Mueller Defends Use of Informants to Spy on Mosques
The FBI is understandably disinclined to reveal the details of ongoing criminal investigations, and the information it chooses to make public isn't always true. We therefore have no way to evaluate the legitimacy of the FBI's efforts to recruit Muslim informants to spy upon clerics and worshipers in mosques. Credible evidence that terrorists are using a mosque to shield their activities could justify the Bureau's infiltration effort, but how do we know that Muslims aren't targeted for undercover investigation simply because of their religion?
Robert Mueller's vague defense yesterday of the FBI's reliance on informants to gather information inside mosques when "there may be evidence or other information of criminal wrongdoings" did little to assure concerned Muslims that the FBI has a good reason when it decides to spy on them.
"It doesn't alleviate anything. It only continues to show the sheer arrogance demonstrated by the bureau in holding Muslim community members, clerics, mosques, as suspects," [executive of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California Shakeel] Syed said.
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The FBI believes "spying on mosques is one of the best weapons to uncover lurking terrorists or threats to national security." That may be true when the agency has good reason to believe that terrorists are actually lurking within a specific mosque. Mueller's willingness to send informants into a place of worship on the basis of "evidence or other information of criminal wrongdoings" gives rise to the legitimate fear that mosques might be targeted for infiltration on the basis of rumor or speculation that isn't supported by credible intelligence.
Mueller's comments came just days after a Michigan Muslim organization asked the Justice Department to investigate complaints that the FBI is asking the faithful to spy on Islamic leaders and worshipers. Similar alarm followed the disclosure earlier this year that the FBI planted a spy in Southern California mosques. ...The Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder after mosques and other groups reported members of the community have been asked to monitor people coming to mosques and donations they make. The FBI's Detroit office has denied the allegations.
The FBI's reliance on informants who instigate terrorist plots that would never have been devised without the informant's prodding allows the Bureau to take undeserved credit for protecting the homeland when it makes well publicized arrests. It may also serve a larger political agenda.
It would appear that FBI Director Mueller's strategy -- a holdover from the Ashcroft Dept. of Justice -- is to use these headlines to stoke fears of Muslims, justify intensive domestic surveillance, and reinforce the notion that domestic terrorism by lone wolves is a real threat to national security. In response to this week's arrests, comments to news blogs call Muslims animals, savages, and worse. This strategy only serves the interests of American conservatism, which is at root, a politics of fear and negation that cannot function without an enemy.
Ultimately, Mueller's hollow assurance that the Bureau can be trusted to spy on mosques will satisfy those members of the public who think the civil liberties of Muslims are worth sacrificing to secure the homeland. Those of us who think the homeland should be secured from the FBI's love affair with informants can find little comfort in Mueller's statement.
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