Once Again, FBI’s ‘Muslim Outreach’ Welcomes Terror-Tied Man

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/once-again-fbis-muslim-outreach-welcomes-terror-tied-man/?singlepage=true

 

Despite knowing the Hamas ties of Kifah Mustapha, the FBI gave him a guided tour of a top-secret counterterrorism center and access to classified investigative techniques.

 

by Patrick Poole

 

Court documents filed last month by the Department of Justice in a federal civil rights lawsuit shows that Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Robert Grant of the FBI Chicago field office had warned the Illinois State Police: newly appointed Muslim chaplain Kifah Mustapha would never pass an FBI background check.

Mustapha’s long association with terrorist group Hamas occurred at virtually the same time that Mustapha was admitted into the FBI Citizens’ Academy sponsored by SAC Grant’s Chicago office. The Academy program required a background check and included a guided tour of the top-secret National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) and the FBI Academy at Quantico.

The statements made by SAC Grant were noted in a motion for a protective order filed with the court and noted in a report published by the Investigative Project. The DOJ’s motion states:

In each conversation, SAC Grant stated that Mustapha would not pass an FBI background check if he applied for an FBI chaplain position and then proceeded to explain the bases for his opinion.

The DOJ motion is in response to the lawsuit filed by Mustapha after his state police appointment as Muslim chaplain was revoked. Mustapha had initially been accepted as state police chaplain, but after a news story aired reporting Mustapha’s terrorist connections and terror support, the state police conducted another background check. During this check was apparently when the conversations with SAC Grant took place, which resulted in the state police revoking Mustapha’s appointment. Mustapha then sued, claiming ethnic and religious discrimination, with his case being supported by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which has also been identified by the FBI as a terrorist front for Hamas.

The FBI, which is not a party to the lawsuit, is seeking to protect the information they shared with the state police on Mustapha, claiming it would reveal sources and collection methods.
There’s not much mystery as to why SAC Grant would tell the Illinois State Police that Kifah Mustapha couldn’t pass an FBI background check. Mustapha is a known Hamas operative, including his prior employment with the Holy Land Foundation, which was listed as a specially designated terrorist group by the U.S. government in December 2001, and whose executives were convicted of terrorism support for Hamas in 2008 and sentenced to lengthy prison terms. Mustapha was personally named by federal prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator (#31) in the case, and employment records submitted during the trial showed that he received more than $154,000 for his work with the Holy Land Foundation between 1996 and 2000.

Also during the trial, FBI Special Agent Lara Burns testified that Mustapha sang in a band sponsored by the Holy Land Foundation that regularly featured songs dedicated to killing Jews and glorifying Hamas.
In a deposition he gave in a civil trial concerned with the murder of a Chicago teenager killed by Hamas while waiting for a bus in Israel, Mustapha admitted that he was the registered agent for the Holy Land Foundation in Illinois, and also to his involvement with other Hamas front groups, including the Islamic Association for Palestine. He was later hired as an imam by the Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview, which the Chicago Tribune noted in 2004 has long been a hotbed of Hamas support.

What makes the statements by SAC Grant so puzzling is that at virtually the same time that he was telling the state police that Mustapha couldn’t pass an FBI background check, Mustapha apparently passed an FBI background check when he was admitted to the FBI Citizens’ Academy under the sponsorship of Grant’s office.

The Citizens’ Academy webpage on the FBI’s own website states:

Because of the classified investigative techniques discussed, nominees must also undergo a background check and get an interim security clearance.

In at least some of the FBI programs, each nominee must meet the approval of the special agent in charge. This glaring contradiction has been noted by Mustapha’s attorneys in his lawsuit against the state police, who have issued a subpoena to the FBI requesting all materials involving the FBI background check conducted for Mustapha’s admittance to the FBI Citizens’ Academy.

So how exactly did Kifah Mustapha with his extensive terror ties get cleared to participate in the six-week FBI program? That’s precisely the question I asked when I first broke the story last September about Mustapha being given a guided tour of the top-secret NCTC and the FBI Academy. After my initial story was published, one Homeland Security official contacted me informing me not only that “the plugs had to be pulled” in order for Mustapha to be admitted to the FBI program, but that “the NCTC has Kifah Mustapha on the highest watch list we have.”

