agents" for
the fundamentalist group Hamas,
they have not been charged
with a crime,
nor have they been
allowed to see an attorney.
When he was arrested
by the Israelis,
accused of collecting money
for terrorism,
our community
took to the streets
to protest his arrest.
While in Israeli detention,
Abu Ahmad was tortured
and forced to sign
a confession in Hebrew,
a language he didn't speak.
The information collected
by Israeli agents
during interrogation was sent
to FBI agents in Chicago
and became one of
the foundations
for the Vulgar Betrayal
investigation.
Salah, a naturalized
U.S. citizen,
was convicted in Israel.
But after five years
in prison there,
he was allowed
to return to the U.S.
despite protests from
the lead FBI agent on the case
who says Salah
remains a threat.
He and a number of others
should've been arrested,
should've been behind bars,
should've had
their citizenship stripped,
should've been evicted
from this country.
Carrying his eight-year-old son
on his shoulders,
Muhammad Salah reacts
to a not guilty verdict
of aiding and funding
a terrorist organization.
I have to thank
my community
and the larger community.
It didn't matter
that Abu Ahmad
was found not guilty in court.
It didn't matter
that the government
eventually removed his name
from the terrorist watch list.
Once you're labeled
a terrorist,
that red paint
never really comes off.
Come on, Usama.
It's really hard to get
all of you together.
The Gummy Worms
will be here
to lure you to the table.
What's this? These are FBI documents.
So I found 1,000 pages
of declassified FBI documents... Mmm.
...about an investigation
they were doing in Chicago
in the '90s called
Operation Vulgar Betrayal.
Um, one of the most
interesting documents,
"Request for surveillance
"to verify home addresses
and employment.
"The agent anticipates
the interviews
"of approximately
500 individuals and leaders
"of many nonprofit
organizations
"throughout
the United States.
"Individuals who have
invested, contributed,
"and/or d-- donated money
"to the North American
Islamic Trust,
"ISNA, IARA, MAS,
or the Cultural Society
will be interviewed."
Literally any Muslim American
who's involved in a community.
Here's the list
of the people
that are gonna
be interviewed.
If there's an individual's name,
it's whited out.
There's our school.Straight up.
Our school is at
the top of the list.
So the next document--
and this I'm gonna need
Mama's help with.
"On June 9, 1998,
the assets of 'blank'
"were seized pursuant
to warrants based on
"civil forfeiture
complaint filed
in the United States court,
northern district of Illinois."
So on June 9, 1998,
we lived in that house
that was seized by the FBI, right? Yeah.
So, Mama, go ahead,
tell your story.
Uh, we were, I think, shopping,
something like this.
W-- we came,
and we-- we saw these bunch
of women and men in suits--
Were we in the car
with you?
I think, yeah.
I was, "What's going on?"
Like, I wasn't aware.
I was just say--
Your father's over there.
"FBI, FBI."
They were just
forcing the door,
something like this... The door of our apartment?
Of the building.
I was-- said,
"What they are doing?"
He said, "I think
they are taking over
the-- the building."
Your father told me,
he said...
Without...
Homeless.
Without-- homeless.
So we have to think about
having another apartment.
So this event,
which is documented
in these FBI documents,
basically led
to us living in this house.
♪♪
It's been weird
to find things
that directly relate
to our lives... Yeah.
...in these very bureaucratic
and administrative documents.
Look at that.That's so creepy.
That's so creepy.
What?
Blank.It's just like,
"'blank' has been
surveilled."
I wanna find out everywhere
that our name is on a list.
And there's way
to do that.
You can sign
this privacy waiver,
and I can submit it
to the FBI and tell them
anywhere your names exist
to release them.
All right, let's eat.
Yeah, let's eat.Yes!
So Mama was saying
that last, what,
a couple weeks ago,
she started seeing
a bunch of... cars.Bunch of what?
No, each time there is
something happening,
like a terrorist attack
or something?
You see-- you see
these people.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What, do they come
and knock on the doors
and interview people? No, no, no, no.
I see them in the car.
Wait, you're--
your doubtful?
You think
she's paranoid?
Does he have a hat
that says "FBI surveillance"?
No, no.
Usama-- Come on, guys.
What do you mean,
"come on, guys"?
What do you mean?
After everything
I just showed you
right now,
you're skeptical
that the FBI--
That was years ago.
No, that was
a month ago.
You think it ended? It's worse now,
it's open-ended.
How is it gonna end
when every other day--
do you read the news?
No.That's unconstitutional.
♪♪
He gave his name as Mr. Rose.
Several times,
he came.
