Teaching FBI Agents Bias
Nora Connor: For a time after 9/11, the FBI seemed to stand out among the many government agencies with a hand in the intelligence/counterterrorism game. FBI agents were among the most knowledgeable on Islamic extremism worldwide; FBI agents made important discoveries and arrests in the immediate aftermath of 9/11; FBI agents spoke up forcefully against Bush administration/CIA-approved torture techniques. Like any massive bureaucracy, though, the FBI is a many-headed hydra. It occupies a central space in the ever-expanding national security industry, and it’s this political and social terrain in which the agency competes for relevance and command over resources. That struggle has seemed to me the best way to make sense of, for example, the FBI’s apparent penchant for spending countless hours and dollars wheedling American Muslims into participating in fictional terrorist plots, in order to then arrest and prosecute them. It would seem a foolish, wasteful and counterproductive approach until one remembers that it supplies the FBI with success stories, headlines and a defense of its budget. Continue Reading →