Mustapha’s terrorist ties are hardly a secret since much of the information available publicly is from FBI agents testifying in court, court and deposition transcripts, and exhibits entered into evidence by federal prosecutors during the largest terrorism financing trial in American history.

But as soon as my report was published, the FBI began to double-down and defend Mustapha’s inclusion in the program. FBI Chicago spokesman Ross Rice told the Washington Times: “If we thought he was a security risk, we wouldn’t have included him.” But we now know from the DOJ’s filing in the lawsuit that SAC Grant thought Mustapha enough of a security threat to repeatedly mention it to his Illinois State Police colleagues.

Another FBI spokesman, Paul Bresson, also spoke to Fox News, which reported:

“He’s a prominent figure in the community,” Bresson said, adding that the sheik has not been convicted of a crime. “It’s not like we gave him secret access or classified information.”

But the FBI did give him access to the top-secret NCTC, which even many Homeland Security and federal law enforcement officials are not able to enter and whose location is secret. And by its own admission posted on their own website, the FBI gives Citizens’ Academy participants access to “classified investigative techniques,” which is precisely their stated reason why they must first pass a background check and receive a limited security clearance.

After all, the FBI itself advertises its academies with the promise: “Want to find out first hand how the FBI works? Hear how the Bureau tracks down spies and terrorists?” No doubt, terrorist operatives like Kifah Mustapha are very interested in how the FBI conducts terrorist investigations, and in this case the FBI knowingly let at least one terrorist operative in on those secrets.

No wonder then that as soon as the media started asking questions, both FBI Director Robert Mueller and National Security Advisor James Clapper refused to address the issue just a few days after I broke the story.

Kifah Mustapha’s lawsuit and the admission by the DOJ about SAC Grant’s statements about Mustapha to the Illinois State Police, along with the FBI’s inclusion of Mustapha in their Citizens’ Academy program, expose the pure schizophrenia that characterizes the U.S. government’s “Muslim outreach” efforts. Time and again we see government agencies knowingly and willingly reaching out to terrorist operatives as official representatives of or interlocutors with the Muslim community (eg., Abdurahman Alamoudi, Anwar al-Awlaki, Louay Safi, et al).

But what we see in this most recent court filing is that what law enforcement and Homeland Security officials are willing to say in private to their colleagues about their “outreach partners” is the exact opposite of what they say when they repeatedly get caught in their own “outreach” traps and begin publicly defending terrorist operatives when asked about it by the media.

It is clearly time for Congress to get to the bottom of the U.S. government’s hopelessly failed and utterly counter-productive Muslim outreach programs that empower and legitimize terrorist operatives like Kifah Mustapha and expose other law enforcement agencies that are unwilling to participate in such duplicity to lawsuits by terrorist fronts masquerading as “civil rights organizations” such as CAIR. The FBI has established mutually exclusive positions on their outreach partner Kifah Mustapha and it is long past time that these agencies are held to account.

Patrick Poole is a regular contributor to Pajamas Media, and an anti-terrorism consultant to law enforcement and the military.

Feds Issue Threat: No Fly Zone for Texas?

by Connor Boyack, with Brian Roberts and Michael Boldin

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Justice upped the ante in a high-stakes political game of chicken. Lobbying against pending legislation in the Texas legislature which would criminalize any searches conducted without probable cause, U.S. Attorney John E. Murphy sent a letter to a few high-ranking members of Texas’ government warning against promoting the bill and threatening a complete closure of all flights to and from the state.

“If HR [sic] 1937 were enacted, the federal government would likely seek an emergency stay of the statute,” Murphy wrote. “Unless or until such a stay were granted, TSA would likely be required to cancel any flight or series of flights for which it could not ensure the safety of passengers and crew.”

No doubt written with the threatening intent one reads into it, Murphy added: “We urge that you consider the ramifications of this bill before casting your vote.”

Previous to the federal government’s threat, the Texas legislature had considered the ramifications of the bill. More importantly, they were responding to a clear need to uphold the Fourth Amendment and ensure that each person enjoys the right “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” — a right which the U.S. Constitution mandates “shall not be violated.”

Repeated TSA violations of the Fourth Amendment

That need has demonstrated itself in great abundance in past months, as the TSA has aggressively pursued its new policy of invasive searches and seizures at the nation’s airports. The “ramifications” to which the U.S. Attorney refers are evidently an easily dismissed matter of little importance to the federal government; to those affected by these policies, the ramifications of a bill seeking to prevent further occurrences is no doubt a welcome development.

