The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a high-profile case of surveillance of Muslims.

A previously reported case in 2011 in which the plaintiffs alleged that the US government abused powers over national security for years. At the same time, due to the notorious secrecy, Muslims could not provide evidence in courts of FBI surveillance of them and their religious life, which was very convenient for the special services. The plaintiffs were the imam of one of the Californian mosques Yassir Fazagha and parishioners Ali Uddin Malik and Yassir Abdelrahim.

The lawsuit referred to secret informant Craig Monteil, who in 2006-2007 came to mosques in California and pretended to be a member of the Muslim community. The FBI admitted that Monteil was the informant. A group of Muslims have been seeking the removal of voice and video recordings of surveillance of them from the security services for many years and reached the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court unanimously overturned a 2019 ruling by a lower court that questioned the primacy of secrecy over the rights of the Muslim community and returned the case to the lower court, bbabo.net reports citing AlJazeera.

“We are disappointed that the court did not recognize the fact that the supremacy of state secrets was refuted [by another normative act], but we are encouraged that the court stopped there and left the issue open – liability in this case can still be incurred,” said lawyer Brian Frazel, who supported Muslims in their suit.

Thus, the Supreme Court refused to take the side of the religious minority and left the FBI a chance to "get out" of the delicate situation.

bbabo.Net