And he-- he said that,
"I'm an FBI agent."
We don't think that
there's anything wrong.
So I feel fine.
I don't really worry
about being scared
or whatever.
I start seeing,
you know,
cars with no plate numbers.
No plate number.
Bed. Bed.
Bed.
Good boy.
That's not your bed.
Where you going?
Oh, you're so bad.
You're so bad.
Back to the FBI.
So I want to request information
about my family.
♪♪
I'm kinda nervous about giving
the FBI my e-mail.
I am making this request
on behalf of myself, right?
Okay, so I'm gonna...
ask them to give me
everything they have
on Vulgar Betrayal.
"All photographic,
video, and audio media
associated with
this investigation."
Invest-i-ga-tion.
All right,
first FOIA submitted.
Now for the rest.
There's Mosque Foundation
Bridgeview days.
Really?
Wow.
One year and three months.
How did you know
about the mosque?
Your dad was here
before me.
Al--He came when
he was young.
Yeah.
Like it was a temporary thing?
Yeah.
I was happy because
I was close to the mosque.
And, you know, I have a lot
of community around me.
Yeah.
Each family when they come,
we have to go
and welcome them and...
That's how it was?
Yeah.
If a lady, she's sick
or she had her babies,
we used to organize
ourself...
to cook for her,
to help her in the house.
Wow.
Yeah, because
they don't have
a family here.
So we are the family.
♪♪
In 1998, when my little brother
and the fifth kid
in our family was born,
my father decided that
we should move
to a bigger house
in Bridgeview.
While the new house
was being built,
my dad was diagnosed with
stage 3 colon cancer.
And a few months after
we moved in, he was gone.
I remember for weeks
after he died,
my house was full of
family friends and neighbors
cooking, and cleaning,
and keeping my mother company.
At my father's funeral,
hundreds of people
from around Chicago
came to the mosque.
The imam asked the community
to make a donation
in memory of my father
to help pay off the remainder
of our mortgage.
In less than an hour,
the community donated
more than $200,000.
We paid off our home.
And 19 years later,
we're still here.
It's really easy
for me to talk about
my family, my community,
but it's a lot harder
to talk about myself.
I feel like I can't even
begin to tell you who I am
without getting into
who I'm not.
I was ten years old
when I became aware
that everyone looks at us
like we're all
a bunch of terrorists.
It started with cartoons,
all the bad guys
in the movies
had accents like my parents.
I had to slit a few throats,
but I got it.
We kids were constantly
bombarded with images
of Arabs and Muslims
as radical,
backwards, violent villains.
Money is power.
And so I became aware
of how others see me,
and I learned how
not to come off to people.
Not a terrorist,
not an alien,
not a traitor.
Don't talk too loud
in Arabic at the mall,
don't argue with your parents
in public,
don't talk
with an accent,
don't fail in school,
don't ever break
the rules,
don't look un-American.
I am constantly juggling
within me two conflicting gazes.
How I see myself,
and how I see myself
through the eyes of others.
Through the eyes of a world
that views me
with suspicion and fear.
Some very exciting mail
arrived from
the U.S. Department of Justice,
Federal Bureau
of Investigation.
Three letters, to be exact.
I've been itching
to open them.
Anyway...
Oh, this is the FOIA for
Operation Vulgar Betrayal.
"You have not provided
a compelling argument
"explaining why the public
needs information
"on this subject matter
immediately.
Therefore,
your request is denied."
Okay, letter number two.
You see, the thin letters
are never good news.
It's like, you know,
when you apply to college.
When your app-- when you
get the big package,
you know you got
into the school.
When you get a little letter,
you know it's a rejection.
"This is in response
to your FOIA request--"
for my mom.
"In accordance
with FBI practice,
"this response neither
confirms nor denies
the existence of your subjects
name on any watch lists."
Okay.
This is really crazy.
So this is for my mom,
who was visited
on two separate occasions
by the FBI.
They came to the house,
they interviewed her,
they took notes,
and they left.
So... that is
definitely a record.
♪♪
"Dear Miss Boundaoui,
this is in response
"to your Freedom of
Information Act request.
"Based on the information
you provided,
"we conducted a search
of the records system.
"We were unable to identify
main file records
responsive to the FOIA."
"The mere acknowledgement
of such records
"existence or nonexistence
would, in and of itself,
"trigger harm
to national security.
"Please be advised that
unusual circumstances
applied to the processing
of your request.
"We were advised
that the records
"were not in their
expected location,
"and could not be located after
a reasonable search.
Therefore, we are closing
your request administratively."
