Secret Dossiers
Kept on U.S. Muslims





http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20081117/news_1m17maziarz.html





 





Former Marine outlines secret dossiers








Muslims, Arabs not targeted, FBI says





By Rick Rogers 


STAFF WRITER
San Diego Union Tribune






November 17, 2008

 





OCEANSIDE – Two years after his
arrest, a former Marine gunnery sergeant is talking about the FBI, CIA and U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement files he stole from Camp
 Pendleton for a civilian agency. 





In interviews with The San Diego Union-Tribune, Gary Maziarz, 39,
said “dozens of files” he gave the Los Angeles Terrorism Early Warning Group
while serving as an intelligence specialist at the base were dossiers on
Muslims and Arabs living in Southern California. 





This marks the first time Maziarz has spoken to the media about the files
since pleading guilty in July 2007 to mishandling classified material and
stealing government property. 





He agreed to the interviews despite signing a plea agreement with the
government limiting his comments on the security breach, which might involve a
decade's worth of intelligence culled from domestic and foreign sources. The
deal also requires him to testify if called on. 





“Most of the (monitored) people were from Los Angeles.
The ties they had to San Diego were, like, maybe they had a house down here or
a relative or came down to visit or went on 
vacation here,” said Maziarz, who
splits his time between North County and Arizona as he looks for work and tries
to move on with his life. 





Many of the stolen files centered on the meeting spots of “people of
interest,” including places of worship, businesses and travel plans, he said. 





Maziarz's case could have repercussions well beyond Camp
 Pendleton. 





The existence of CIA, FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement documents
profiling specific minority and religious groups in the United
  States could undermine contentions by the
FBI, the primary federal agency for domestic security, that no programs target
upstanding Muslims and Arabs. 





“The FBI does not monitor the lawful activities of individuals in the United
  States, nor does the FBI have a surveillance
program to monitor constitutionally protected activities of houses of worship,”
FBI spokesman Darrell Foxworth said in an e-mail. 





Maziarz's arrest in October 2006 sparked multiple investigations, including
those by the FBI and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Federal agents
testifying at his trial said the files found in his possession could not be
shared legally with civilian law enforcement. 





Essentially, Maziarz said, he used computer networks at Camp
 Pendleton to tap into classified
information that he then passed along to a higher-ranking Marine or one of that
person's subordinates. Maziarz and federal investigative documents have
identified that individu
al as reserve Col. Larry Richards, the base's former
intelligence chief and co-founder of the Los Angeles Terrorism Early Warning
Group. 





Maziarz said he and others broke national-security protocols out of concern
that FBI officials were not sharing anti-terrorism intelligence with local law
enforcement or were doing it slowly because of bureaucracy. There was a feeling
that lack of cooperation prevented aggressive efforts to prevent future
terrorist attacks. 





The Los Angeles Terrorism Early Warning Group is composed of two dozen
local, state and federal agencies, including the Los Angeles Police Department,
the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, the Secret Service and the FBI. 





The Union-Tribune first reported on the Maziarz case in October 2007,
after it obtained unclassified records from his court-martial. 





Maziarz originally was charged with stealing Iraq
war souvenirs from a base armory. That investigation evolved into the
document-theft case. 





He received a 26-month jail sentence. He was released in July after serving
less than two years in Camp Pendleton's
brig. 





In accepting Maziarz's guilty plea, Marine judge Lt. Col. Jeffrey Meeks avoided
revealing specific contents of the stolen files. Two federal agents attended
the plea-agreement sessions to make sure classified details stayed secret. 





While sitting recently at a café in Carlsbad,
Maziarz explained how officials from the Los Angeles
counter-terrorism group used him for years to steal highly
 sensitive FBI, CIA
and immigration files to track and foil terrorist operations. 





He was more tight-lipped about classified files known as TIGER documents. 





TIGER, or the Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing
system, is a database developed at the U.S. Census Bureau. It can be customized
to identify special demographic centers, such as areas where certain ethnic
groups live. 





The Union-Tribune asked FBI officials whether any of the files
Maziarz stole were were related to this system. They did not respond. 





Days after the newspaper made its TIGER inquiry to the bureau, Maziarz said,
federal investigators gave him a lie-detector test to see whether he had talked
to the media. 





Maziarz's claims about profiling have raised concerns among some Islamic,
Arab-American and civil-liberty groups. The organizations' leaders said his
statements underscore their longtime contention that government agencies are
violating Americans' privacy rights with little to no congressional oversight. 





The Maziarz case could be “hugely important,” said David Blair-Loy, legal
director for the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego & Imperial
Counties. 





In July, the ACLU filed Freedom of Information Act requests with the Defense
Department, the FBI, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, the National
Security Agency and the U.S. Northern Command to flesh out its understanding of
the government's domestic surveillance activities. 





“
What was in these documents (that Maziarz took) is precisely the question
we have been asking. What has the government been doing and who authorized it?”
Blair-Loy said. 





On the criminal-justice front, the document-theft case involving Maziarz has
moved slowly and unexpectedly. 





On July 18, the Marine Corps brought charges against Gunnery Sgt. Eric
Froboese and Master Sgt. Reinaldo Pagan in connection with it. Pagan is accused
of dereliction of duty and violation of orders. Froboese is facing charges of
dereliction of duty, orders violations, conspiracy and wrongful transmission of
classified information. 





Before they were charged, neither of the enlisted Marines had been mentioned
in court records related to the Maziarz trial. Maziarz said he is angry that no
Marine officer has faced the same legal scrutiny. 





“I don't think the government is interested in really finding out the truth
. . . because the implications are too vast and involve too many
senior people for them to really pursue it,” he said. 





More than 30 interviews with FBI and naval investigators, spanning hundreds
of hours over the past two years, have convinced Maziarz that prosecutors plan
to pin the national-security breach on those considered least culpable and most
vulnerable: the enlisted men. 





“If Pagan is getting charged with dereliction of duty, then why not General
Conway?” Maziarz said. 





He was referring to Gen. James Conway, the c
ommandant of the Marine Corps. Conway
served as commanding general of the Camp Pendleton-based 1st Marine
Expeditionary Force when Maziarz worked in the intelligence unit and Richards
ran it. 





A statement from Conway's office said in part: “Generally speaking, a
subordinate who is accused of violating a commander's orders . . .
and has done so without the knowledge or consent of that commander is not
really in a position to place any portion of the blame for their own actions
upon the commander.” 





Federal agents have warned Maziarz that he could be put back behind bars if
he violates his plea agreement. While he is cautious, Maziarz said his
intention is to set the record straight. 





“I have a pretty good memory,” Maziarz said, “and that's what bothers a lot
of people.” 




����������������������������������������������������������
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html

To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
����������������������������������������������������������