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Chronology of Islam in America (2011)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
August 2011 - Page Four
Terror probes have FBI's informant numbers soaring
Aug 21: In today's post 9/11 America, there are 15,000 informants working with the FBI. That's nearly three times as many as there were 25 years ago. Over the years, when there has been a surge in the number of informants the FBI recruits and uses, there's a specific target in the FBI's sights — first organized crime, then drug smuggling, and now counterterrorism. And while the FBI uses many informants the traditional way — pointing the finger at wrongdoers — a new review of post-9/11 prosecutions reveals the increasing presence of informants in terrorism investigations. "The informants play larger roles where they acted almost as agent provocateurs, where they provided not only the opportunity for the person to commit this act of terror, but also the means," Mother Jones contributor Trevor Aaronson tells NPR's Laura Sullivan. "Providing them with the plan, with the so-called weapons that were needed to ultimately create the act of terror that these people are them prosecuted for," Aaronson says.
Mother Jones partnered with the University of California-Berkeley's Investigative Reporting Program where Trevor Aaronson is an investigative fellow. Aaronson writes about the FBI's informant boom in the current issue of the magazine. And how are the FBI agents finding so many informants willing to infiltrate mosques and Muslim communities? Sometimes, the money is alluring Aaronson says. In other cases, the money has nothing to do with it at all. "A big reason, especially within the Muslim community and in counterterrorism investigations is that the FBI is able to use immigration against people," Aaronson says. "If you are going to recruit an informant and you realize that he has an immigration violation, often times the FBI will be able to use that as a form of leverage to say 'well if you work with us, we'll work with the immigration authorities to make sure you're not deported'." [NPR]
The FBI has built a massive network of 15,000 spies
Ever since 9/11, counterterrorism has been the FBI's No. 1 priority, consuming the lion's share of its budget—$3.3 billion, compared to $2.6 billion for organized crime—and much of the attention of field agents and a massive, nationwide network of informants. After years of emphasizing informant recruiting as a key task for its agents, the bureau now maintains a roster of 15,000 spies — many of them tasked with infiltrating Muslim communities in the United States. In addition, for every informant officially listed in the bureau's records, there are as many as three unofficial ones, according to one former high-level FBI official, known in bureau parlance as "hip pockets." The informants could be doctors, clerks, imams. Some might not even consider themselves informants. But the FBI regularly taps all of them as part of a domestic intelligence apparatus whose only historical peer might be COINTELPRO, the program the bureau ran from the '50s to the '70s to discredit and marginalize organizations ranging from the Ku Klux Klan to civil-rights and protest groups.
Throughout the FBI’s history, informant numbers have been closely guarded secrets. Periodically, however, the bureau has released those figures. A Senate oversight committee in 1975 found the FBI had 1,500 informant. In 1980, officials disclosed there were 2,800. Six years later, following the FBI’s push into drugs and organized crime, the number of bureau informants ballooned to 6,000, the Los Angeles Times reported in 1986. And according to the FBI, the number grew significantly after 9/11. In its fiscal year 2008 budget authorization request , the FBI disclosed that it it had been been working under a November 2004 presidential directive demanding an increase in "human source development and management," and that it needed $12.7 million for a program to keep tabs on its spy network and create software to track and manage informants.
The bureau's strategy has changed significantly from the days when officials feared another coordinated, internationally financed attack from an Al Qaeda sleeper cell. Today, counterterrorism experts believe groups like Al Qaeda, battered by the war in Afghanistan and the efforts of the global intelligence community, have shifted to a franchise model, using the internet to encourage sympathizers to carry out attacks in their name. The main domestic threat, as the FBI sees it, is a lone wolf. The bureau's answer has been a strategy known variously as "preemption," "prevention," and "disruption"—identifying and neutralizing potential lone wolves before they move toward action. To that end, FBI agents and informants target not just active jihadists, but tens of thousands of law-abiding people, seeking to identify those disgruntled few who might participate in a plot given the means and the opportunity. And then, in case after case, the government provides the plot, the means, and the opportunity.