It's amazing how many
different ways
they have sent me
rejection letters,
that they don't have things
that I know exist,
that I know are there.
♪♪
So two days ago,
I got a letter from the FBI.
You know, like these letters
that we've been getting lately.
"Dear Miss Boundaoui,
This is in reference
"to your Freedom of
Information Act request
"on Operation Vulgar Betrayal.
"The Federal Bureau
of Investigation
has located approximately
33,120 pages of records."
33,120 pages of records.
Just the amount of information
you have to collect about people
to get to 33,000
is enormous.
And knowing like,
the end result.
Knowing that these
33,000 pages of records
never resulted in convicting
anyone of terrorism?
It's shocking,
just the number.
I can't imagine what's
in this.
It's Election Day.
Millions of Americans
have voted already,
and millions more
are at the polls today.
An estimated 45 to 50 million
across the U.S.,
with 37 states
and the District of Columbia...
The end is finally in sight
to this especially
long and contentious
presidential election.
Mama, could I take
a selfie of us?
We just voted.Yeah.
Ugh, I don't want
to see your face,
you... you...
Who are you ta--I don't want to.
Who are you talking to? Trump.
We want to defeat you.
This is crazy.
"You come to this country,
"you abide by our laws
and our beliefs,
or you can go back
where you came from."
"Yep, and I plan on stocking
pork-coated ammo
"if any refugees
come near my state.
Not repeating Europe here!"
Oh, my God... You know what?
All of them--
Pork-coated...
They said they wanna
dip bullets in pork blood
and come kill us.
That's what they said.
No, I'm not responding
to them at all.
Yeah, because
they are just...
monster... Yeah, exactly.
Zero.You know what
I was saying?
What they're all
attacking me for saying?
Let me show you,
it's so funny.
I wrote,
"My Muslim vote."
That's the hashtag
everybody is using
if you're gonna vo--
"My Muslim vote
"is for empowerment
and taking a stand
"with fellow communities
of color to say we matter
and we will
make change."Yeah.
Okay...
They're going crazy.
They said leave if you
don't like our laws.
Leave, go back
where you came from.
Oh, yeah,
you go back to...
you go back.
Are you native? Yeah, exactly.
If you are native,
you stay. Yeah.
You have the right
to stay.
If you are not native,
you are immigrant.
♪♪
♪ Happy birthday to you ♪
♪ Happy birthday
to you ♪
♪ Happy birthday,
dear Nohah ♪
♪ Happy birthday to you ♪♪
Can you talk to me
a little bit about
the investigation, um,
that you worked on, the very large one?
The name of the investigation
was called Vulgar Betrayal,
do you remember that?
Of course,
how can I forget?
And, um... It's a curious name.
It was a curious name.
FBI always comes up
with very curious nicknames.
I don't know w--
they have a whole department
of people in DC
that do that.
Pretty dramatic, right?
But it was-- it was
an investigation
into how, um, money
was being laundered
through the United States
to support terrorist activity
in the Middle East.
And, um, there was...
an individual
who was targeted,
Muhammad Salah.
And he was ultimately
convicted of--
very, very minor offenses.
And I didn't try that case,
'cause I'd already left--
That's right,
you left in 2000.Yeah, yeah.
Okay, do you think that
this long investigation
was justified?
If there had been
crimes uncovered...
uh, or crimes prosecuted,
that would have been justified.
Um, if the reason
nothing ever came
of the investigation
because there was indeed
nothing there, then--
I mean, it's not a matter
of being justified.
The FBI...
declines cases
all the time--
or the U.S. Attorney's Office
declines cases all the time
'cause there's just
not enough evidence.
Um, but if your...
I think your question
is probably wanting
to go deeper in that.
A-- are you trying to say,
"Do you think
the investigation,
you know, was as a result
of Islamic phobia or prejudice?"
Excuse me. I-I do not.
That certainly
was not my worldview,
c-- certainly is not.
Um, and had I ever thought
that that was
what was happening,
I would've not
been part of it
'cause that is not,
obviously, who I am.
Maybe not so obvious,
but it isn't who I am.
I mean, if it's
a bigger question...
Yeah.
...which is there--
Is there Islamic phobia
in this country?
Of course there is.
I mean, there i--
In the FBI?
Well, I can't say that.
It wasn't the first time
that he's thought about
whether or not
it was justified.
Clearly he's thought
about that before.
And in fact,
he gave such--
kind of a dismissive
answer to it,
I feel like he knows
more than he was saying.
You know what is my problem?
I'm like,
"I'm gonna go in there
and I'm gonna be tough and
I'm gonna call this guy out."
