Homeland Security gathers info on arabs

[Subversive Pessimist]

EPIC has obtained heavily redacted documents through the Freedom of Information Act revealing that the Census Bureau provided the Department of Homeland Security statistical data on people who identified themselves on the 2000 census as being of Arab ancestry. There is no indication that the agency requested similar information about any other ethnic group. During World War II, the Census Bureau provided statistical information to help the War Department round up more than 120,000 innocent Japanese Americans and confine them to internment camps [Also known as concentration camps - Strawberry].
http://www.epic.org /


Freedom of Information Documents on the Census
Department of Homeland Security Obtained Data
on Arab Americans From Census Bureau

EPIC has obtained documents revealing that the Census Bureau provided the Department of Homeland Security statistical data on people who identified themselves on the 2000 census as being of Arab ancestry. The special tabulations were prepared specifically for the law enforcement agency. There is no indication that the Department of Homeland Security requested similar information about any other ethnic groups. The tabulations apparently include information about United States citizens, as well as individuals of Arab descent whose families have lived in the United States for generations.

One tabulation shows cities with populations of 10,000 or more and with 1,000 or more people who indicated they are of Arab ancestry. For each city, the tabulation provides total population, population of Arab ancestry, and percent of the total population which is of Arab ancestry.

A second tabulation, more than a thousand pages long, shows the number of census responses indicating Arab ancestry in certain zip codes in Puerto Rico, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire. The responses indicating Arab ancestry are subdivided into Egyptian, Iraqi, Jordanian, Lebanese, Moroccan, Palestinian, Syrian, Arab/Arabic, and Other Arab.

The heavily redacted documents show that in April 2004, a Census Bureau analyst e-mailed a Department of Homeland Security official and said, "You got a file of Arab ancestry information by ZIP Code Tabulation Area from me last December (2003). My superiors are now asking questions about the usage of that data, given the sensitivity of different data requests we have received about the Arab population."

The same day, a Department of Homeland Security Customs and Border Protection official e-mailed the analyst to explain, "At U.S. International airports, U.S. Customs posts signage informing various nationalities of the U.S. Customs regulations to report currency brought into the US upon entry . . . . My reason for asking for U.S. demographic data is to aid the Outbound Passenger Program Officer in identifying which language of signage, based on U.S. ethnic nationality population, would be best to post at the major International airports."

http://www.epic.org/privacy/census/foia/default.html


When will the "vacation camps" come for muslims in America?

Also read:

Israel extends its anti-arab law (http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=2765)

[Colombia]

If you have just been attacked from Arabs within the country what exactly do you expect the US government to do?

[Sabocat]

Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2004, 06:52 AM
If you have just been attacked from Arabs within the country what exactly do you expect the US government to do?
That's the same rhetorical bullshit that they said when they rounded up all the West Coast Japanese from their homes and interred them in the U.S. concentration camps during WW2. It was wrong then, and it's wrong now.

Did they collect information from the census bureau on all the white people in the U.S. when Timothy McVeigh bombed the federal building in Oklahoma?

[h&s]

If you have just been attacked from Arabs within the country what exactly do you expect the US government to do?
Isn't that a bit of a racist attitude?

[Colombia]

Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2004, 12:43 PM
That's the same rhetorical bullshit that they said when they rounded up all the West Coast Japanese from their homes and interred them in the U.S. concentration camps during WW2. It was wrong then, and it's wrong now.

Did they collect information from the census bureau on all the white people in the U.S. when Timothy McVeigh bombed the federal building in Oklahoma?
You don't see them rounding up Arabs now do you?

Seeing that the US is pretty much all white I don't see any point to having a census like that.

Hammer it is not racist but really just common sense.

[Sabocat]

You don't see them rounding up Arabs now do you?

No, the U.S. would never do anything like that. :blink:

Post-9/11 Immigrant Roundup Backfired - Report

Jim Lobe

Measures take by the U.S. administration against Arab and Muslim immigrants after the Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against New York and the Pentagon have not only failed to protect U.S. security, but may have made it more vulnerable, according to a major report released here Thursday.

WASHINGTON, Jun 26 (IPS) - Measures take by the U.S. administration against Arab and Muslim immigrants after the Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against New York and the Pentagon have not only failed to protect U.S. security, but may have made it more vulnerable, according to a major report released here Thursday.

The round-up and detention of more than 1,200 immigrants after the attacks were particularly abusive, says the report by the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute (MPI) an influential think tank.

Link (http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=19000)



Seeing that the US is pretty much all white I don't see any point to having a census like that.

Thanks for making my point for me about the U.S'. racism against people of color.
White people can commit crimes and not have information collected, no matter how dispicable, but good luck if you're a person of color.

[refuse_resist]

Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2004, 01:55 PM
You don't see them rounding up Arabs now do you?

Seeing that the US is pretty much all white I don't see any point to having a census like that.

Hammer it is not racist but really just common sense.
Where have you been?

Haven't you heard of the Patriot Act?

You obviously aren't aware of what's going on all around this country on a regular basis when it comes to racial profiling of people of Middle Eastern decent. I live in the Afghan capital of the country which has been nicknamed "Little Kabul". The authorities constantly watch over them, while many other ordinary people remain suspicious about anyone of Middle Eastern ancestry. It's really sad what's happening here.