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31 Aug, 2011

America’s FBI goes rogue — Redress Information & Analysis

Aaronson looked at over 500 terrorism-related cases taken up by the FBI and found that over half of them involved the bureau’s stable of 15,000 informants. Many of these are ex-felons and con men who are often paid well if their efforts result in an arrest and conviction.

So what, you might say. Using informants to obtain information about criminal activity is an old and legitimate tactic. Yes, however, that approach to information gathering is not exactly how the FBI uses all of its informants. Indeed, the bureau has a programme, misnamed “prevention” which encourages its agents to get creative in the use of informants. How creative? Well, if they can’t find any terrorist activity going on, they have their informants instigate some. Where are they doing this? Mainly in our country’s Muslim communities.

via America’s FBI goes rogue > Americas > Redress Information & Analysis.