Here's how it works: Informants report to their handlers on people who have, say, made statements sympathizing with terrorists. Those names are then cross-referenced with existing intelligence data, such as immigration and criminal records. FBI agents may then assign an undercover operative to approach the target by posing as a radical. Sometimes the operative will propose a plot, provide explosives, even lead the target in a fake oath to Al Qaeda. Once enough incriminating information has been gathered, there's an arrest—and a press conference announcing another foiled plot. If this sounds vaguely familiar, it's because such sting operations are a fixture in the headlines. Remember the Washington Metro bombing plot? The New York subway plot? The guys who planned to blow up the Sears Tower? The teenager seeking to bomb a Portland Christmas tree lighting? Each of those plots, and dozens more across the nation, was led by an FBI asset. [Mother Jones – Sept.-Oct.]
Call for probe of secret CIA-NYPD program to spy on Muslims
Aug 24: A coalition of civil rights and advocacy organizations today called on the U.S. Department of Justice to open an investigation into allegations that the New York City Police Department (NYPD), with support from the CIA, is conducting a massive covert program to monitor the Muslim communities in New York and New Jersey. An Associated Press (AP) report published by the Washington Post this morning exposed the NYPD spy program, which is allegedly being conducted with the assistance of individuals linked to the CIA. Following a month-long investigation, the Associated Press reported that the NYPD is using covert surveillance techniques "that would run afoul of civil liberties rules if practiced by the federal government" and "does so with unprecedented help from the CIA in a partnership that has blurred the bright line between foreign and domestic spying." More than a dozen concerned leaders gathered for a news conference at the Manhattan office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ New York chapter (CAIR-NY) this afternoon, expressing outrage at the potentially illegal program.
The AP investigative report revealed that the NYDP has dispatched teams of undercover officers, known as 'rakers,' into minority neighborhoods as part of a human mapping program. The report said: The NYDP have monitored daily life in bookstores, bars, cafes and nightclubs. Police have also used informants, known as 'mosque crawlers,' to monitor sermons, even when there's no evidence of wrongdoing. The NYPD officials have scrutinized imams and gathered intelligence on cab drivers and food cart vendors, jobs often done by Muslims. Many of these operations were built with help from the CIA, which is prohibited from spying on Americans but was instrumental in transforming the NYPD's intelligence unit."
A federal judge overruled a law in 2002 that kept cops from waiting for “specific information” before gathering intelligence, and ever since the NYPD has used this to their advantage to infringe on the constitutional rights of Muslims by spying on them in what is being suggested as an anti-terrorism initiative. Retired-CIA Chief David Cohen tells the AP that he helped overrule that legislation nearly a decade ago, and with the help of the NYPD installed a “Demographic Unit” within the Police Department. The undercover police officers involved were then sent to houses of worship and other locales in order to get an insight into what followers of Islam were up to. If these “mosque crawlers,” as Cohen calls them, were conducting operations, the surveillance they carried out could be highly illegal.
The AP adds that Pakistani officers were sent into Pakistani cafes to look for signs of potential terrorism, and that some NYPD cops were even sent out of the city, into New Jersey, Pennsylvania and outside America, in order to gain information. The deployments into areas well outside the jurisdiction of the NYPD could be not only illegal, but the AP says they were done without the approval or warning to the local law enforcement agencies that normally look out in those areas.
Also in the dark was the FBI, who the Associated Press says found out about one undercover operation in New Jersey after responding to a report of a suspected terrorist. A building superintendent found terrorist literature all over a room on his property in New Brunswick, New Jersey in 2009, and, suspecting he stumbled upon the next-9/11, alerted authorities. The FBI responded to the scene, only later to find out that the site was actually a command center for the NYPD's “Demographic Unit.” In that instance, not only did the NYPD operate outside of their geographic jurisdiction, but federal investigators were left ignorant of operations they should have been handling that were carried out unbeknownst to them.
