Most Popular Choices
Share on Facebook 11 Printer Friendly Page More Sharing
General News   

FBI Out To Lure Muslims Into Terror Plots

By       (Page 1 of 1 pages)   1 comment
Message Sherwood Ross
Become a Fan
  (46 fans)


Nearly every major post-9/11 terrorism-related prosecution has involved a sting operation at the center of which is a government informant, "The Nation" magazine reports.
    

The publication cites the findings of the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School. The Center has tracked 138 terrorism or national security prosecutions involving informants since 2001.


As the informants work for money or a reduction of criminal charges against them, their testimony may well be tainted. What's particularly distressing, writes Petra Bartosiewicz, a New York City journalist in the July 2nd issue of the magazine, is that the FBI informants "have crossed the line from merely observing potential criminal behavior to encouraging and assisting people to participate in plots that are largely scripted by the FBI itself."


The reporter explains that "Under the FBI's guiding hand, the informants provide the weapons, suggest the targets and even initiate the inflammatory political rhetoric that later elevates the charges to the level of terrorism." (italics added).


One judge hearing a "terrorism" case, Colleen McMahon, of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, said it was "beyond question that the government created the crime here" and criticized the FBI for sending informants "trolling along the citizens of a troubled community, offering very poor people money if they will play some role---any role---in criminal activity."

    

Adds Amna Akbar, a supervising attorney at CLEAR, the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility project of the City University of New York Law School: "The FBI approaches the vast majority of our clients as potential informants to partake in mass surveillance of Muslim communities, unconnected to any real criminal investigation."

Within a year of the 9/11 attacks, Bartosiewicz writes, the FBI reassigned nearly half of its field office positions formerly devoted to the "War on Drugs' to the new "War on Terror." It also launched 3,000 new counterterrorism investigations. Today, of an $8.1 billion budget, the FBI allocates $4.9 billion to intelligence and counterterrorism, "approximately $1.7 billion more than all other federal crimes combined," the journalist reports.

The author says the FBI is operating in a post-9/11 environment of relaxed guidelines that allow the FBI "to engage in lengthy and extensive surveillance of individuals and communities with little or no evidence of any wrongdoing afoot."

    

If Americans are not shocked that real criminal prosecutions are being scrapped by FBI Director Robert Mueller in favor of "terrorism" probes which may be cooked up by the FBI to feed the nation's Islamaphobic paranoia, perhaps they should be.

A related article published in the same issue of the magazine quotes Andrew Shryock, a University of Michigan professor, having this to say about prosecutions using government informants: "It's fabricated police work. And the disturbing thing is not that it produces arrests but that the public tolerates it."  

    

      #  

Rate It | View Ratings

Sherwood Ross Social Media Pages: Facebook page url on login Profile not filled in       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

Sherwood Ross worked as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News and contributed a regular "Workplace" column for Reuters. He has contributed to national magazines and hosted a talk show on WOL, Washington, D.C. In the Sixties he was active as public (more...)
 
Go To Commenting
The views expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
Writers Guidelines

 
Contact AuthorContact Author Contact EditorContact Editor Author PageView Authors' Articles
Support OpEdNews

OpEdNews depends upon can't survive without your help.

If you value this article and the work of OpEdNews, please either Donate or Purchase a premium membership.

STAY IN THE KNOW
If you've enjoyed this, sign up for our daily or weekly newsletter to get lots of great progressive content.
Daily Weekly     OpEd News Newsletter
Name
Email
   (Opens new browser window)
 

Most Popular Articles by this Author:     (View All Most Popular Articles by this Author)

U.S. Overthrow in the Ukraine Risks Nuclear War With Russia

Radioactive Ammunition Fired in Middle East May Claim More Lives Than Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Obama Expands the American Warfare State

NSA MAY BE READING WINDOWS SOFTWARE IN YOUR COMPUTER

Inside America's Biological Warfare Center

Is George W. Bush Sane?

To View Comments or Join the Conversation:

Tell A Friend