Policing Kashmiri Brooklyn

This chapter explains the arrest and incarceration of Kashmiri political activist Ghulam Nabi Fai and his connections to the Pakistani neighborhoods of Brooklyn. In so doing, the author accounts for the special significance of the so called War on Terror and its impact on American Muslims. The chapter explains how this expanded scale of policing stifles everyday forms of political organization and dissent. Because this involves non-state actors who are involved in liberationist nationalist activity, the notion of ‘terror’ itself is blurred and becomes a convenient scapegoat in a complex of criminalization and illegality of political acts of critique, debate, and the organization of funds. Thus, the FBI program of counter-terrorism builds upon legacies of surveillance, infiltration, and profiling based on intermingling notions of race, religion, and immigration.