If proven true, the AP says the installation of undercover NYPD agents and their deployment overseas “would run afoul of civil liberties rules if practiced by the federal government” and that the partnership between the New York cops and the CIA “has blurred the bright line between foreign and domestic spying.” The AP report said one of the enduring questions of the past decade is whether being safe requires giving up some liberty and privacy. The focus of that debate has primarily been federal programs like wiretapping and indefinite detention. The question has received less attention in New York, where residents do not know for sure what, if anything, they have given up.
The NYPD denied that it trolls ethnic neighborhoods and said it only follows leads. Police operations have disrupted terrorist plots and put several would-be killers in prison. “The New York Police Department is doing everything it can to make sure there’s not another 9/11 here and that more innocent New Yorkers are not killed by terrorists,” NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said. “And we have nothing to apologize for in that regard.” "The responsibility of the NYPD is to protect all New Yorkers equally, and to investigate crimes not communities," said CAIR-NY Civil Rights Manager Cyrus McGoldrick. "Programs like this are a violation not only of the civil rights of American Muslims, but are a violation of the trust we place in our law enforcement." [AMP Report]
American Muslims alarmed at CIA-NYPD covert surveillance
Aug 25: The seven-million strong Muslim American community was alarmed at the revelation that the New York City Police Department have carried out covert surveillance on Muslims with the help of the CIA. An Associated Press (AP) report published by the Washington Post on August 24 exposed the NYPD spy program, which is allegedly being conducted with the assistance of individuals linked to the CIA. Following a month-long investigation, the AP reported that the NYPD is using covert surveillance techniques "that would run afoul of civil liberties rules if practiced by the federal government" and "does so with unprecedented help from the CIA in a partnership that has blurred the bright line between foreign and domestic spying."
The AP report follows a recent Mother Jones revelation that after years of emphasizing informant recruiting as a key task for its agents, the FBI now maintains a roster of 15,000 spies — many of them tasked with infiltrating Muslim communities in the United States. “In addition, for every informant officially listed in the bureau's records, there are as many as three unofficial ones, according to one former high-level FBI official, known in bureau parlance as "hip pockets." The informants could be doctors, clerks, imams. Some might not even consider themselves informants. But the FBI regularly taps all of them as part of a domestic intelligence apparatus whose only historical peer might be COINTELPRO, the program the bureau ran from the '50s to the '70s to discredit and marginalize organizations ranging from the Ku Klux Klan to civil-rights and protest groups.”
The AP investigative report revealed that the NYDP has dispatched teams of undercover officers, known as 'rakers,' into minority neighborhoods as part of a human mapping program. The report said: The NYDP have monitored daily life in bookstores, bars, cafes and nightclubs. Police have also used informants, known as 'mosque crawlers,' to monitor sermons, even when there's no evidence of wrongdoing. The NYPD officials have scrutinized imams and gathered intelligence on cab drivers and food cart vendors, jobs often done by Muslims. Many of these operations were built with help from the CIA, which is prohibited from spying on Americans but was instrumental in transforming the NYPD's intelligence unit, the AP report added. [AMP Report]
Millions Donated To Islamophobic Groups Since 2001
Aug 26: Seven foundations and wealthy donors gave Islamophobic groups $42.6M from 2001 through 2009, according to a new report from the Center for American Progress. "Sometimes the money flowing from these foundations and their donors is clearly designed to promote Islamophobia, but more often the support provided is for general purpose use, which the think tanks and grassroots organizations then put to use on their primary purpose -- spreading their messages of hate and fear as far and wide as they can," the report says. "It is possible that some of these donors and foundations, who spend millions improving child health and creating a more equal society, have no knowledge of the hateful and inaccurate propaganda generated with their money," the report says.
