But a senior Muslim community official said Friday the program amounted to "scapegoating" US Muslims and "governing by fear".

Up to 120 Muslim sites in the Washington area, and more in New York, Chicago, Seattle, Detroit and Las Vegas, have been regularly monitored for radiation for more than three years over concerns about nuclear terrorism following the September 11, 2001 attacks, US News reported.

However, it said, the monitoring by the FBI and the Department of Energy's Nuclear Emergency Support Team has sometimes involved government agents entering properties without search warrants or court orders, an act some agents and outside lawyers believe is illegal.

"The targets were almost all US citizens," an unnamed source involved in the program told the magazine.

"A lot of us thought it was questionable, but people who complained nearly lost their jobs," the source said.

Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told CNN television that the surveillance program was moving in the direction of "governing by fear".

"I'm afraid that we are moving into a nation of fear ... and scapegoating minorities like American Muslim communities," he said.

President George W. Bush's administration has been criticized over revelations that government agencies -- including the National Security Agency, the Department of Defense, and the FBI -- spied on US citizens without first obtaining court orders as mandated by law.

Bush, who authorized the NSA surveillance, maintains that the spying is legal, and that he has the legal authority to permit such activities.

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