FBI director defends use of informants in mosques

[LeighAnn]

Source: Seattle Times

FBI Director Robert Mueller on Monday defended the agency's use of informants within U.S. mosques, despite complaints from Muslim organizations that worshippers and clerics are being targeted instead of possible terrorists.

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 worshippers. Similar alarm followed the disclosure earlier this year that the FBI planted a spy in Southern California mosques.

"We don't investigate places, we investigate individuals," Mueller said during a brief meeting with reporters in Los Angeles.

"To the extent that there may be evidence or other information of criminal wrongdoings, then we will ... undertake those investigations," Mueller added. "We will continue to do it."


Read more: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2009315482_apusmosquesurveillance.html

[Downwinder]

1. I know of several churches where Fan Belt Inspectors

would be more likely to bag terrorists than in mosques.

[atreides1]

2. Maybe Mueller should start looking at the other side

The anti-abortion Christians might need some special FBI love. But that won't happen because in Mueller's world only non-Christians can be terrorists.

[riverdeep]

3. I don't have a problem with this.

As long as they are actually doing what they say they are doing, i.e. looking for terrorists, terrorist sympathizers and funding rather than intimidating honest worshipers. Informants are in every major political organization, especially those considered on the left. You can bet on it. In the past, these informants were the ones to instigate violence and therefore bring the entire group down, so the watchers need watching, too.

[Downwinder]

4. Either the one in Operation Rescue was not doing his job

or he is in jail.

[Downwinder]

5. I don't fear terrorists as much as I fear the Police State.

I was in Chile during the Junta and Argentina during the Dirty War.

[OKNancy]

6. kick

[Technowitch]

7. There's a fine line...

...between an informant and an instigator, and that line gets damned blurry when it becomes clear the 'informant' has a vested interest (money, avoiding jail time) in pushing others towards crimes they would not otherwise commit or be capable of committing.

Just witness the 'Bronx Bombers' case -- a bunch of losers, one of them mentally ill, another who seems to be in it mainly because their new 'friend' is paying his brother's medical bills and giving them lavish gifts. Who offered to sell them weapons and explosives? The informant.