The list of donors, as compiled by CAP: (1) Donors Capital Fund (2) Richard Mellon Scaife foundations (3) Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation (4) Newton D. & Rochelle F. Becker foundations and charitable trust (5) Russell Berrie Foundation (6) Anchorage Charitable Fund and William Rosenwald Family Fund (7) Fairbrook Foundation. Donors Capital Trust is best known for giving more than $17 million to the Clarion Fund in 2008, money that helped send 30 million DVDs of an anti-Islam film across the country during the 2008 election. The report highlights the work of five "misinformation experts": Frank Gaffney at the Center for Security Policy, David Yerushalmi at the Society of Americans for National Existence, Daniel Pipes at the Middle East Forum, Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch and Stop Islamization of America and Steven Emerson of the Investigative Project on Terrorism. [TPM Mucraker]
Coloring book demonizes Muslims and Islam
Aug 30: The latest attempt to demonize Muslims and Islam came in the shape of a children coloring book titled “We Shall Never Forget 9/11: The Kids’ Book of Freedom” The 36-page “graphic novel coloring book” published recently by St. Louis, Mo. Publisher Wayne Bell virtually characterizes all Muslims as linked to extremism, terrorism and radicalism, which may lead children reading the book to believe that all Muslims are responsible for the tragedy of 9/11. It could give a message to children that followers of the Islamic faith are their enemies.
As ABC 7 reports, the book contains the phrase “radical Islamic Muslim extremists” at least 10 times. The publisher writes in the book that, “‘they’ also will never forget. Yes, they know of whom “they” are. Given the chance, ‘they’ would do it again” and in another passage, the books reads, “Some Muslim people believe the attacks were a conspiracy caused by Jews.” The book could give a message to children that followers of the Islamic faith are their enemies since another section reads: “These attacks will change the way America deals with and views the Islamic and Muslim people around the world…” Near the end of the narrative is an image of Osama bin Laden, hiding behind a woman as he’s confronted and killed by US Navy SEALs. Text under this picture reads: “Children, the truth is, these terrorist acts were done by freedom-hating radical Islamic Muslim extremists. These crazy people hate the American way of life because we are FREE and our society is FREE.”
A comment posted on ABC Chicago website exposes the real intention of the publisher: “It doesn’t take a genius to see the mask the publisher, Bell, is hiding behind. I am not Muslim, but a Christian, and I feel this coloring book is totally inappropriate for children, period! There is no need to depict a tragic incident such as 9/11 in a coloring book for kids. What other tragic events do you know of that are made into coloring books? Think about it.” [AMP Report]
Muslim man held since 9/11 for illegal entry
Aug 31: For almost a decade now, Ali Partovi sits behind bars, a lone holdout of an era when terror fears drove American authorities to arrest suspects without much evidence. Partovi, 43, is an Iranian man who was arrested at the A.B. Won Pat Guam International Airport a month after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He quickly admitted to sneaking into the island with a fake Italian passport, and has now been held in federal prison for nine years and nine months. Partovi was sentenced to less than six months in prison by a Guam judge. Apparently that hasn't had a lot of impact on his actual prison term. Today, Partovi still sits in the Florence Correctional Center in Arizona -- a facility he calls "immigration jail." From his prison cell in the desert, Partovi has continued to challenge his "illegal sentence" in the District Court of Guam, submitting court documents by mail without the representation of an attorney. Most recently, Partovi filed a motion on Aug. 22 to vacate his sentence. Eight days later, Chief Justice Frances Tydingco-Gatewood denied the motion, stating that the arguments were filed far too late to be considered. Federal law required Partovi to challenge the sentence within a year. His arguments came almost nine years too late. "... Partovi made a mistake and would like to be forgiven," the motion read. "Partovi has already assumed full responsibility for my indictment. Petitioner Partovi erred in trying to use a false passport for asylum purposes. ...
