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American-Islamic Relations Council Says FBI Program Creates Terrorists

© AFP 2023 / MANDEL NGAN / FILESFederal Bureau of Investigation(FBI) inside the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building in Washington, DC.
Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI) inside the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building in Washington, DC. - Sputnik International
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Council on American-Islamic Relations spokesperson Corey Saylor commented on the release of a new documentary entitled (T)ERROR, describing that the FBI uses paid informants not to capture existing terrorists, but to cultivate them.

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WASHINGTON, January 28 (Sputnik) — US law enforcement should use a warrant in pursuing criminal activities as opposed to using undercover informants to target Muslims and create terrorists, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) spokesperson Corey Saylor told Sputnik.

“Where you have indicators of illegal activity, the FBI should get a warrant and go after the guy. But the government should not be involving itself in creating terrorists through confidential informants targeting the Muslim community,” Saylor told Sputnik on Tuesday, reacting to the release of a new film entitled (T)ERROR, which documents the FBI using paid informants not to capture existing terrorists, but to cultivate them.

The use of FBI informants to drive terrorist plots is a phenomena that has been around for a long time, Saylor explained, but up until the rise of the Islamic State, he felt things were headed in a better direction.

“But the focus is back on broad surveillance of the American Muslim community, which encourages the use of these confidential informants,” he added.

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The White House’s new countering violent extremism initiative, scheduled to hold a summit on February 18, represents one of the major areas civil rights organizations, like CAIR and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), have taken issues with, Saylor said.

“The [US President Barack Obama’s] administration on the one hand wants to enlist the Muslim community in pushing back against violent extremism, which we’re doing already,” the CAIR spokesperson elaborated. “But on the other hand it will not discuss its use of informants in mosques and other forms of surveillance when there was no indicator of criminal activity taking place, and where US law enforcement was actually driving terrorist plots.”

Saylor cited a case in Southern California a few years ago wherein a suspicious person was targeting young Muslims to take negative actions, which prompted CAIR’s local chapter to report the issue to authorities. One year later, according to Saylor, they found out the person in question had been on the FBI payroll.

(T)ERROR filmmakers claim that Muslims' constitutional right to freedom of religion has evidently come under threat. While the stated purpose of the FBI is to protect American society from terrorism, the bureau has created "a pervasive climate of fear and suspicion among Americans." Undermining trust between the state and Muslim American communities, the agency is damaging US collective national security, the documentary stresses.

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