Muslim registry and mosque monitoring?

Comments by GOP candidates Carson and Trump bring criticism from several sides.

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson said Saturday that he wants to expand the government’s surveillance operations aimed at potential terrorist threats, even beyond tracking American Muslims, as rival Donald Trump has suggested.

Trump on Saturday tried to back away from his support for a government database to track Muslims in the United States, an idea that drew sharp rebukes from his Republican presidential rivals and disbelief from legal experts.

Carson, who has joined Trump atop GOP presidential preference polls, did not delve into constitutional questions about whether expanding government surveillance activities would violate 1st Amendment protections. “What I have said is that I would be in favor of monitoring a mosque or any church or any organization or any school or any press corps where there was a lot of radicalization and things that were anti-American,” Carson told reporters during an appearance at a justice forum in South Carolina. He did not expound on just how an administration would determine what constitutes “radicalization” or “anti-American.”

Carson added that funding for FBI surveillance activities should be increased. He said the agency currently can afford to monitor only “30 to 60 people,” numbers he did not explain before aides steered him away from reporters.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush called the prospect of a registry “abhorrent.” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said the idea was “unnecessary” and not something Americans would support. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who has largely avoided criticizing Trump throughout the 2016 campaign, said, “I’m not a fan of government registries of American citizens.

“The 1st Amendment protects religious liberty, and I’ve spent the past several decades defending the religious liberty of every American,” Cruz told reporters in Sioux City, Iowa.

The first reference to a database came in a Trump interview with Yahoo News published Thursday. When asked about requiring Muslims to register in a database or carry a form of special identification noting their religion, Trump said, “We’re going to have to look at a lot of things very closely.”

Trump was pressed on the idea of a registry by an NBC News reporter Thursday evening while the candidate campaigned in Iowa. Asked if there should be a database system for tracking Muslims in the United States, Trump said, “There should be a lot of systems, beyond databases.” The reporter asked if that was something Trump would put in place as president. Trump replied: “I would certainly implement that. Absolutely.”

Trump also told the reporter that Muslims would “have to be” registered.

In an interview on Fox News Channel on Friday evening, Trump tried to clarify his position. “I want a watch list for the Syrian refugees that [President] Obama’s going to let in if we don’t stop him as Republicans.”

He said he had trouble hearing the NBC reporter’s questions. He was not asked specifically if he disavowed a general registry for Muslims living in the country, and he did not condemn the idea on his own.

He once again addressed the issue during a rally in Birmingham, Ala., on Saturday, telling a crowd that reports on his previous statements were inaccurate. “I do want surveillance. I will absolutely take database on the people coming in from Syria if we can’t stop it, but we’re going to,” he said.