Partovi has been in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement jail detained from Oct. 23, 2001, for more than nine years and nine months (and) is mentally exhausted." On its face, Partovi's case seemed like a "straightforward" illegal entry matter, said local attorney Curtis Van De Veld, who once represented the Iranian man. In reality, Van De Veld knew the federal government suspected Partovi was a terrorist. Terrorist or not, Partovi should have been deported to Iran after he pleaded guilty to his passport crimes, Van De Veld said. He should still be deported, Van De Veld added. "But if you were considered to be a terrorist under the Bush Administration, then they ignored your civil rights," the attorney said. "And suspects were given no recourse whatsoever. The federal government could do whatever they wanted. And it's wrong." According to The Associated Press, Partovi was one of about 1,200 Arab and Muslim men who were swept up by authorities in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, when law enforcement officials were authorized to use immigration charges to arrest suspected terrorists within the United States. Of the 1,200 men captured in "aggressive detentions," -- approved by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft -- a vast majority had no discernible connection to terrorism, the AP reported. A few hundred of those detainees were released a few days later, but about 760 were charged with immigration violations because FBI agents thought they were associated with terrorism. Most of the 760 were released or deported in a few months. Partovi is the last one behind bars, AP reported. As of 2006, the Justice Department had confirmed that Partovi was the last of the 1,200 terror suspects still held in a federal prison, the AP reported. That was five years ago. Partovi hasn't moved. [Pacific Daily News]
Meet an Islamophobia network ‘expert’: Steven Emerson
Aug 31: Steven Emerson directs the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), a group dedicated to exposing the dangers of Islamist infiltration in America through investigative journalism. But his career, as discussed in CAP’s new report “Fear, Inc.,” is marked by shoddy reporting and suspicious financial arrangements between private companies, in some cases listing him as the sole employee, and the nonprofit foundations which collect tax-exempt contributions to support his work. Emerson got his start as an investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1976 to 1982 and, after serving as an executive assistant to Sen. Frank Church (D-ID), left public service in 1986 to join U.S. News & World Report. In 1990, he joined CNN as an investigative correspondent where he reported on terrorism. In 1995, Emerson left journalism and founded the Investigative Project on Terrorism, which claims to be “one of the world’s largest storehouses of archival data and intelligence on Islamic and Middle Eastern terrorist groups.”
But Emerson’s supposed expertise in researching terrorist networks have frequently been questioned due to his propensity for making false accusations against Muslims and his sloppy approach to investigative reporting. Most notably, in 1995, Emerson claimed that the Oklahoma City bombing showed “a Middle East trait” because it “was done with the intent to inflict as many casualties as possible.” And in 1998, Emerson was tied to a false report that Pakistan was planning a nuclear first strike on India. Emerson’s weak credibility hasn’t stopped him from building a mini-empire from his offices at the well-funded IPT. But his penchant for secrecy — his office location is secret, employees refer to it as “the bat cave,” and journalists who visit it have been blindfolded en route — has raised serious questions about management of IPT’s finances. As reported first by The Tennessean, IPT helps fund Emerson’s for-profit company, SAE Productions. IPT paid SAE Productions $3.33 million to “study alleged ties between American Muslims and overseas.” SAE Productions is a private company so no data is available on how the money was spent but Emerson’s role as SAE’s sole employee raises serious ethical questions.
Emerson’s finances took an even more bizarre turn when grants directed to the “Investigative Project” or “IPT” were contributed care of the Counterterrorism & Security Education and Research Foundation (CTSERF). A LobeLog investigation into CTSERF’s tax filings revealed that, much like the Investigative Project, all grant revenue was transferred to a private, for-profit entity. When asked about the IPT-CTSERF relationship, Ray Locker, the Investigative Project’s then-managing director acknowledged to LobeLog that a relationship “exists” but would not elaborate further on how or why IPT donors send funds care of CTSERF. “Fear Inc.” examines Emerson’s role as a a key “expert” in the Islamophobia network and tracks over $5 million in grants to CTSERF and IPT. IPT donors include: the Donors Capital Fund ($400,000); the Russell Berrie Foundation ($100,000); the Anchorage Charitable and William Rosenwald funds ($10,000); the Fairbrook Foundation ($25,000); and the Newton and Rochelle Becker affiliated foundations ($25,000). Donors to CTSERF include: the Richard Scaife foundations ($1.575 million); the Russell Berrie Foundation ($2.736 million); The Anchorage Charitable and William Rosenwald fund ($15,000); and Newton and Rochelle Becker affiliated foundations ($4.526 million). [Eli Clifton -Think Progress]
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