But I'm really nice,
and it annoys me.
Maybe not too nice,
but too reserved.
Like you don't wanna
come off too strong.
Because I wanna be liked,
that's it.
I want them to like me,
I want them to be like,
"Oh, look at this
nice Muslim girl.
She speaks good English,
and she seems normal."
Like, honestly,
that's a part of it, too.
I kinda want them
to like me.
♪♪
To the families
and victims...
of September 11th,
on behalf of John Vincent,
Barry Carnaby,
and myself,
we're sorry.
♪♪
I heard that
there's a big case
called Vulgar Betrayal
in Chicago.
Just based on the little bit
that I know,
I'm sure there was
a legitimate reason
to start the case.
The expansion
was very questionable.
To expand to too many
other organizations--
anything with the name
"Islam" or "Muslims"
or "Islamic"
to be under it
was very questionable.
Who was Robert Wright
and how did he
see the world
from your encounters
with him?
Well, he-- he saw himself
as a hero
and a bigger figure.
Was it...
who he was or more?
I don't know.
He-- he thought that
all the Palestinians
were part of Hamas,
and they're all
against Israel.
And...
he-- he went on
that premise, okay?
He continued on this path
without vetting
what he's getting.
Hi, my name
is Assia Boundaoui.
I'm just calling back,
somebody from your offices
just gave me a call
about my FOIA request.
Um, he informed me that
the processing
for this FOIA will be,
um, over two years?
Can you-- can you send that
to me in a letter, please?
Because the letter--
Oh, my God.
This is weird,
they've never
called me before.
I'm like, "Can you
e-mail me this, please--"
Okay."That it's gonna
take three years."
He said "no."
I'm like,
"I need it in writing.
Can you put it in a letter?"
And he said "no."
That's strange, right? A little bit.
Well, not just a little bit.
It's pretty strange.
This feels,
to me, just like
slowing the whole process
down as is.
Yeah, I mean,
this is how bureaucracy
tends to be used
to kind of mitigate
against exposure.
Yeah.
That's what the federal courts
are there for at this point.
I think we need to
go ahead and sue them.
Okay.
We need to file the lawsuit.
Okay. I mean,
the complaint's ready, so...
Okay.
Fuck.
♪♪
A week after I moved
into this apartment
a few miles away
from my mom's house,
the City of Chicago put up
a speed bump
right in front of my door.
Right away,
I suspected it had
something to do with
surveillance.
You know, so cars
could have an excuse
to slow down just as they
passed my living room windows.
I'm aware that
this sounds crazy.
When I was a teenager,
one of my good friends
started talking about being
followed around
all the time
by men in cars.
Of course we all believed her,
because it was happening
all around us.
A couple of years later,
she had a psychotic break
and was diagnosed
with schizophrenia.
It has weighed on me
for years
that we were all so paranoid
we couldn't even see
that she was sick,
that this was madness.
The line between
what's real and what's not
is really blurry in the place
that I grew up.
And that gray area between
paranoia and the truth
is a dangerous place.
Department of Justice
basically confirmed
that there are 500 files
on individual people
in these 33,000 documents.
And that I can't
have access to them...
You can't--Unless I have people
sign privacy waivers.
I wanna join forces to get
as many people as possible
to sign privacy waivers
so we can flood the courts
with these waivers and say,
"Ha, anywhere that you see
such-and-such person's name,
"we want their file
and we want
their name unredacted
in the documents."
It's a tough conversation.
To approach community members
who are not active...
Mm-hmm.
...who are not in this field,
Who don't have like,
a clear understanding... Yeah, yeah.
...and are conscious
of FBI surveillance
and repression.
Yeah.
It's gonna be
a hard conversation.
I mean--
But let's not forget
that these visits
did not stop.
No, they haven't.
They haven't.
The last time--I told you the other day,
I was visited.
Another prominent person
in the community was visited.
An organizer.
When? When?
I would say about
two months ago.
They knocked
on your door?
They knocked on
my family's door.
At home?
Yeah.
And they asked
for you by name?
Yeah, and they had
pictures.
Oh, wow.And what did
they ask you?
I mean, they-- they
spoke to my mother.
But my mother
knows what to do.
Mm-hmm.She goes, "I'm sorry,
I can't talk to you.
"Leave your card,
leave your name.
His lawyer will call you."
I think the community,
believe it or not,
is ready to come out there.
The younger generation...
Yeah, I think so too.... Arab Americans are ready
to come out
and say stop this terror,
stop this violation,
stop this hate.
I mean, correct me
if I'm wrong.
But I don't know,
I feel like my age--
our age generation is stronger
than our parents'.
