Rweda-Aabdel-Aiz reports on immigration and Islamophobia for the Huffington Post.

And she says her beat, combined with the fact that she herself is a Muslim,

it's meant she and her sources are sometimes asking themselves this question.

Am I being watched?

The attention is always there and I think oftentimes it presents itself as this dark, satirical

joke.

You know, I've been in circles with friends or on the phone with friends where, you know,

perhaps a joke has been made or we said something in passing, and then all of a sudden

the joke is, oh, well, you know,

to the agent that's listening, I'm obviously just joking, right?

This anxiety did not come out of nowhere.

For decades, American Muslims have been under surveillance by the federal government.

The NYPD embedded informants in mosques after 9-11.

Ruehda's own mosque in New Jersey turned out to have an informant in the congregation.

For a long time, Rweta says a lot of Muslims felt two things at once, that it was absurd to think the government would be monitoring them, but also that they had no proof that they weren't under surveillance. All of a sudden, you grow up thinking that even though you're not the enemy, you're treated like one.

Hmm.

When Muslim communities have pushed for more information, to sort of dispel some of this paranoia, what happens?

Many of these programs remain secret to this day.

And any time there were challenges, whether through lawsuits by Muslim Americans or civil rights groups,

the FBI and the government as a whole has been able to push back and say,

well, we can't reveal too much

because it would risk national security.

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