The LOS ANGELES TIMES has named Designated Terrorist Group CAIR’s executive director, Nihad Awad, as one of America’s “New Civil Rights Leaders”

Why would the LA Times honor someone like Nihad Awad, National Executive Director for The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), who has a long history of supporting groups like Hamas and Hezbollah? The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim Brotherhood front group was named by the Department of Justice as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation HAMAS terror funding trial. Recently, the United Arab Emirates added the Council on American Relation to its list of  Designated Terrorist Organizations

The LA TIMES write-up on Awad is as follows:

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND CO-FOUNDER, COUNCIL ON AMERICAN-ISLAMIC RELATIONS, AGE: 53, WASHINGTON, D.C.

CAIR is the nation’s most prominent Islamic advocacy organization, making Awad, its leader, one of America’s foremost Muslim voices in the years since the Sept. 11 attacks. The group monitors hate crimes and discrimination against Muslim Americans and pushes news releases and action alerts on issues affecting Muslims.

The National Security Agency and FBI have covertly monitored the emails of prominent Muslim-Americans—including a political candidate and several civil rights activists, (Nihad Awad is center photo) academics, and lawyers—under secretive procedures intended to target terrorists and foreign spies. Many of the email addresses on the list appear to belong to foreigners whom the government believes are linked to Al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah.

Awad has been an outspoken opponent of blanket surveillance of Muslims, and his own email account was allegedly tracked by the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation between 2006 and 2008, according to documents leaked by Edward Snowden.

“I’m outraged as an American citizen that my government, after decades of civil rights struggle, still spies on political activists and civil right activists and leaders,” Awad told the Intercept, the news organization that broke the story. “I’m really angry that despite all the work that we have been doing in our communities to serve the nation, we are treated with suspicion.”