The FBI’s Trojan Horse?

Over the past few decades, a paradigm shift has occurred within policing. Known generally as community policing, the basic idea is that state and local law enforcement officers should integrate themselves into the communities they serve.

The idea seems simple and, in theory, uncontroversial: the better the relationship police have with the public, the easier it will be to solve problems, such as crime, that affect everyone's quality of life. But in practice, if police are not properly trained, if programs aren't closely monitored for compliance with American communities' constitutional rights, community policing can open the door to biased policing and other rights violations.

That's what happened after 9/11, when the FBI initiated a mosque outreach program in Northern California.

Californian Muslim community members may have thought that the FBI was building relationships of trust by coming to mosques to discuss problems the community might face, such as hate crimes. That's what the FBI did in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. But what appeared initially to be a laudatory program dedicated to protecting the civil rights of American Muslims developed into something very different.

Read on....