The counter-terrorism bureau of the Los Angeles Police Department announced a plan to compile a map of Muslim communities, and the usual Islamic advocacy groups and unindicted co-conspirators and the ACLU are pitching the expected fit: Anger at LA police plan to ‘map’ Muslims.

LOS ANGELES (AFP) — A plan by the Los Angeles Police Department’s counter-terrorism bureau to map Muslim groups in the city has angered civil rights activists and community leaders, it was reported Friday.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the LAPD wants to create a map of Muslim groups in order to help communities avoid the influence of radicals seeking to incite “violent, ideologically-based extremism.” …

However the plan was condemned by other Muslim groups, with the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California accusing the LAPD of “racial profiling.”

“We certainly reject this idea completely,” the council’s executive-director Shakeel Syed told the Times. “This stems basically from this presumption that there is homogenized Muslim terrorism that exists among us.”

The Los Angeles branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations also criticized the plan. Council official Hussam Ayloush said mapping “basically turns the LAPD officers into religious political analysts, while their role is to fight crime and enforce the laws.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and community groups have a letter to the LAPD expressing “grave concerns” about the program, reports said. “The mapping of Muslim communities … seems premised on the faulty notion that Muslims are more likely to commit violent acts than people of other faiths,” the Times quoted the letter as saying.

This news is spreading fast in the Middle East:

Qatar: Gulf Times – Anger at police plan to ‘map’ Muslims.
Pakistan: LAPD plan to map Muslim communities slammed.
Turkey: Anger at LA police plan to ‘map’ Muslims.

UPDATE at 11/9/07 5:30:31 pm:

Also see:
Infidels Are Cool: Los Angeles police plan to map Muslims