SHUSTER: Imagine that federal agents infiltrated your house of worship by pretending to be somebody they were not. Now imagine they quietly made controversial jokes or statements, encouraged you to laugh or agree with them and then triggered a formal FBI investigation into your possible ties to extremists. Those FBI tactics towards Muslim-Americans were reported by The New York Times two years ago.
In our number two story in the "Countdown", the tensions between the FBI and the Muslim American community are now going to get a lot worse. According to an incredible story by Wired.com reporter Spencer Ackerman, "the FBI instructed counterterrorism agents as recently as six months ago that mainstream American Muslims are likely to be terrorist sympathizers, that the Prophet Mohammed was a cult leader, and that the Islamic practice of giving charity is no more than a funding mechanism for combat."
The documents come from the FBI training ground in Quantico, Virginia. One document contends that the more devout a Muslim, the more likely he is to be violent.
The story's disgusting and infuriating on many levels. First of all, we have this thing called the U.S. Constitution. The FBI tramples on the Constitution by portraying religiously observant Americans as terrorists in waiting.
Secondly, on a purely strategic level, this counterterrorism effort is breathtakingly stupid. Our government's own database has proved that the religious behavior of an American citizen is not an indicator of potential terrorism.
But this whole thing gets even worse. The FBI briefings were lead by an anti-Muslim author whose work has been discredited. And the reading materials included work by an anti-Muslim blogger who has also been discredited. That means the FBI didn't bother to conduct a background check or even Google who they picked to lead counterterrorism briefings. Or worse, perhaps somebody at the FBI did check and decided this was exactly what they wanted. Either way, this is a national shame.
FBI Director Mueller, I'm told that you are disgusted by what some of your agents did. If that's true, you should now assign an independent task force to determine who exactly in your agency promoted and encouraged these stupid, counterproductive and dangerous briefings. And yes, they are dangerous. Any time law enforcement agents needlessly promote tension within a community, they are creating the very chaos and confusion that terrorists rely on to launch successful and deadly attacks.
Mr. Mueller, whose side is the FBI on?
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