It was less than a month ago at the Dallas, TX airport where former Miss USA Susie Castillo tearfully produced a viral video describing the molestation she had just then endured at the hands of a TSA agent. “I mean, she actually… touched my vagina,” Castillo said through her tears. “They’re making me… choose to either get molested… or go through this machine that’s completely unhealthy and dangerous. I don’t want to go through it, and here I am crying.”

Castillo isn’t the only person who would be protected under this Texas legislation. All other innocent travelers would likewise be shielded. That includes the six year old girl who made the headlines last month for being groped by a TSA agent (an action which the TSA defended as being alright since it “followed the current standard operating procedures”), as well as the eight-month-old infant subjected to a pat down while cradled in the arms of her mother.

These are but a few of the myriad confrontations that occur daily where TSA agents detain, invasively search, and seize items from innocent individuals who are not suspected of any crime whatsoever. Texas’ bill would correct this horrific perversion of the law within its state, but the federal government is clearly interested in justifying and maintaining its statist status quo.

Repeated Threats from the Federal Government

Evidence of that arrogant persistence is found in letters similar to the one penned last night by the U.S. Attorney to Texas officials. Almost two years ago, a similarly threatening letter was sent to Oklahoma by the U.S. Attorney General. In it, the state is warned against pursuing a constitutional amendment to make the English language official. The threat was a termination of appropriated funds to the state.

Another letter was sent in 2009 to both Montana and Tennessee in response to those states passing a Firearms Freedom Act. Rather than an explicit threat of any sort, these letters completely dismissed any constitutional standing or legitimate concern by the states, instead (incorrectly) affirming the federal government’s supreme authority over the issue at hand.

More recently, a U.S. Attorney wrote to the Governor of Rhode Island warning against that state’s implementation of medical marijuana legislation which would constitutionally regulate the manufacture, distribution, and consumption of the plant within the state. The attorney trumpeted the federal laws relating to the “controlled substance” and assured the Governor that the Department of Justice’s full resources would be brought to bear against any state (theirs included) which attempted to oppose the federal government’s complete control.

Rob Natelson, recognized national expert on the founding and adoption of the Constitution, considers these letters to be far more ominous than mere statements. In response to the 2009 letters, he said, “I look at this and I see this letter which gets close to looking like an order from the central government down to a sovereign state legislature, and I say…WOW. This looks like something that (Roman Emperor) Septimius Severus would have sent to the local officials.” He continued, “It reminds one eerily of the kinds of communications that started to come out from the Emperor to the local cities of the Roman Empire, beginning the course of the ultimate destruction of local government.”

Despite Threats, Moving Forward

For now, it appears that the U.S. Attorney’s threat has realized its goal; the sponsor of the Texas bill has decided to concede defeat in this battle, but remains committed to fighting the war. “I will pull HB 1937 down, but I will stand for liberty in the state of Texas,” said Senator Dan Patrick, the bill’s sponsor. As such, as of right now, the bill has died.

This much is clear: the federal government should not consider this a victory. As individuals are being unjustly molested on a daily basis, it is increasingly becoming apparent that there exists a strong, emotionally-charged undercurrent of resistance against the TSA and its invasive searches and seizures.

If anything, the withdrawal of Texas’ legislation last night should be seen as the calm before the coming storm of state-based opposition to the TSA.

Texas is Not Alone

If anything can serve as a rallying cry to unite the states against an oppressive, unconstitutional action on the part of the federal government, it is the institutionalized and fear-based justification of the molestation of innocent men, women, and children. The U.S. Attorney’s stern counsel to consider the “ramifications” of the Texas bill speaks more in support of the state’s actions than against it.

Indeed, when one considers the ramifications of not opposing the federal government on this issue, it is difficult to imagine how many Susie Castillos will be felt up by the feds for no valid reason whatsoever. That unnecessary nightmare is enough to encourage a single state — in this case, Texas — to stand strong in the defense of the individual liberties of its citizens.

But Texas is not alone. Already, four other states are considering similar “travel freedom” legislation. And, sources close to the Tenth Amendment Center tell us to expect at least ten others in 2012. Taken together, it becomes evident that many other states will soon be picking up the baton, together having the courage needed to put the federal government back in its rightful place — which isn’t inside the waistline of innocent passengers.

