This is also possibly the least well-documented phenomenon in the racializing of Arabs and Muslims leading to the widespread acceptance of profiling and related loss of civil liberties." (2002) The work of Nicole J. Henderson (2001) entitled: "Law Enforcement & Arab-American Community Relations After September 11, 2001" reports a study in which Arabs living in the United States were interviewed. Henderson reports that when asked about hate crimes "...community respondents across sites mentioned fear of government policies, at times equating the detention of Arab men and special registration with hate crimes. Another leader felt that "before 9/11, there were always questions of bias from people -- from individuals -- but not ever about the government and the police." A business leader commented in response to whether or not hate crimes were a problem in his community, "Now we're dealing with another prejudice. Right now, this is a very serious problem because I believe that 25% of the hate crimes are coming from government." He continued by saying, "Some of the investigations being done are wrong, and if the Justice Department looked into this, they would not approve of it." Finally, another business leader explained, 'The community is concerned about civil liberties, first and foremost. We are concerned about the attacks on those liberties. We're not so much concerned with issues in everyday life with neighbors -- racism, etc. -- because racism has always been there." (Henderson, 2001) Henderson further reports that in a report published by the FBI Behavioral Unit in 2002 along with the American Psychological Association and the University of Pennsylvania in which comments were forwarded concerning harm to law enforcement-Arab-American community relations resulting from policy decisions following 9-11 states findings that the Muslim and Arab communities see damage done to their relationships with law enforcement due to incidents occurring following 9-11 and that these incidents "are not seen as inevitable outcomes of 9/11 by members of that community, but rather as apparently arbitrary results of policy decisions made by the Department of Justice and the Bush Administration." (Henderson, 2001) Henderson reports that when the Arab-American community in the study was asked the question "What are the main concerns of your community at this moment?" The following answers were given with the percentage of respondents for each answer:

Government policies and actions

Immigration 17%

Racial profiling by law enforcement 14%

USA Patriot ACT/Civil Liberties 13%

Detentions and deportations 10%

Special registration 8%

Victimization

Viewed with suspicion 9%

Harassment 6%

Hate Crimes 4%

Employment discrimination 3%

The FBI's 'Hate Crime Statistics' for the year 2002 speak clearly concerning acts perpetrated based on race, ethnicity and religion. For example in 2002 the total of all hate crimes were 7,462 total incidents. Of the 7.642 hate crimes reported for 2002, 3,642 or 48.8% were racially based, 1,102 or 14.8% were related to ethnicity or nationality of the victims. Of the hate crimes reported for 2002 1,426 or 19.1% were related to the religion of the victims with 16.7% being related to the victim's sexual orientation and a much lesser percentage being attributed to the individual's disability or multiple bias incidents. However, it is interesting to note that the perpetration of hate crimes committed in 2002 were lower than the hate crimes reported for the years 1995 through 1999 however, the hate crimes committed in 2002 were much lower than those reported in 2001 as well as being lower for all other years reported, excepting the year of 1996.

There is a problem that most Americans have yet to recognize in the policies of the U.S. government since 9-11. The U.S. Patriot Acts and the erosion of civil rights is not only applicable to Arabs and Muslims but effectively have served to erode the civil rights of all Americans. For example, as noted in the work of Akram (2002) "One of the patterns emerging from the post 9-11 government policies is the use of race, religion and ethnicity to target particular communities in the U.S. For arrest, detention and removal. Using race profiling for law enforcement in the non-immigration context has been seriously challenged when the African-American or Asian-American communities have been the target. Race profiling has been discredited in that it violates the Fourth Amendment probable cause requirement; it violates equal and is poor law enforcement strategy." Unfortunately, it appears that within the context of immigration that "race profiling might well pass constitutional muster. There are a number of significant legal obstacles to the use of the Fourth Amendment as a constraint on racial profiling" (Akram, 2002) Akram states...

government's actions following 9-11 in the 'war on terrorism' "do not appear to meaningfully enhance the security of the American people against terrorism. They are, on the other hand, exacting an extraordinarily high price on Arab and Muslim non-citizens, already demonized through historical animosity by private and government groups and individuals. They are, indeed, rapidly eroding the civil liberties of other non-citizens and U.S. citizens as well." (2002)
The work of Hussein Ibish and Anne Steward (2003) entitled: "Report on Hate Crimes and Discrimination Against Arab-American: The Post-September 11 Backlash" states that in the first nine weeks following the attacks of 9-11 there have been more than "700 violent incidents targeting Arab-American and Muslims" and there have been more than "80 cases of illegal and discriminatory removal of passengers from aircraft after boarding, but before takeoff, based on the passenger's perceived ethnicity." (Ibish and Steward, 2003) Added to this have been: (1) secret detentions, hearings and deportations; (2) alien registration based on national origin and ethnicity; (3) voluntary interviews of thousands of young Arab men; (4) monitoring of international students; (5) discriminatory visa screening procedures for young Arab men; and (6) selection deportation of Middle Eastern 'absconders'. (Ibish and Steward, 2003) the provision of the U.S.A. Patriot Act has resulted in: (1) indefinite detention of foreign nationals without process or appeal; (2) new search and surveillance powers with insufficient judicial review; and (3) measures providing for guilt by association. (Ibish and Steward, 2003) While this may initially have sounded okay to most Americans out of the fear arising due to the incident of 9-11 along with the government's cry of alarm the truth is that the civil liberties of all Americans are at stake since the Patriot Act has resulted in the following; (1) eavesdropping on attorney-client communications; (2) military tribunals; (3) suspension of constitutional rights of U.S. citizens without due process or appeal; (4) domestic law enforcement spying on lawful political and religious activities; (5) seizure of assets without due process; and (6) Operation TIPS - Terrorist Information and Prevention System, and other programs encouraging Americans to spy on each other. (Ibish and Steward, 2003)

The work of Gott (2005) entitled: "The Devil We Know: Racial Subordination and National Security Law" published in the Villanova Law Review (2005) states: "Since September 11, Muslims, Arabs and South Asians in the United States have had to contend with disparate and abusive treatment, both within civil society and at the hands of state actors including security, law enforcement and prison officials." Gott writes that from the view of critical political theory "...the constellation of current "security threats" rests on the epochal co-production of identity-based and market-driven global political antagonisms...." And notes that in reality it makes no sense "...to fight terrorism by alienating millions of Muslim, Arab and South Asian residents in the United States and hundreds of millions more abroad through abusive treatment and double standards operative in identity-based repression at home and in selective, preemptive U.S. militarism abroad." (Gott, 2005) These double standards merely serve to "...undermine the democratic legitimacy of the United States both in its internal affairs and in its assertions of global leadership. Indeed, there seems to be no shortage of perspectives from which liberal legal institutions would be enjoined from embracing a philosophy of political decisionism precisely at the interface of law and security, an anomic frontier along which are likely to arise identity-based regimes of exception and evolving race-based forms of subordination." (Gott, 2005) Gott notes that within this framework of what he calls a "generalized system of legitimated state violence" that a democracy is required to "...ground their deployments of violence and exception-creation in the consent, real or implied, of the constituting sovereign -- the people." (2005) it is the requirement that the story of be told of how these laws and policies are in reality necessary to protect the public and it is this, "...at bottom, the minimal authorizing story that liberal accommodationists must tell when they countenance exceptional security powers, relatively unchecked by substantive norms or judicial process." (Gott, 2005)

SUMMARY of LITERATURE REVIEWED

The American people have been told that removal of civil liberties from first the Arabs and Muslims and ultimately all American people is a requirement in order to bring 'peace and security' to the American soil and to mitigate the lurking dangers that would result in the occurrence of another terrorist attack such as 9-11. However, there are those who questioned this path from the…