See Something, Say Nothing

by Philip Haney

  For more on the emerging (evolving) nature of this domestic (i.e., “homegrown”) threat, please see the newly released DHS report entitled Implementing 9/11 Commission Recommendations, which can be accessed at http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/implementing-9-11-commission-report-progress-2011.pdf.

  Thank you all for your support during the difficult process of gathering all of this information, which I believe will help shed light on what I call a “[author’s redaction] Network” of Individuals & Organizations. This network is already having a significant influence on a carefully chosen group of young men, who are in the process of becoming Alims (teachers) & Imams (leaders) in Masjids [mosques] here in the United States.

  The remainder of the status report summarized a trend in Atlanta that had also been observed in several other ports and was now being addressed at the NTC.

  The status memo also set in motion a rapid sequence of events, starting with folding the entire Madrassa Boys case into what was now being called the Tablighi Jamaat Project.

  After the TJ Project was approved by the DHS chief counsel on August 30, 2011, I presented a follow-up PowerPoint presentation on the case to Port Director Kremer and my two first-line supervisors, William Brannen and Frank Rodriguez.

  On September 30, 2011, I prepared a detailed walk-through of the entire case, from our first encounter with a Tablighi Jamaat member in January 2006, through more than seventy-five cases we had initiated in Atlanta.

  On November 7, 2011, a CBP colleague sent a formal letter to port management in Atlanta inviting me to work with NTC:

  The intent of this memorandum is to solicit assistance in the operation and research associated to NTC-P [National Targeting Center-Passenger] Event [author’s redaction] regarding research related to the Tablighi Jamaat (TJ) organization.

  I have been working extensively with CBPO Haney [who is] assigned to CBP-ATL, and he has been instrumental in providing a background on TJ, as well as research dating back over two years of possible TJ member encounters and suspected destination addresses which have links to terrorism.

  CBPO Haney has been an essential part of this operation and his research is still being looked at for further links and possible Visa/ESTA denials and revocations. CBPO Haney continues to be a valuable asset in developing more names, addresses, and leads of TJ members.

  I would like to make a formal request to have the assistance of CBPO Haney in the furtherance of this operation until all targeting rules have been set, subjects identified, and development of further field contacts across CBP to continue the research on this potentially dangerous group.

  This assistance would preferably be in the form of a TDY to NTC-P for a period of 60–120 days for assignment to the NTC-P ATT to get up to full speed with functions within the TF and ATS-P for future targeting efforts.

  A second option would be to send an officer from NTC-P to ATL for 2–3 days for a briefing of operations with CBP-ATL and to get CBPO Haney set up with proper TF functions and access to develop further Intel and to document that information into the TF.

  CBPO Haney is currently assigned to passenger operations with CBP-ATL and he would be a great asset to this operation either working here at NTC-P or being designated to work on this operation from ATL at the request of NTC-P.

  Finally, on November 21, 2011, I received my TDY selection letter from NTC:

  On November 3, 2011, I distributed a memorandum soliciting volunteers for temporary duty assignments (TDY) to the National Targeting Center-Passenger (NTC-P).

  With your concurrence, I am selecting Customs and Border Protection Officer (CBPO) Philip Haney (Atlanta) for participation in this TDY opportunity. If you concur with this TDY participation, please ensure that the attached travel details are forwarded to CBPO Haney.

  A few days after the receiving the confirmation letter, I entered my travel voucher into the system and set off to the NTC, near the nation’s capital, where I reported for duty the first week of December 2011.

  “OFFENSIVE MATERIAL”

  Meanwhile, some of my colleagues within other federal government agencies were also experiencing opposition and personal attack from officials within the Obama administration.

  In August 2011, DHS and the CIA abruptly canceled a conference on homegrown radical extremism that was to be held at CIA headquarters in McLean, Virginia. The conference would have been cohosted by the CIA’s Threat Management Unit and the Intelligence Subcommittee of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.

  In an e-mail announcing the postponement, CIA police officer Lt. Joshua Fielder said, “The conference topic is a critical one for domestic law enforcement, and the sponsors – in partnership with the Department of Homeland Security – have decided to delay the conference so it can include insights from among other sources, [and] the new National Strategy for Counterterrorism in an updated agenda.”12

  It turned out, according to another official, that the conference was stopped because Muslim advocacy groups contacted DHS and the White House about the scheduled speakers, who included two counterterrorism colleagues, Stephen Coughlin, the former consultant on Islamic law for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Steven Emerson, a well-known researcher and investigative reporter.

  However, cancelling the conference wasn’t enough. The same official said that to prevent Coughlin and Emerson from taking part in future conferences, the Obama administration was drafting new guidelines designed to prohibit any “non-authorized” US government personnel from teaching classes on Islamic history or doctrine.

  The new rules also would seek to prohibit the use of federal funds to pay contractors for such training.

  Less than a month later, on September 15, 2011, FBI spokesman Christopher Allen announced his agency had also discovered “offensive material” in its counterterrorism training courses and that policy changes “had been underway to better ensure that all training is consistent with FBI standards.”