Yeah. I think like,
we've been ready
since day one,
but now like,
with Sessions'
Department of Justice.Yeah.
With Trump in the White House.Yeah.
Like, that has an impact
on the community
whether we like it or not.Oh, absolutely.
Our community's living in fear.
Yeah, yeah.
So i-- it's a very
sensitive topic,
but I think
it could be done.
All right,
let's do this.
♪♪
I am suing the FBI
for information
about surveillance,
about Bridgeview.
And I need as many people
as possible to sign
privacy waivers so
if the FBI has a file on them,
they will release it.
So we're going
door-to-door
trying to get people
to sign these forms.
♪♪
Basically,
the FBI told us
they have 500
individual records
on people in our community.
♪♪
So we have a law firm
representing us
for the lawsuit.
One of the biggest
law firms in New York
that took on this case
because they believe
our community
has a right to know.
♪♪
I tried to explain this
to my mom yesterday.
And she was just like--Confused.
"We left Algeria
because of the police,
now we're gonna come here
'cause of the police."
Yeah, exactly.She's like,
"Don't get involved."
Oh, that's so funny.
Yeah.
So it's like
a cultural mentality
that we're really
trying to change,
'cause that's a lot
of people's mind-set
is that like,
"Don't get involved,
keep your head ducked down,
and that will keep you safe."
But we know staying quiet
actually hasn't
kept anyone safe
in this community.
Hi!
Good to see you.
Good to see you.
Give me a hug.How're you doing?
This'll actually be really
straightforward, I think.
Okay, cool.I think the judge
is gonna kind of say,
you know, "Have you
come to any agreement?"
And we're gonna say "no,
and this is
what's happened."Yeah.
And it'll be nice to meet him,
and it's good for him
to kind of... see you.Okay, yeah, cool.
Yeah, it'll be good.Yeah, so--
A few people will come.
It's a status hearing,
so they know it'll be short.
Yeah.
But maybe a handful of people
from the community
will show up?
So we'll see, yeah.Great, great.
That's excellent.
♪♪
Good morning, Your Honor.
This is Alexa Poletto
for Assia Boundaoui,
the plaintiff.
One year ago, my client,
who is a journalist,
submitted this FOIA request
to the government
asking for information
which is very much
in the public interest.
This request was denied
by the government.
One year later, we don't
have a document in hand.
The FBI currently has
the Russian investigation,
James Comey, other things
that are headline news.
"Headlines" doesn't
cut it for me
as being more important
than a request
from a citizen
for documents.
Today, my real interest
is having the government
compelled to a schedule
to produce documents.
The standard
the FBI uses
is review 500 pages,
and processing them
on a monthly basis.
I don't think
500 pages per month
is going to be acceptable
in this case
for a FOIA request
that's been pending
since September
of last year.
Absent something telling me
I can't do it,
I'm going to order processing
at a faster rate
than has occurred.
I don't think we need
to discuss this more.
I'll have you back
next week.
I think Muslim Americans
are aware of the threat
of increased...
As racist groups
of the past
have gotten new life,
like it or not, from Trump.
An Islamic center
in Houston, Texas
burns down in a fire
still under investigation.
You have individuals
who are driven to act
on their prejudices
and take it out on women
who visibly appear
to be Muslim.
♪♪
Wow. Look.
"Google may have detected
government-backed attackers
trying to steal your password."
I clicked on
the "Learn More,"
and this popped up.
That's really frightening.
This is all--
all of it is hard.
Suddenly it becomes hard
to communicate.
It's interesting.
Once you're under investigation,
it's not that you're--
you stop talking to people
because you don't trust them,
it's because you're afraid
that any f-- like, medium of
communication is being watched.
And so nothing
is secure anymore,
and so you keep to yours--
I mean, the idea--
like, you become alienated,
you can't talk to people
about what the fuck
is going on.
You can't even get
the help that you need
because you're afraid.
So one thing I did
that was proactive
other than freaking out
was I e-mailed
that woman
at the Freedom of
the Press Foundation,
Harlo, and I took screenshots
of all those things.
And I was like...
"Is this legit?
Because the URL looks legit.
Is it legit? And if it is,
like, what should I do?"
And she responded
this morning and she said,
"Google has methods
of detecting
"this type of attacks
on people's accounts.
"And for some reason,
a lot of alerts
have been going out
to people this past week."
So I am going
to my mother's house
to sleep over for the night.
And, uh, been having
to find a way
to hide all my shit
whenever I leave the house
because I'm afraid
that someone might
break into the house,
whoever it is
that's watching me,
and steal my hard drives
for the film.
