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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