  He disingenuously reasoned that the offensive training “was largely derived from a variety of open source publications and includes the opinion of the analyst that developed the lesson block.”

  Allen’s announcement also highlighted a PowerPoint presentation from a March 21, 2011, FBI training course titled “Strategic Themes and Drivers in Islamic Law,” which included supposedly inflammatory statements such as: “There may not be a ‘radical’ threat as much as it is simply a normal assertion of orthodox ideology” and the “strategic themes animating these Islamic values are not fringe, they are main stream.”13

  About three weeks later, on October 5, 2011, the Muslim Public Affairs Council posted a statement on its home page titled “MPAC Co-Signs Letter to FBI Demanding Reformation in Flawed, Anti-Muslim Training.”

  Representing a coalition of progressive, left-wing and Muslim Brotherhood–linked organizations – including CAIR, ISNA, and MSA – MPAC said it had “signed on to a letter authored by the ACLU requesting the FBI withdraw documents and reports published by the bureau with biased and flawed information about Islam and Muslims.”

  Since the rise of the post-9/11 Islamophobic era, the FBI has explicitly stated numerous times “strong religious beliefs should never be confused with violent extremism.” However, the ACLU found numerous documents, such as the FBI intelligence assessment “The Radicalization Process: From Conversion to Jihad” published in March 2006 that lists the supposed “steps” and “indicators” of “homegrown Islamic extremists” as those who practice Islam….

  In the letter, several organizations ask the FBI to conduct a comprehensive review of intelligence and “issue new guidance clearly stating that religious practices and political advocacy are protected activities under the First Amendment, and are not indicators of future violence.”14

  Next, DHS joined the purge when the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, in partnership with the National Counterterrorism Center, issued an October 7, 2011, two-page handout titled “Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Training Guida
nce & Best Practices.”15

  On December 14, 2011, the publication was supplemented with a virtually identical DHS CRCL document called “Countering Violent Extremism Training: Do’s and Don’ts.” Its introduction reads:

  In recent years, the United States has seen a number of individuals in the U.S. become involved in violent extremist activities, with particular activity by American residents and citizens inspired by al Qaeda and its ideology. We know that violent extremism is not confined to any single ideology, but we also know that the threat posed by al Qaeda and its adherents is the preeminent threat we face in the homeland, targeting Muslim American communities for recruitment. Accordingly, it is urgent for law enforcement personnel to be appropriately trained in understanding and detecting ideologically motivated criminal behavior, and in working with communities and local law enforcement to counter domestic violent extremism. Training must be based on current intelligence and an accurate understanding of how people are radicalized to violence, and must include cultural competency training so that our personnel do not mistake, for example, various types of religious observance as a sign of terrorist inclination. Misinformation about the threat and dynamics of violent radicalization can harm our security by sending us in the wrong direction and unnecessarily creating tensions with potential community partners.16

  In the fine print at the bottom of page 2 of this training document is a citation for MPAC’s August 11, 2010, publication, Building Bridges to Strengthen America: Forging an Effective Counterterrorism Enterprise between Muslim Americans and Law Enforcement.

  The Building Bridges document itself discusses an array of intriguingly abstract sociopolitical topics, in sections with titles such as “Current Theories of Radicalization and Terrorist Recruitment” and “Community-Oriented Policing Toward Counterterrorism.”17 It then tries to reassure:

  Conservative groups like the Muslim Brotherhood pose long-term strategic threats to violent extremists by siphoning Muslims away from violent radicalism into peaceful political activism….

  [Building Bridges cites a Combating Terrorism Center report that says]: Hard-line Jihadist organizations like Al-Qai’da both fear and despise the Islamist political movement called the Muslim Brotherhood, in large part because the Brotherhood effectively garners support from the same constituencies that Jihadists are desperate to court. Because the Muslim Brotherhood and Jihadists share a similar ideological lineage, Jihadists tends [sic] to focus their criticism on the Brotherhood’s willingness to participate in secular politics as a vehicle for attacking their Islamic credentials.18

  The “Countering Violent Extremism Training” document warns against using “training with a political agenda. This is not the time to try to persuade audiences, for example, on views about the Israeli/ Palestinian conflict, reformation within Islam, or the proper role of Islam in majority Muslim nations,” it cautions. It also says that trainers “who equate the desire for Sharia law with criminal activity violate basic tenets of the First Amendment.”19

  Significantly, one of the training “Don’ts” is relevant to the case of San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook, whose change in apparel and growth of facial hair in adherence to the Tablighi Jamaat movement coincided with his efforts to carry out violent attacks, including a plot against his community college in Riverside, California. The handout instructs: “Don’t use training that reasons broadly from anecdotal evidence; e.g., Omar Hammami started to wear more religious clothing, therefore starting to wear religious garb is an indicator of terrorism.”20

  It also warns against “training that relies on fear or conspiracies to motivate law enforcement”:

  Don’t use training premised on theories with little or no evidence to support them. Examples (from the report “Manufacturing the Muslim Menace”) of unsubstantiated theories include:

  A. Many mainstream Muslim organizations have terrorist ties

  B. Mainstream Muslim organizations are fronts for Islamic political organizations whose true desire is to establish Sharia law in America. Muslim Americans are using democratic processes, like litigation and free speech, to subvert democracy and install Sharia law.21

  “PURGE ALL MATERIALS”

  But even after all the public apologies and promises for improvement, the purging efforts of the CIA, DHS, DOD, and FBI still weren’t good enough for US Muslim groups.

