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Since Donald Trump<\/span> returned to office nine months ago, his administration has launched high-profile investigations of universities that he believes were too slow to crack down<\/a> on pro-Palestine protesters.<\/p>\n The latest probe of a college, however, is not coming from the White House \u2014 and it has won surprising support from Arab and Muslim groups who allege that university researchers may have contributed to government surveillance.<\/p>\n The investigation led by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., takes aim at George Washington University\u2019s Program on Extremism, a decade-old project in the nation\u2019s capital that has given an academic stamp to the effort to uncover the alleged jihadists and domestic extremists in our midst.<\/p>\n The program\u2019s staffers make frequent guest appearances on cable television to opine on subjects ranging from the rise of antisemitism after the Hamas-led October 7 attacks on Israel to the threat of right-wing extremists in the wake of the January 6 Capitol riot.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the TSA used that group\u2019s reports as the only \u2018evidence,\u2019 it\u2019s a scandal.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Paul announced an investigation of the program at a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security Committee<\/a> last month on the Transportation Security Administration\u2019s \u201cQuiet Skies\u201d watchlist program. He alleged that the George Washington program\u2019s employees may have had an unduly close relationship with the Department of Homeland Security, TSA\u2019s parent agency.<\/p>\n Advocacy groups working on issues that affect Arab and Muslim communities \u2014 frequent targets of government watchlisting efforts since the September 11 attacks \u2014 welcomed Paul\u2019s investigation of the George Washington program.<\/p>\n \u201cThis week\u2019s hearing confirmed what millions suspected: Washington insiders weaponized the watchlist system against law-abiding Americans,\u201d the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the Muslim Public Affairs Council said in a joint press release shortly after the hearing. \u201cIf the TSA used that group\u2019s reports as the only \u2018evidence,\u2019 it\u2019s a scandal.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Internal records suggest the government relied on Program on Extremism research to add names to TSA watchlists, Paul said. (The university\u2019s press office did not respond to a request for comment.)<\/p>\n Paul is exploring how TSA got the information. He told The Intercept that his committee has asked George Washington for records that would help determine whether its researchers were actively involved in nominating travelers for surveillance.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do think that what was going on is that things that would be unseemly for government, they were farming out a little bit,\u201d Paul said.<\/p>\n Paul\u2019s concerns at the September 30 hearing focused primarily on TSA\u2019s watchlisting of conservatives such as Tulsi Gabbard, the Democrat-turned-MAGA diehard who was trailed by federal air marshals last year, and people suspected of association with the January 6 riot.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat was going on is that things that would be unseemly for government.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n In some cases, Paul alleged, people were trailed simply because they traveled to Washington to attend the \u201cStop the Steal\u201d rally preceding the riot. One woman added to a TSA watchlist, the wife of a federal air marshal, testified at the hearing that she never approached the Capitol grounds.<\/p>\n George Washington\u2019s program has published a publicly available database of January 6 defendants<\/a>, but Paul said he wants to learn whether TSA relied on non-public information.<\/p>\n Paul said he was particularly concerned that the George Washington program had received funding from the federal government. The program was a founding member of a 2020 counterterrorism consortium funded by a 10-year, $36 million Department of Homeland Security grant to \u201cwork closely with the department\u2019s operational units to generate research and educate current and future homeland security leaders on the latest methods of counterterrorism,\u201d according to a university press release<\/a>.<\/p>\n If protesters who supported Trump\u2019s attempts to overturn the 2020 election results do not make for universally sympathetic victims, Arab and Muslim American groups also say there is ample reason to be concerned about the TSA\u2019s watchlisting practices.<\/p>\n For more than two decades, Arab and Muslim Americans have complained about the opaque process<\/a> by which names are added and removed to government watchlists, which sometimes appears to be triggered by where people have traveled and with whom<\/a>, rather than anything they have done.<\/p>\n Abed Ayoub, the national executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said at Paul\u2019s hearing that he sympathized with the experience of right-wing activists.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat they are feeling today mirrors what Arab and Muslim families have endured for decades: a secret designation that follows you from airport to employer to consulate, with no clear explanation and no reliable fix,\u201d he said. \u201cThat is not a partisan problem; it is a due-process problem.\u201d<\/p>\n Paul\u2019s investigation is only the latest episode to put a spotlight on the program and its director, Lorenzo Vidino, whose research focuses on the Muslim Brotherhood and has been accused<\/a> by the Council on American\u2013Islamic Relations of \u201ccollaboration with anti-Muslim racists.\u201d<\/p>\n Last year, another academic, the Islamophobia scholar Farid Hafez, filed a racketeering lawsuit<\/a> alleging that Vidino was the source of a smear campaign that unfairly tarnished his reputation in his native Austria. Vidino was paid for rumors on \u201cnew targets\u201d associated with the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe by a private investigation firm in Switzerland, which in turn was funded by the United Arab Emirates to attack its enemies, the lawsuit claimed.<\/p>\n A federal judge last month dismissed the lawsuit, finding<\/a> that she had no jurisdiction over allegations about events that transpired in Europe.<\/p>\n The George Washington University program is not the only so-called counter-extremism project that has come under fire with the changing of the political winds. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has also canceled grants <\/a>doled out by her agency\u2019s Center for Prevention Partnerships and Programs for initiatives, such as the Eradicate Hate Global Summit and the One World Strong program, which was founded by survivors of the Boston Marathon bombing.<\/p>\n The university counterterrorism consortium that included George Washington also saw DHS funding terminated before a Republican lawmaker intervened to convince Noem to pause the cancellation, Nextgov\/FCW reported <\/a>in April.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n
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Usual Suspects<\/strong><\/h2>\n