An appeals court was wrong to allow a lawsuit to proceed against the FBI based on a claim that it discriminated against Muslims by targeting them in a counterterrorism investigation, the Biden administration told the Supreme Court Nov. 8. The case is FBI v. Fazaga, court file 20-828. Former Imam Yassir Fazaga and two other Muslim men from California sued the FBI and several individual FBI agents, claiming the agency targeted Muslims for surveillance because of their religion as part of something called Operation Flex. In the counterterrorism investigation, former FBI informant Craig Monteilh, who posed as a Muslim convert, recorded conversations with Muslims. At the urging of the FBI, the federal district court threw out their First Amendment-based free exercise and religious discrimination claims, citing the state-secrets evidentiary privilege, a doctrine recognized in U.S. v. Reynolds (1953) that allows the government to withhold sensitive evidence in a case if …