So every time
I leave the house now,
I hide the stuff.
♪♪
Apparently there was
a robbery nearby,
and there's three me--
or two men on the loose.
They already caught one,
two more waiting to be caught.
So all of our parents
are stuck in the mosques
and they can't get out till
the other two are caught.
Your house?
No, no, Assia.
Please, please.
Assia, please.
Please...
What are you hearing
about what happened?
The lockdown?
I heard that it
was an FBI sting
that went wrong.
Shh.
Warrants.
So let me-- okay,
so that's your theory.
Here's what--
we're sitting with
one of our neighbors yesterday,
and she was saying that
they told us that this
was a sting or bank robbers.
But this was actually
a test run...
...to see how
Bridgeview reacts?
And she said if it was really
people with assault rifles
that were in our
neighborhood loose,
why wasn't there
a single ambulance? Yeah, exactly.
Why wasn't there
a single fire truck?
Don't you have
EMTs waiting?
There are three guys loose
with assault rifles
in the neighborhood,
not a single ambulance.
Also, if there was
no coordination,
why exactly when
it happened we had
seven police departments'
cars here?
How did they
show up so quick?
How was there a-- a tank
rolling down
in front of the mosque?
Many times.Many times.
The next day
in the press,
they said this was
not a bank robbery.
So they told us it was
a bank robbery on the day of,
and the next day
they denied it.
They said there
was no bank robbed.
W-- what?
They said,
"We refuse to say why."
See?
That means this--
what we thought
was true.
I received, yesterday,
a motion for
an Open America stay
seeking essentially to stay
any production
or at least delay it.
The period
was some 64 months.
We tried to negotiate
with the government
again this week,
and were informed immediately
that they would not be entering
into any discussions with us.
We discussed it
with the FBI
at the highest level,
and they felt
that they could not
do anything more.
It's a fairly
extraordinary request,
going from saying
it will take three years
and now requesting essentially
a five-year timetable.
This is an old
criminal investigation,
and there's just
no justification for that.
This is a very serious issue
that is very pertinent today
to very many Americans.
My client is entitled
to expedited processing.
Whether the FBI thinks
that it's a nuisance to have
to respond to this,
it's still the federal law.
I can't change that,
you can't change that,
and you can't ignore the law.
Next Tuesday
you'll get a ruling.
My name is Assia Boundaoui.
I'm a researcher
and a journalist,
and I actually grew up
in this community
just a few blocks away
from the mosque here.
I just wanna begin
by saying that,
um, I believe strongly
that a healthy relationship
between law enforcement,
government, and our community
has to be one
that's predicated
on trust and transparency.
For the past few years,
I've been digging
into the long,
wide-reaching investigation
of this Muslim community.
These investigations
profiled entire communities
based on ethnicity
and religion,
and used a really
broad brush to paint
law-abiding American citizens
as suspect.
These might have
happened in the past,
but people are still
living with the effects
of these long-term
investigations.
They've caused, um,
profound impacts
on our community.
Um, and one of them,
one that aught
to be of concern
to government institutions
is the lack of trust
in law enforcement.
We did a survey
a couple years ago.
40 % of residents
around this mosque here
have received visits
from the FBI.
And so after every
terrorist attack
in Paris, in Boston,
people get visits around here.
And right before
the elections,
many people
in this neighborhood
received knocks
on their doors,
asked a number
of questions about
political affiliations,
et cetera.
Say we brought that to you,
what would--
what are the steps
internally within the FBI
that you would take
to address
what we would consider
maybe a civil rights concern?
Tha-- that's exactly
what happened.
We-- I actually
have it documented.
They have--
we have cards,
business cards that
they handed out.
I'm telling you
it actually happened.
Mm-hmm.
Right before the election,
so we--
That was in November.
I mean, these are just
like, things that people
in the community have--
have talked about--
If something happens
to you and you needed--
the FBI is your champion.
So at one time,
he is your savior.
And another time,
he is your
Halloween nightmare.
No, I mean,
you have to--
that's the kind of education
we need to tell people.
It's gonna continue
to take education...
♪♪
He is part of the group
of community leaders we have
that thinks just saying,
you know...
just being "yes men"
to the FBI, and law enforcement,
and local politicians is the way
to get a seat at the table.
The whole point of having
a seat at a table
is to advocate
on behalf of the community.
You know? It's to like--
it's to make sure
our community's
rights are protected
and our interests
are being served.
Otherwise, what the fuck
is the point of having
a seat at the table?
♪♪
It's so hard.
The hardest part is
dealing with this community
that's not even fighting
against the FBI...
