The Los Angeles Police Department has dropped its plan to map L.A.'s Muslim community as part of its counter-terrorism strategy.
The ACLU/SC raised serious questions about the surveillance plan, which a senior LAPD official announced in a Congressional hearing. The official said Muslim Americans could become suspects based on their exposure to certain religious teachings, instability in their countries of origin, and where they get their news.
The LAPD said it was shelving the plan at a Nov. 15 meeting with the ACLU/SC and groups representing Muslim Americans.
The ACLU/SC voiced doubts about the proposal because of the message it sent to Muslim Americans, and because of the LAPD's history of intelligence gathering on groups based on their political beliefs. "Police can and should be engaged with the communities they are policing, but that engagement can't be a mask for intelligence gathering," the ACLU/SC's Peter Bibring told a reporter.
The ACLU/SC believes community-based policing should be based on face-to-face contact with L.A.'s communities, not mapping. Consulting with Muslim Americans and civil rights groups would have alerted the LAPD to problems with the plan.
The ACLU/SC has filed a Public Records Act request seeking any documents relating to the mapping plan to make sure that it does not return by another name.

The ACLU of Southern California, working attorneys from the National Lawyers Guild and the Center for Constitutional Rights, helped secure a victory in one of the nation's longest running and controversial deportation cases when federal immigration officials dismissed all charges against Khader Hamide and Michel Shehadeh, two members of the 'LA 8' prosecuted for over 20 years for their political beliefs.

This case, which tested whether immigrants have the same First Amendment rights as citizens, began in 1987, when a group of seven Palestinian men and one woman from Kenya were accused of having ties to a faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Members participated in activities such as distributing newspapers, protesting in demonstrations and organizing humanitarian aid fundraisers for Palestinians in the Middle East. Though these are activities protected by the First Amendment, the government decided they were grounds for deportation. Using a Cold War-era law, the government launched a relentless deportation campaign against the group, who became known as the 'LA 8'.

'My family and I feel a tremendous amount of relief today,' said Hamide. 'After 20 years, the nightmare is finally over. I feel vindicated at long last. This is a victory not only for us, but for the First Amendment of the Constitution and for the rights of all immigrants.'