by Philip Haney
At the top of the in-box was an e-mail string dated March 12, 2010, that originated with our assistant port director and was forwarded by my immediate supervisor, who added, “I had hoped to tell you in person but the word is out.”
At the bottom of the string, the assistant port director wrote, “Effective immediately, please place Haney back in the [Federal Inspection Station] rotation – he is no longer needed in CTRT and we can certainly use him on primary.”
CTRT is the Counter Terrorism Response Team. Aside from the fact that I wasn’t even assigned to the CTRT, the point of the memo was that I would no longer be working as a subject matter expert in counterterrorism.
For a few moments, I just stared at the screen. The e-mail was not only incomprehensible, but incredibly disrespectful.
First, I’m not a “Subject.” I’m Officer Haney, or Philip Haney, not just “Haney,” like some kind of object or inconvenience.
Second, I had just spent the last four-plus months removing the dots from hundreds of TECS records and was still only half finished, at least in terms of how management had originally defined the project.
I say half finished because the eight-hundred-plus records I had worked on since November 2009 were only for individuals; there were still at least 850 more records linked to their affiliated organizations that had not been touched.
But there was no mention in the e-mail of the status of the modification project. In fact, there was no mention of the project at all, as if it had never happened. No explanation, no follow-up, no minimal professional courtesy; just a sterile mischaracterization that I was “no longer needed in CTRT.”
Moreover, not a single one of the fifteen nomination packages – the recommendation of names for inclusion in the Terrorist Screening Database – that I had already prepared and redone three times had been forwarded to the National Targeting Center.
The most important lesson to take away from the whole modification project fiasco is that we had now come to a point in our counterterrorism policy where putting information into the system on individuals with known or potential ties to terrorism was officially prohibited.
From late 2009 into early 2010, there were murky official explanations offered, but in the next few years, the real reasons for such a policy would become much clearer.
For example, as DHS spokeswoman Marsha Catron explained to MSNBC on December 17, 2015, officials must ensure that any vetting follows “current law and appropriately takes into account civil rights and civil liberties and privacy protections.”10
The key word in this statement is “appropriately.”
From the very beginning, the Obama administration made the deliberate policy decision that it was more “appropriate” to take into account the civil rights and civil liberties of foreign nationals than to consider the nation’s security.
As we’ll see in chapter 10, the danger of this policy would become tragically apparent at 2:49 p.m. on April 15, 2013, when two bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.
Just one day after learning I was being moved back to primary, I received an e-mail from a colleague in the FBI, inviting me to work on a project with his agency and the Joint Terrorism Task Force.
“I just wanted to reach out to you via my FBI e-mail,” he wrote, “so that we could establish communication. I will be working with my partner here at Washington Field and our boss to find out if there is a way we can get you on board some of the things we are working here in our office…. Given your analytical background and experience, I think you can offer some much needed assistance.”
He then had a couple of questions for me: “What would you be willing to accept for work situations, i.e. if you are willing to travel to DC, how long would you be willing to stay?” And “What level clearances do you hold?”
He went on to say that some of the agency’s information was at the “Secret” level, and I would need to be authorized to see it if I were to be of help with their project.
I passed the initial exchange up the chain of command, then waited to hear back. In the meantime, I went ahead and filled out the paperwork for secret clearance and continued preparing for the opportunity to work with my FBI colleagues.
Two weeks later, on April 2, 2010, I was cc’ed on a follow-up e-mail from my FBI contact:
Below is an e-mail contact I had with an excellent analyst, Philip Haney, from CBP. In the last few years he has put together very informative analytical pieces on much of the MB front here in the US, solely for DHS use. In subsequent conversations with him, he would very much enjoy continuing to work [on] the MB.
My question is how can we facilitate that? In response to my questions below, he has a confidential clearance pending and has requested that be upgraded to a Secret level (working with us could be part of the justification for that).
He works out of the Atlanta CBP office. Is there a way to provide access at the Atlanta office and/or request something akin to a JTTF TDY for a CBP analyst?
I’ve spoken to him a lot about the MB, and his knowledge on the subject matter, and can tell you that he possesses a very deep level of knowledge even without access to our material.
Please let me know your thoughts.
That was the last official exchange I had with my FBI colleague, who was obviously making every effort he could to find a creative way for us to work together on a national security-level case.
However, as I had already seen several times since 2006, port management never followed through with his request and never bothered to notify me of their decision to deny this TDY opportunity to work on the Muslim Brotherhood case with the FBI in Washington, DC.
“RIGHT OFF THE FLOOR”
That same week, we had a morning muster on the floor of the Federal Inspection Station. We did this often, for a few minutes just before the first flights of the day arrived, to talk things over and to make sure we were all on the same page.
On this particular morning, we gathered around the central command area as usual, and Port Director Kremer spoke to the staff.
