Agence France Presse pines for the days when they could easily raise a big scare over civil rights: War on terror drowns out talk of rights in US campaign.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Fears of a new September 11 have drowned out talk of civil liberties in the US election campaign even though the attacks led to legislation that campaigners say gave the government vast unchecked powers.

And to back up their case that the government’s “vast unchecked powers” are leading the US inexorably toward totalitarianism under the evil Bushitler, the French news wire interviews none other than “civil liberties advocate” Mahdi Bray, director of the Muslim American Society and former political adviser to the Muslim Public Affairs Council, whining as always about the oppression of it all:

“Today I have to worry about not only driving while black, but flying while Muslim. It’s a challenge,” Mahdi Bray, director of the Muslim American Society told a congressional hearing this week on civil liberties in post-9/11 America.

Mahdi and other civil liberties advocates say Americans might be safer today than before September 11, but suggest that security has been achieved through the questionable use of secret wire taps, unnecessarily restrictive airline security, and racial profiling of Muslims and Arab Americans.

He cited the detentions of hundreds of “decent, law-abiding Muslims” after September 11 — the vast majority of whom were never charged with a terrorism-related offense.

No doubt it would be tres gauche to suggest that Mahdi Bray may need to worry about “flying while Muslim” because of his support for Hamas and Hizballah and his association with Abdurahman Alamoudi (who was sentenced to 23 years in prison last week).

From Steven Emerson’s American Jihad:

On October 28, 2000, MPAC was a cosponsor of a rally in Washington DC in support of the recent spate of violence known as the Al-Aqsa intifada between the Palestinians and the Israelis. (This was the rally at which the American Muslim Council’s Abdulrahman Alamoudi exhorted the crowd to voice their support for the Hamas and Hizballah terrorist organizations.) During these exhortations, MPAC’s Political Advisor, Mahdi Bray, stood directly behind Alamoudi and was seen jubilantly exclaiming his support for these two deadly terrorist organizations. Dr. Maher Hathout, MPAC’s Senior Advisor, also participated in this rally.