March 2, 2011 | 10:07 AM | By

Bay Area student sues over FBI tracking device

FILED UNDER: Police, ACLU of Southern California, Council on American-Islamic Relations, FBI, GPS, Surveillance, Yasir Afifi

One day last fall, Yasir Afifi went to his mechanic for an oil change. Afifi, an Arab-American student at Mission College in Santa Clara, and the mechanic spotted something weird attached to the underside of his car. A friend posted a picture (right) of the device on Reddit along with a question: Does this mean the FBI is tracking us?

Turned out that yes, it did. A flood of responses identifying the exact brand and recommended uses of the device poured in from Reddit users. And it became pretty clear: the student, named Yasir Afifi, was being tracked by federal agents, likely because his father, a US citizen, was the president of the Muslim Community Association.

Days later, the FBI showed up on Afifi’s doorstep, demanding their device back. And according to Wired,  they told him not to bother calling a lawyer. “’We have all the information we needed,’ they told him. ‘Don’t worry, you’re boring.‘“ But Afifi did call a lawyer, and today, he along with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), is announcing a lawsuit against the FBI for allegedly violating his constitutional rights.

The suit follows a federal class action announced last week by CAIR and the ACLU of Southern California that alleges the FBI sent a paid informant into an Irvine mosque to “indiscriminately” spy on members.

The FBI recently told the New York Times that the bureau does not target people based on religion or ethnicity, but on “allegations of criminal activity.”

The class action, however, claims that the FBI told disgruntled informant–who says he was sent to multiple mosques with a hidden camera–that “Islam was a threat to America’s national security.”

Mosque members reportedly contacted the FBI after the informant, Craig Monteilh, started talking about jihad.