“For a while now, Mr. Haney and I have been having this ongoing discussion about where the best place for him to be is,” Kremer said. “I think the best place for him to be is right out here, where he can pull live cases right off the floor.
“We don’t need him to be in the back, out of sight, working with old information, but out here, where he can develop new cases, and get new information,” he said. “Don’t you agree, Mr. Haney?”
I didn’t answer him. Instead, I just sighed and gave him a half smile. What else could I say? I certainly wasn’t about to disagree with him in front of all my colleagues.
At the time, it was anything but a funny moment. Kremer had turned our private, professional conversation into a public discussion.
However, a few months later, something “funny” did come of it.
By December 2010, I had put together twenty-eight solid cases from “right off the floor,” including many individuals who were US citizens returning from Deobandi madrassas in South Africa.
From my booth in primary, I came in a little early and did all the targeting before the flights landed. I then put the lookouts into the TECS system and made sure each person was referred for a secondary inspection.
In most of the cases, I also went to secondary to conduct the interviews and wrote up the final report for each case in a standardized format, which I had created.
I used a standardized format to ensure that every passenger I interviewed was asked exactly the same questions. That way, no one could say that I discriminated, or asked random or arbitrary questions.
After these final reports were downloaded into TECS and approved by the duty supervisor in secondary, I would close up shop in secondary and go back out to the floor and finish up my shift on primary.
Exhausting, yes, but rewarding.
I received support and encouragement from my two direct supervisors at the time, William Brannen and Frank Rodrigue
z, who worked closely with me and made it possible for this important case to come to life.
Ironically, these “off the floor” interviews formed the core of what became the Tablighi Jamaat Initiative at NTC. I worked on the case for another year and a half, and by November 2011, I was sent to NTC for a six-month TDY in which I was assigned to manage the Tablighi Jamaat Initiative.
WORKING WITH “COMMUNITIES”
Meanwhile, the Countering Violent Extremism Working Group was in full swing.
On May 26, 2010, the DHS Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) released a document stating its intent to work with “communities”:
Recognizing that there have been many successful cases of local law enforcement working with communities to fight violent crime, at the February 2010 HSAC Meeting Secretary Napolitano tasked the HSAC to “… work with state and local law enforcement as well as relevant community groups to develop and provide to me recommendations regarding how the Department can better support community-based efforts to combat violent extremism domestically, focusing in particular on the issues of training, information sharing, and the adoption of community-oriented law enforcement approaches to this issue.11
One of the CVE Working Group recommendations was a precursor to the implementation of civil rights and civil liberties policies in the law-enforcement and immigration-enforcement arenas:
Recognizing that policies implemented by DHS can affect local community partnerships, DHS Civil Rights Civil Liberties (CRCL) and other relevant DHS offices should continue and expand their engagement and grievance resolution efforts at DHS.12
It is important to recall that all of the individuals appointed to the 2010 Working Group were selected by DHS-HSAC after the Holy Land Foundation trial in 2008 and the surfacing of its list of unindicted coconspirators.
Apparently, the DHS-CRCL selection committee did not consider direct affiliation with organizations that were known financial supporters of Hamas to be a factor worth considering when it vetted the candidates for the Working Group.
This proved to be true on February 5, 2014, when a public notice was posted in the Federal Register that softened the standards for refusing to admit a foreigner on terrorism-related grounds:13
Following consultations with the Attorney General [DOJ], the Secretary of Homeland Security [DHS] and the Secretary of State [USSD] have determined that the grounds of inadmissibility at section 212(a)(3)(B) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(3)(B), bar certain aliens who do not pose a national security or public safety risk from admission to the United States and from obtaining immigration benefits or other status. Accordingly, consistent with prior exercises of the exemption authority, the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Attorney General, hereby conclude, as a matter of discretion in accordance with the authority granted by INA section 212(d)(3)(B)(i), 8 U.S.C. 1182 (d)(3)(B)(i),14 as amended, as well as the foreign policy and national security interests deemed relevant in these consultations, that paragraphs 212(a)(3)(B)(iv)(VI)(bb) and (dd) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(3)(B)(iv)(VI)(bb) and (dd), shall not apply with respect to an alien who provided limited material support to an organization [emphasis added] described in section 212(a)(3)(B)(vi)(III) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(3)(B)(vi)(III), or to a member of such an organization, or to an individual described in section 212(a)(3)(B)((iv)(VI)(bb) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(3)(B)(iv)(VI)(bb), that involves (1) certain routine commercial transactions or certain routine social transactions (i.e., in the satisfaction of certain well-established or verifiable family, social, or cultural obligations), (2) certain humanitarian assistance, or (3) substantial pressure that does not rise to the level of duress, provided, however, that the alien satisfies the relevant agency authority that the alien … [several exclusion clauses follow].15
In simpler language, the use here of the legal term “discretion” meant that the federal government would henceforth begin issuing entry and immigration visas (i.e., a path to citizenship) to individuals who had only provided “limited material support” to a known terrorist organization or to a known member of that organization if it was given as part of a “routine transaction” or in the satisfaction of certain “well-established … cultural obligations.”
