Exclusive Report: Secret Nuclear Monitoring Targeted U.S. Muslims

WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- An exclusive U.S.News & World Report
investigation reveals that since 9/11, the federal government has run a far-
reaching, top secret program to monitor radiation levels at Muslim sites
around the country in search of a terrorist nuclear bomb. The investigation
was headed and written by Chief Investigative Correspondent, David E. Kaplan,
who specializes in covering terrorism, organized crime, and intelligence for
the magazine. The breaking story is posted online at:
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/nest/051222nest.htm

U.S.News reports that the controversial program began in early 2002 and
has been run by the FBI and the Department of Energy's Nuclear Emergency
Support Team (NEST). At its peak, the effort involved monitoring 120 sites in
Washington DC per day, nearly all of them Muslim. Sites monitored included
mosques, homes, businesses and warehouses, as well as similar sites in at
least five other cities when threat levels there have risen: Chicago, Detroit,
Las Vegas, New York, and Seattle. Officials conducted daily monitoring for
some ten months and have resumed daily checks during periods of high threat.

In numerous cases, the monitoring required that investigators go onto the
property under surveillance without search warrants or court orders. The
issue of search warrants is controversial; federal officials who are familiar
with the program maintain that warrants are unnecessary for the operation's
radiation sampling while some legal scholars disagree, citing the intrusion on
private homes and offices.

Among those said to be briefed on the program were Vice President Cheney
and Michael Brown, then-director of the Federal Emergency Management
Administration. Most of the staff for the monitoring came from the NEST.



SOURCE U.S.News & World Report