The TSA’s resident propagandist, Blogger Bob, will have his work cut out for him in the months ahead.

Connor Boyack [send him mail] is the state chapter coordinator for the Utah Tenth Amendment Center. He is a web developer, political economist, and budding philanthropist trying to change the world one byte at a time. He lives in Utah with his wife and son. Read his blog.
Brian Roberts [send him email] is communications director for the Texas Tenth Amendment Center
Michael Boldin [send him email] is the founder of the Tenth Amendment Center. He was raised in Milwaukee, WI, and currently resides in Los Angeles, CA. Follow him on twitter - @michaelboldin - and visit his personal blog - http://www.michaelboldin.com/

DOJ, DHS video instructs law enforcement to obey sharia

By David Stein

“The First Three to Five Seconds: Arab and Muslim Cultural Awareness for Law Enforcement” is an outrageous example of the U.S. government appeasing the very worst elements of Islam, even at the expense of our own laws and values. This training film not only instructs law enforcement officers to obey Sharia gender rules when conducting investigations, it’s also a flagrant piece of pro-Islamic propaganda that presents Muslim gender discrimination as proof of Islam’s “strong connection to God.”

“The First Three to Five Seconds” was initially developed by the Department of Justice, and it’s now used by both the DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security to train all of their law enforcement personnel. “The First Three to Five Seconds” is described on the DHS website as a film that “introduces law enforcement officers to basic principles of the Arab American and Muslim American cultures.” However, the DHS description hardly does this instructional film justice.

To begin with, there is the outright pro-Islam propaganda. Naturally, all religions see their tenets and customs in a positive light. But it’s not the job of the United States government, in a taxpayer-funded film, to produce religious propaganda which claims that one particular religion’s tenets and customs somehow make that faith “closer to God.”

“The First Three to Five Seconds” opens with the Muslim call to prayer. The narrator proclaims, “In order to keep a strong connection with God, Islam prescribes that believers pray five times a day.” The narration continues, instructing law enforcement officers:

“If you visit a mosque, be aware that there are separate entrances to the prayer sections for females and males as an extension of modesty. To keep their minds on the worship of God, men and women pray in separate sections.”

Muslims might believe that praying five times a day strengthens their connection to God, they might believe that it is immodest for men and women to enter a mosque together, and they might believe that segregating men and women keeps their minds on the worship of God…but that’s opinion, not fact.
Some would argue that Islamic gender segregation is due to an intense, virulent, and pervasive anti-female bias within the faith – something negative, not positive. Yet “The First Three to Five Seconds” uses taxpayer money to promote a positive view of Muslim gender segregation. If a law enforcement agency wishes to instruct its officers in how Muslims pray, fine. Lay out the facts; leave the value judgments out.
Interestingly, the line about Muslims’ “strong connection to God,” while clearly spoken in the film, is absent in the DHS transcript.

Where “The First Three to Five Seconds” hits absolute rock bottom is in its instructions to law enforcement officers, should they have to visit a Muslim home during the course of an investigation. Startlingly, the film tells officers not to enter a Muslim home if there is an adult female occupant who is not in the presence of a Muslim male! The film provides a dramatization in which a male officer knocks on the door of a home. An adult female in a hijab answers meekly, informing the policeman that her husband is not home, so she cannot speak to the officer or allow him inside. The narrator says, “This might seem suspicious,” but, he reassures the viewers, it is indeed “inappropriate” to enter a Muslim house in a situation like that. The officer is shown turning around and leaving.

The narrator states that no officer should enter a Muslim home if they are the opposite sex of the person who is home alone, meaning that a female officer should not enter a home, in the course of a police investigation, if the sole occupant is a Muslim male.

This is nothing more than the U.S. government advocating gender discrimination, pure and simple. Sharia may demand the segregation of the sexes, but U.S. law forbids preventing someone from doing their job solely on account of their gender.

This is the Justice Department violating U.S. law. Think about it; the DOJ and the DHS are telling law enforcement officers that they may NOT carry out an investigation if doing so requires them to be in a house alone with a Muslim of the opposite sex. This is not only an insult to law enforcement…it’s a grotesque negation of core American (and Western) values.

