Anti-Muslim Surveillance: Canadian Muslims’ Experiences with CSIS

Abstract

The targeting of Muslim communities through “the War on Terror” has given rise to a variety of schemes and tactics informed by Islamophobia and racializing narratives. Yet, there are few studies examining the specific intelligence practices deployed by governments as they engage in forms of racialized surveillance. This study analyses 95 in-depth interviews with Muslim community leaders in five Canadian cities to map the material structural practices employed by the Canadian Security Intelligence Services (CSIS) in its racialized surveillance of Muslim communities. This study documents how CSIS engages in the mass surveillance of Muslim communities, transforms Mosques into spaces of surveillance, creates a community of informants, and targets political activism. Moreover, we found that CSIS deploys illegal practices such as threatening citizenship and refugee status, intimidating people in their homes during the night and denying legal representation during interrogations. The article also explores how these state-led anti-Muslim surveillance tactics produce internal forms of community surveillance where individuals begin to self-regulate their own behavior. The level of CSIS surveillance of Muslim communities raises questions about the extent to which CSIS is overstepping its powers and engaging in illegal practices.