The government actively recruits Muslim Americans to police their own communities for extremism.

Evidence

In addition to state surveillance and citizen surveillance, Muslim Americans are participating in self-surveillance. While some of this is a response to the surveillance they encounter, the state has also encouraged this practice. In 2014, President Obama unveiled a new program by the Department of Homeland Security called Countering Violent Extremism (CVE). The DHS website outlines the scope of the program, which includes understanding violent extremism, supporting communities that might be vulnerable to extremist ideologies, helping these communities to resist recruitment, and assisting local law enforcement in their efforts to prevent another terrorist attack in the United States. This program encourages Muslim Americans to surveil members of their own communities who may appear suspicious and report them to the government. … According to Germain, who is now a fellow for the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, right-wing antigovernment groups commit the majority of politically motivated violent acts in the United States, not Muslims: “Focusing almost exclusively on Muslims, he added, ‘reinforces the false perception that extremist violence is primarily a Muslim problem when the facts show that is not true’” (Bender 2015). — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 62

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: Connects to the COINTELPRO/community-informant dynamics cited in the reader’s guiding questions (Beydoun, Bazian).
• SEED: Angle: the CVE program as contemporary COINTELPRO-style community self-policing — a direct US analogue for the Global Racial Enemy framework.

Related

• The CVE program uniquely recruits Muslims as security-state agents. (similarity 0.88)
• The federal state actively recruits Muslims and social workers to self-police for extremism (similarity 0.86)
• The USA PATRIOT Act produced the surveillance society that made Muslim bodies constantly monitored (similarity 0.85)
• FBI surveillance drives Muslim congregations to self-police and Americanize (similarity 0.84)
• Civil rights groups argue CVE perpetuates Muslim stereotypes rather than preventing extremism (similarity 0.84)
• Obama-era CVE formally asked Muslim communities to police their own members for extremism. (similarity 0.83)
• State surveillance escalates with how visibly Muslim a person is (similarity 0.82)
• Surveillance is reproduced horizontally as Muslims police one another too (similarity 0.82)
• CVE engagement localized the Muslim-terrorism presumption on police and communities (similarity 0.82)
• CVE policing rewards compliant Muslims and suspects critical ones (similarity 0.82)
• Racialized surveillance gets internalized by Muslim American children as self-discipline (similarity 0.82)
• Muslim American men self-silence politically out of fear of surveillance (similarity 0.82)
• No US religious community endures such simultaneous embrace and surveillance (similarity 0.82)
• Private citizens surveil Muslim religious practice as a threat to American values. (similarity 0.82)
• The US government surveils Muslim civil rights organizations meant to protect Muslim liberties (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• FBI surveillance drives Muslim congregations to self-police and Americanize #expands (0.70) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 684
• Most surveilled Muslim Americans respond with self-discipline rather than resistance #expands (0.60) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 240
• Surveilled Muslim Americans internalize the state gaze through self-censure and modified dress #expands (0.60) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 86
• Private citizens surveil Muslim religious practice as a threat to American values. #complicates (0.50) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 247
• Airports function as panopticons where Muslim Americans self-police ordinary behaviors. #expands (0.50) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 323
• Surveillance leads Muslims to police their own actions and dress #expands (0.50) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 157
• Hypersurveillance itself is the mechanism that racializes Muslim Americans #expands (0.50) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 470
• State surveillance policies push Muslims to strengthen a targeted identity #complicates (0.40) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 137
• Class privilege does not shield Muslim Americans from racialized surveillance #expands (0.40) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 473
• The surveillance gaze denies Muslim Americans the psychological privileges of citizenship #complicates (0.40) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 272
• Majorities of Americans approved of Muslim surveillance even while holding positive views of Islam. #contradicts (0.30) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 64
• Substantial minorities of Americans endorse curtailing Muslim civil liberties #corroborates (0.30) — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 756