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GUESTS: Shakeel Syed, Executive Director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, Kathy Masaoka, Nikkei for Civil RIghts and Redress

The LAPD’s anti-terrorism bureau says it plants to map the city’s Muslim neighborhoods. Deputy Chief Michael Downing said that although the plan is in its early stages, he wants to create extensive maps to avoid what he says would be the pressure to radicalize Muslims and advocate “violent, ideologically-based extremism.” While testifying to Congress two weeks ago, Downing said that law enforcement agencies around the country are faced with “a vicious, amorphous and unfamiliar adversary on our land.”According to Downing, who heads the LAPD’s counter-terrorism bureau, the Muslim Public Affairs Council has welcomed the idea in concept. He adds that USC’s Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events – which was given $12 million in federal funds to kick-start the center four years ago, will amass the data. Meanwhile, religious groups and civil libertarians are condemning the plan, saying it amounts to racial and religious profiling. ACLU Executive Director Ramon Ripston has compared the program to the Red Scare of the 1950s.

For more information, visit www.shuracouncil.org and www.ncrr-la.org