What's the point?
They're treating me
like I'm their enemy.
Like, I have to fight them
to do this.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Hello?
What happened?
Oh, my God.
You don't ask him,
"Who are you"?
Mama!
Okay, I just
took a picture.
I'm sending it to
your WhatsApp.
Look a-- look at it
and tell me if that's him.
I mean, this picture
is about
maybe 12 years old.
Oh, my God,
I'm so scared!
He's Robert Wright,
the FBI agent
who started
Vulgar Betrayal.
Oh...
What's that?
Say that again?
I missed that.
Yeah...
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah, I usually record
all of my phone calls.
Um, but if you
opt out of that,
I don't have to do that.
Okay, okay.
I cannot record you.
I hung up with
Bob 20 minutes later.
He talked and talked,
but didn't say
very much at all.
The most illuminating part
of the conversation
was when he told me
he had a job to do,
and me and my neighbors
had a job to do.
We're the bad guys
doing our bad guy jobs,
and he's the good guy doing
his good guy job
of keeping America
safe from us.
I thought as
a good journalist,
I should try and see
if Bob would be a source.
I reached out
for an interview,
but when he didn't
answer my text
I immediately stopped trying.
There's no way for me here
to separate the personal
and the professional.
The truth is I don't want
anything to do with this guy,
and I don't care if that
makes me a bad journalist.
Can you move it
back a little?
That's pretty good, though.
We can see the whole walkway.
We can see the cars.
Yeah.
But the front door,
a little more
of the front door,
we wanna be able to see.
Move it back.
Any more of the front door,
it'll just be that dark.
Back a little more?
That's perfect.
I know...
I don't know.
I don't know.
When I called him,
he said,
"Did I scare your mom?"
Was that your goal? Were you trying
to scare her?
Yeah, is it you--
yeah, is it your goal?
What do you think?
And he laughed.
So what came out
of your phone call?
I was trying very hard
to sound very cool, calm,
and collected on the phone--
This was all
by the phone? Yeah, and not scared.
But I was really shook.
I was super shook.
I was really-- I know
I have no reason to be afraid,
but I was really afraid.
Like, why is
he coming t--
he knows where we live,
he knows who my mom is,
he knows what her face is.
Because he had been--
He sauntered into
the neighborhood like,
"Oh, yeah, my old
stomping grounds."
Like, that makes me so mad.
What's the purpose? Mm-hmm.
Why he's here?
Yeah, well, I still don't have
an answer for any of that.
♪♪
Before the court
is plaintiff's motion
that compel expedited
processing of her request
for FBI records concerning
the anti-terrorism operation
Vulgar Betrayal.
Plaintiff is informing
the public of the FBI's
alleged profiling
and surveillance
of communities based on race,
religion, and ethnicity.
In particular, the Arab-American
community in Bridgeview.
Significant questions
about privacy rights
are implicated by
the plaintiff's project.
The court finds
that the anticipated
five-year timeline
for production
is patently unreasonable,
and plaintiff is entitled
to expedited processing.
The court orders
the defendants to review
3,500 pages per month,
and give priority
to the subfiles of individuals
for whom plaintiff
provides privacy waivers.
I'm very happy, you guys.
I'm so happy.
We couldn't have
expected--
we couldn't have asked
for anything better.
Can we do like
a, you know,
jumping in the air
and the kicking thing now?
You get arrested...
♪♪
Nobody would like to be
the target of
a government program
called Operation
Vulgar Betrayal.
Assia Boundaoui grew up
in Bridgeview,
and she's now uncovering
what happened there
in the '90s.
You've been having some
interesting encounters
with the government,
trying to get files
from the government.
Um, wha-- how did
that spiel out?
Because you ended up with
an enormous volume
of documents.
3,500 pages a month.
Which is setting a really
important FOIA precedent,
in fact,
in FOIA litigation
that, you know,
that you--
if this is in
the public interest
and you can prove this serves a public interest,
that the government
has to release.
And so the whole idea
of this entire project,
this entire mission,
was to shine a light
on something that's been
secret for such a long time.
When you won
your court case,
did people make
a big deal out of that?
Is th-- is that a big--
I mean,
'cause it seems like
it would be almost
national news.
I mean,
we were very excited.
We were super excited
about it.
The community
was really excited.
I-I think they were
really surprised.
I think they didn't think
you go up
against the government
and win.
And that's a very interesting thing,
by the way.
The FOIA law is very unique
to the United States.
You know, that while
the government can
conduct this surveillance
and can violate
your privacy
and freedom of association,
freedom of religion,
you also have the right
to know that they do that.