Let’s turn now to a review of the Working Group appointees with close affiliations to known Muslim Brotherhood front organizations.
The first two were Omar Alomari, affiliated with the Muslim American Society and several other Muslim Brotherhood front groups, and Mohamed Magid (ISNA), who was mentioned earlier in this chapter.
A third Muslim Brotherhood–affiliated member of the Working Group was Mohamed Elibiary, who was closely associated with Shukri Abu Baker, one of the five defendants in the Holy Land Foundation trial, as well as with CAIR, an HLF unindicted coconspirator. Elibiary also was appointed to President Obama’s Homeland Security Advisory Council on October 18, 2010, but resigned on September 3, 2014, after a controversial series of tweets.
In one, he wrote that, as he had said before, it is inevitable that the “caliphate,” the Islamic empire government by sharia, will return. And he said he considered the United States to be an “Islamic country with an Islamically compliant Constitution.”16
His resignation was also due to his alleged role in the “inappropriate disclosure of sensitive law enforcement documents,” as described in a letter from DHS.17
A fourth Working Group appointee was Dalia Mogahed, a member of the 2008 Leadership Group on US-Muslim Engagement. She maintained close relationships with CAIR, ISNA, MAS, and MPAC after her April 6, 2009, appointment to the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
A fifth member of the Working Group was Nadia Roumani. From the time of her appointment to the Working Group to the present day, she has served as either director or contributing fellow at the American Muslim Civic Leadership Institute (AMCLI). Although the AMCLI was not designated as a Muslim Brotherhood front group in the HLF trial, the list of its alumni is a who’s who of individuals affiliated with these known coconspirators.
Another member of the Working Group was former Los Angeles deputy mayor Arif Alikhan, who was appointed as assistant secretary for policy development by Napolitano on April 24, 2009. Alikhan is also a close associate of MPAC and the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California (ISCSC), yet another adversarial Muslim Brotherhood umbrella organization for Islamic organizations, including CAIR’s Southern California branch, MPAC, and Islamic Relief, which was led in past years by the Hathout brothers.
In turn, the ISCSC is directly linked to still other individuals and organizations with known ties to Muslim Brotherhood front groups, such as ISNA, MAS, and MSA. Many of these individuals and the Islamic organizations they represent have been engaged in a years-long adversarial relationship with the federal government over its counterterrorism and law-enforcement policies. Often, this has been in close collaboration with the DHS Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. In fact, according to a June 11, 2013, federal court order in a case discussed in chapter 9, CAIR and other Islamic groups attempted to use their close association with the US government to immunize themselves from law-enforcement scrutiny.
Arguing for allowing a claim that the government violated the Fifth Amendment with discriminatory questioning of Muslims based on religious beliefs at ports of entry, the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan Southern Division cited a May 3, 2011, letter from a DHS Civil Rights and Civil Liberties officer, who wrote:
We thank you for your complaint; inquiries like yours help the Department of Homeland Security meet its obligation to protect civil rights and civil liberties. You can expect to receive a letter from us informing you how we have concluded this matter.18
The tactic was also evident when the government intervened on behalf of CAIR and MAS after the UAE had designated them as terrorist organizations on November 15, 2014, along with groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIS.
At the same, the Obama administration continues to make overtures and concessions to them in both domestic and foreign policy.
Meanwhile, on August 10, 2010, Brian Lamkin, the FBI’s special agent in charge in Atlanta, recognized ten of my colleagues and me for a “proactive interagency initiative” that had “supported 98 FBI investigations conducted throughout the U.S. the identification of suspicious activity on behalf of 67 persons previously unknown to the JTTF, and the identification of 24 persons of interest through a program called Operation Good Neighbor.” Operation Good Neighbor was a very successful IDSO, or Intelligence Driven Special Operation, based on specific targeting rules, combined with some very precise analytical criteria.
The operation continued for several more years and was the trigger for many of the interviews I conducted in secondary between 2010 and 2012. My experience and insights, gained from studying the Quran and working in the Middle East, proved very valuable in this operation and helped the team refine and improve our counterterrorism efforts.
In other words, things worked just like they’re supposed to.
INFORMANT
On August 13, 2010, I became involved in one of the oddest investigations in my entire CBP career. This time it had to do with possible improper targeting of an alleged informant operating inside ISNA.
Two investigators from the inspector general’s office in downtown Atlanta sat with me in a side office and asked why I had included this alleged informant in one of the reports I had created. According to the investigators, the alleged informant accused me of being impolite and abusive, and claimed that I had “threatened” to send him to secondary.