On a personal note, I worked on a project for the Department of Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI) back in 1996 (the DEOMI, just like the DOJ and DHS, uses “The First Three to Five Seconds” as a training tool). I was working on a research project about white supremacist hate groups, which the DEOMI had initiated in response to the racially-motivated killing of a black couple by two white supremacist GIs from Fort Bragg in December ‘95. I can only imagine the response from DEOMI brass had I suggested that a good way to deal with white supremacists is to instruct black law enforcement officers to never enter a white man’s home (because, after all, that way we can show the white supremacists that we respect their beliefs, and therefore they’ll become better citizens)!

Obviously, had I ever made such an idiotic suggestion, I would have immediately been bounced out on my rear-end (quite justifiably). Yet now, look what we’re doing. We’re telling law enforcement officers to not do their jobs in the name of appeasing Muslim gender discrimination. 

Another disturbing thing about the instructions given in the film is that women are treated like children. It’s incredibly demeaning. When the Muslim woman meekly tells the officer to go away because her “man” isn’t there, and he complies, it’s no different than if a child had opened the door. Just as children need adult supervision, Muslim women, apparently, need “male supervision.” If their “man” isn’t home, law enforcement must abandon the investigation until the woman can be properly “overseen” (in fact, in most cases, police officers are allowed, in the course of an investigation, to speak to a child without an adult being present. So these DOJ and DHS instructions actually treat Muslim women worse than children).
It’s appalling.

It should be noted that “The First Three to Five Seconds” was produced during the Bush Administration. That’s an important point, lest anyone believe that the current desire to kowtow to Islam was born with the Obama presidency. It was not. There have been people in our government, working in various agencies, who have, for years, wanted to appease the worst and most un-American elements in the Muslim community. That mindset existed before Obama was elected president, and vigilance against it must remain, even should Obama be defeated.

Three brief endnotes: The production company hired by the DOJ to produce “The First Three to Five Seconds” was Art Palette Productions, which also produces videos for the SEIU.

In the closing credits, one of the organizations thanked for its assistance in the making of the film is the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center, the Hamas-connected mosque at which current al-Qaeda commander Anwar al-Awlaki served as Imam.

The main consultant on the film was Professor Jack Shaheen, a tireless activist in the cause of suppressing honest discussion about Arab and Muslim terror. Shaheen is the man who shamelessly proclaimed, following the Fort Hood shooting rampage by Nidal Hasan, that Hasan’s “faith and ethnic background had absolutely nothing to do” with his crimes. I have written more about Prof. Shaheen here.

“The First Three to Five Seconds” can be viewed in full below. Or, to view it on the DHS website, click here. On the DHS site, the film is split into two parts. The first part slams the U.S. for “negative stereotypes” of Muslims in the media. It also covers issues involving the Sikh community. All of the material covered in this article is in part two.

After the viewing, the DHS will present you with a questionnaire, to find out if you have properly absorbed the message of the film. You’ll then be asked to submit the completed form to the DHS. As your tax money paid for the film, by all means, feel free to let them know what you thought of it (but be mindful that the Obama Administration is fond of collecting “enemy” emails).


http://www.countercontempt.com/archives/1904

Issa Demands Justice Dept. Answer Project Gunrunner Subpoenas

Said Issa: "If you made a decision this felony stupid you shouldn't be making decisions any longer on behalf of the American people."

 

April 28, 2011 - by Patrick Richardson

 

Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, stopped just short of calling for the firing of both Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano on a California radio program Tuesday.

On The Roger Hedgecock Show, Issa discussed his committee’s investigation of Operation Gunrunner: an operation run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Department of Justice which allegedly allowed thousands of firearms across the border into Mexico. The guns ended up in the hands of drug cartels and were allegedly used in the murder of at least two American law enforcement agents: “Ultimately the Justice Department has to be asking questions about how they’re run,” Issa said on the program, adding that, with a campaign preparing to start, President Barack Obama needs to question if he has the right people heading DOJ and DHS.

According to a story originally broken by CBS News earlier this year, the operation was designed to allow “straw buyers” — who would purchase the weapons for someone else — to buy high quality weapons, including .50 caliber sniper rifles, from cooperating licensed dealers in the U.S. ATF would then track those weapons and hopefully take down the gun-running rings and perhaps the cartels as well. Said Issa:

This was an approved program designed to get not just the straw buyers but the bigger fish. It failed to get the bigger fish.

read more: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/issa-demands-justice-dept-answer-project-gunrunner-subpoenas/