You know? And that's
an incredible thing
about this democracy is
you have the right to know,
and you can get the records
of them violating your rights.
This is the first batch.
It looks like,
in terms of redacting,
like they redacted
as much as they--Heavy-handed.
Heavy-handed.Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
but, um, we can--
I think we'll be able
to glean some things out of this.
Okay.
♪♪
This paper here
says in 1989,
the FBI field office
in Indianapolis
opened an investigation
on the Islamic Trust,
and then closed it.
I mean, this is
really interesting.
I had no idea that there
was an investigation
on the same topic
before Vulgar Betrayal.
♪♪
Pending questions
and answers.
What were the tactics used
in Vulgar Betrayal?
Informants.
Culling informants
from the community.
Sending FBI agents
to people's houses
and places of work.
Use of immigration
officers
during FBI interviews.
They monitored phone calls,
and they monitored
who you're sending it to.
♪♪
Chicago FBI field office
sends out requests
to like 20-some other
FBI field offices
asking them, get information
on this person,
get information on
this organization.
Here's one from Louisiana.
And they're like,
"We can't find anything."
"That he doesn't believe
there is sufficient evidence
of asset forfeiture."
Again, one from Denver.
No response.
"In the future,
Springfield requests
"that Chicago articulate
the reasonable belief
"that each named person
is engaged in criminal activity
in support of
international terrorism."
The things that they found
as suspicious about us
are actually the things
that are most important
characteristics of our community.
Yeah.
We're very philanthropic,
and we're connected
to each other.
♪♪
I always thought that
paranoia is an effect
of the investigative tactics
that they used.
The way they did
the investigation
caused us to be paranoid.
But what if-- what if some
of these things are reversed?
It's not that this
is the cause
and that's the effect,
what if this
was the purpose?
Based on historically
how the FBI
has dealt with
communities of color,
it's not a stretch
of the imagination to say
their surveillance methods
created paranoia.
But in fact,
they wanted to create paranoia
within the Muslim community.
Shake the cage,
rattle the cage
and see what comes out.Right.
And they thought there
were terrorists there,
so that if they put enough
heat and pressure on us,
they would come out
of the woodworks
and they would catch them
on a phone call
or whatever
when they did.
But w-- when you
rattle a cage
and there aren't
any criminals crawling out,
what does that do
to the people
in the cage,
you know?
♪♪
♪♪
Everybody in this room knows
exactly what we're
talking about
when we're talking
about the increase
in surveillance
in the community,
increase in this presumption
that the community
is something of a threat.
That started from Operation
Vulgar Betrayal in the '90s
and that informed not
just methods of investigation,
but also legislation
that was enacted post-9/11.
Law enforcement
and the FBI in particular
feel like they can roll
into our community
and kind of do
whatever they want.
We want to send the message
that no, they can't.
And we do that
by reporting
every single time
they come.
Checks and balances
starts with people.
Um, the balance
are the courts and Congress.
The check is the people.
As long as we're scared,
and we hide, and we say,
"Talking about it somehow
makes us more of a target,"
it actually plays into the entire secrecy of the whole game.
As long as people
are afraid to talk,
then there is no check
against the system.
We cannot be asleep
any longer.
This is our country.
I wanna raise my boys
to be proud of who they are
as Arab, as Muslims,
as Palestinians,
and as Americans.
Whether you are
a citizen born here
or a citizen
naturalized,
or an immigrant,
don't feel that you are
less of a citizen
than the white man.
They definitely
understand the fears
that our immigrant communities
come to this country with.
They know we wanna
invite them in
to have a cup of tea
or coffee
and prove to them that
we're great American citizens.
And I just wanna say...
It's very simple,
do not invite them
into your home.
♪♪
A 20-minute drive
from my mom's house
is the only panopticon prison
ever built in the U.S.
The panopticon
is designed to ensure
that the prisoner is seen
without ever seeing,
and that the guards
see everything
without ever being seen.
The prisoners feel like
they are under
such constant surveillance that
they change their own behavior.
Their paranoia becomes
as effective a tool of control
as actual surveillance.
They become silent,
docile, alienated.
I still don't know for
a fact whether the FBI
has ever stopped
watching us,
and perhaps there's nothing that
I can do about being watched.
Maybe the only thing
I can do is make sure
that the government
is not invisible,
that the systems of power
are kept in check.
It's in the act
of looking back
and talking out loud that
we become less alienated,
less petrified by
our paranoia.
Perhaps the only way
to disrupt surveillance
is to make sure that those
who do the watching
are also being watched.
♪♪