Surveillance and indefinite detention techniques were first tested on Arab-Americans.

Evidence

But each of them has been used before the “war on terror” on certain members of the Arab-American community, as the United States sought to impose its will over the Arab region. What we are currently living through is the slow creep of imperial high-handedness into the rest of American society, performed in the name of national security and facilitated through the growth of racist policies. This fact alone menaces the foundations of American society far beyond what has happened to Araband Muslim-American communities. “It is indeed a nemesis of Imperialism,” writes Hobson, “that the arts and crafts of tyranny, acquired and exercised in our unfree Empire, should be turned against our liberties at home.” — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 992

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘tested first on the marginalized’ pattern parallels the knowledge base theme of marginal populations as early-warning sites. — connects to: Reagan-era DOJ drew up internment-camp plans for Arab Americans — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 544; COINTELPRO surveillance methods were redeployed to racialize Arab Americans as terrorists — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 249