  On October 19, 2011, fifty-seven Muslim organizations wrote a letter to CIA director John Brennan, complaining of “the federal government’s use of biased, false and highly offensive training materials about Muslims and Islam.” Their chief demand was, “Purge all federal government training materials of biased materials.”22

  “The seriousness of this issue cannot be overstated,” the Muslim leaders said, “and we request that the White House immediately create an interagency task force to address this problem, with a fair and transparent mechanism for input from the Muslim, Arab, and South Asian communities, including civil rights lawyers, religious leaders, and law enforcement experts.”

  Among the groups that put their names on the letter were unindicted coconspirators in the Holy Land Foundation trial, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America, the Islamic Circle of North America, Islamic Relief, and the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

  Islamic Relief, another signatory to the ACLU–Brennan letter, also has a long history of affiliations with individuals and organizations with known links to terrorism.

  Later, on December 25, 2013, Egypt designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. It was followed months later by Saudi Arabia and the UAE. In addition, on November 15, 2014, the UAE designated CAIR, IRW, and MAS as terrorist organizations, specifically labeling IRW as a part of the global Muslim Brotherhood network.

  In their letter, the Islamic groups took particular offense at statements in federal government training materials such as: “Islamic doctrine is based upon the establishment of its culture in dominance of all others. In essence, all other cultures must not only accept, but convert or submit, to Islam.” They also highlighted the PowerPoint presentation titled “Strategic Themes and Drivers in Islamic Law,” mentioned earlier in this chapter, used in FBI training. And they specifically criticized Coughlin for saying in January 2011 that Islamic law is not compatible with the US Constitution.23

  The organizations demanded: “Implement a mandatory re-training program for FBI agents, U.S. Army officers, and all federal, state and local law enforcement who have been subjected to biased training.” They also called for the issuance of “guidance clearly stating that religious practice and political advocacy are protected activities under the First Amendment, not indicators of violence, and shall not be the basis for surveillance or investigation.”24

  Remarkably, the Brennan letter also included several specific demands for discipline of law enforcement personnel, which were carried out during my career.

  “Ensure that personnel reviews are conducted and all trainers and other government employees who promoted biased trainers and training materials are effectively disciplined,” the Muslim leaders insisted. They also called for “quality control processes to ensure that bigoted trainers and biased materials are not developed or utilized in the future.”25

  October 19, 2011, was indeed a dark day for the American law enforcement and counterterrorism community. On the same day the letter to Brennan was issued, we received word that Attorney General Eric Holder was “firmly committed” to removing anti-Muslim material from law-enforcement training.26

  Former US attorney for the District of Oregon Dwight C. Holton said he had spoken with Holder about the “egregiously false” FBI training: “I want to be perfectly clear about this: training materials that portray Islam as a religion of violence or with a tendency towards violence are wrong, they are offensive, and they are contrary to everything that this resident, this attorney general and the Department of Justice stands for,” Holton said. “They will not be tolerated.” He further st
ated that the materials “pose a significant threat to national security, because they play into the false narrative propagated by terrorists that the United States is at war with Islam.”27

  SEE NOTHING

  Meanwhile, spokesmen for the well-known Muslim Brotherhood front groups were now complaining about the DHS signature campaign, “If You See Something, Say Something.”

  It seemed that even the reporting of “suspicious activity” by the general public was intolerably Islamophobic and that they should be the only ones with the authority to report on possible domestic Islamic radicalization.

  On October 24, 2011, CAIR and MPAC were among Muslim organizations who wrote to Margo Schlanger, officer for the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties:

  We are writing to follow up on a meeting request made at the last CRCL Committee meeting on September 26, 2011 to discuss the DHS “If You See Something, Say Something” campaign. As civil liberties, civil rights, human rights, immigrant rights, national security and privacy organizations, we are deeply concerned about how suspicious activity reporting programs, such as the DHS See Something, Say Something program lead to racial and religious profiling and impact Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, Sikh, and South Asian communities….

  We would … like to learn what policies DHS has employed to collect, retain, and purge data obtained through the campaign….

  We would like to discuss what measures your office is taking to ensure accountability, transparency and oversight related to civil rights and civil liberties protections as DHS expands its work against domestic radicalization and “homegrown” terrorism.28

  The DHS website describes “See Something” as “a national campaign that raises public awareness of the indicators of terrorism and terrorism-related crime, as well as the importance of reporting suspicious activity to state and local law enforcement”: