Asked about Donald Trump’s desire to implement targeted surveillance for Muslim Americans, fellow 2016er Ben Carson said there should already be a database for every U.S. citizen.
“Hopefully, we already have a database on every citizen who is already here,” Carson said Friday, according to a video posted by ABC News. “If we don’t, we’re doing a very poor job.”
Carson was asked further about Trump’s comments that Muslim Americans should receive more scrutiny, including the monitoring of mosques, to prevent terrorism.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to treat anybody differently,” Carson said. “One of the hallmarks of America is that we treat everybody the same. So if we are just going to pick out a particular group of people based on their religion, based on their race, based on some other thing — that’s a pretty dangerous precedent.”
But he also argued that certain mosques “where there’s a lot of activity going on radicalizing people” should be treated differently.
“I favor doing whatever we have to do to protect the American people. This is what we have to put on the top shelf: protection of our people,” Carson said.
“And if, in fact, there are mosques where there’s a lot of activity going on that’s radicalizing people, they must be treated differently.”
