On the week of the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11, the Center for Investigative Reporting and NPR published "Under Suspicion," a joint yearlong investigation that looked at suspicious activity reports at the Mall of America and how the U.S. government has gathered intelligence since Sept. 11.
Under Suspicion
September 7, 2011
Mall of America officials say their security unit stops and questions up to 1,200 people each year as part of a counterterrorism initiative that acts as the private eyes and ears of law enforcement authorities but has often ensnared innocent people, according to an investigation by the Center for Investigative Reporting and NPR.
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In May 2009, two black men visiting the Mall of America drew the suspicions of a mall security employee as they strolled through the attractions with a video camera. This animation displays the observations of the security guard as written in the mall's "Suspicious Activity Events Log" and noted with a map of the mall in the incident report.
September 7, 2011
The suspicious activity reports submitted by the Mall of America’s security team frequently land at the Minnesota Joint Analysis Center, one of 72 fusion centers in the United States started with federal funding.
The reports are routed through various law enforcement and intelligence networks, often ending up in front of local analysts and the FBI.
Read more September 7, 2011
The Center for Investigative Reporting began examining U.S. Department of Homeland Security policy and spending in September 2008, hoping to better understand two things: How effectively is the government spending billions of dollars on new counterterrorism programs since 9/11? And how deeply will intelligence officials and law enforcement probe into the private lives of Americans?
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September 7, 2011
Brad Kleinerman lives on a quiet 2-acre lot in the Connecticut countryside with his family. An American flag hangs near the front door.
During a trip to the Twin Cities in January 2008, Kleinerman stopped at the Mall of America to return shoes and buy a SpongeBob SquarePants watch for one of his kids.
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September 7, 2011
A forgotten cell phone in a mall food court led to a visit from the FBI.
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September 7, 2011
Robert Walters took a part-time job at a mall information desk after debilitating strokes he suffered made finding a job elsewhere difficult.
The registered Democrat, who is now 54, occasionally argued with a young Republican co-worker and at one time mentioned that he might stop by protests planned for the 2008 Republican National Convention.
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“For all the 30 years that I have lived in the United States, I’ve never been a suspect,” said Emil Khalil. The California man was confronted at the mall in June 2009 for taking pictures, and he said an FBI agent later questioned him and his brother, Sameer, at the airport. “And I’ve never done anything wrong.”
Not everyone had a negative reaction to being written up. After a report naming him was forwarded to the FBI, Sameer Khalil of Orange County, Calif., said he believed that police and private security have an important job they must do.
Read more September 7, 2011
On Nov. 9, 2008, Francis Van Asten videotaped a short road trip from his home to the Mall of America. The Bloomington resident, now 66, planned to send it to his fiancée’s family in Vietnam so they could see life in the United States.
As he headed down an escalator, camera in hand, mall guards caught sight of him.
“Right away, I noticed he had a video camera and was recording the rotunda area,” a security guard wrote in a suspicious activity report. “When he got to second floor [sic] he turned to the overlook of the park while still videotaping.”
Read more September 7, 2011
Mall parking attendants reported two vans with suspicious printed material on seats, including "The House of Yahweh Newsletter" and a book with a photo of an exploding building on the front cover. The K-9 unit, bomb squad and FBI were called and the vehicle locks were cut. Commercial photography equipment was found in the vans.
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Two "Middle Eastern" men with a camera and possible "radar gun" watched airplanes from the parking lot. They left without being questioned.
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Personnel stopped a man taking photos of mall security. He stated he was a psychologist who photographed uniforms because of the authority they depicted.
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Mall security reported three black youths because they did not seem to be "acting in a normal manner for the guests who spend time in [Nickelodeon Universe]."
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Morteza Razaviein, an Iranian national who’s now 62, went to the Mall of America last year to see if it was as impressive as he had heard.
He had come to the United States for the first time to visit his son, a student at the University of Minnesota. He was videotaping near the Nordstrom Court area when he was stopped by security.
“He took video of the mall because it was, ‘Beautiful!’ ” reads a report dated Feb. 22, 2010.
Read more September 7, 2011
NPR's Daniel Zwerdling interviews Dale Watson, a former FBI counterterrorism assistant director, who questions the value of collecting suspicious activity reports. "What value does it add in the long run? More dots - more dots that you can't connect anyway. ... The more data you put into a system, the more the probability it can get clogged up."
Read more September 7, 2011
A Kuwaiti student was "nervously glancing around." His backpack contained a Koran DVD bought from a book store in the mall. He was afraid of the K-9 officer's dog.
Read more September 5, 2011
Jatani Boru, a respiratory therapist in St. Paul, took a friend visiting from New Hampshire to the mall on May 25, 2009, where they shot video of a large entrance and the mall’s vast interior.
During a later interview, Boru, who became a U.S. citizen during the 1990s and is now 45 years old, said the whole thing was innocent. But according to documents, mall security told the Bloomington police that the video “did not appear to be anything a normal tourist would be interested in.”
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