Biased police training can only result in biased policing.

That graph is a part of official FBI training materials used for advanced training of FBI agents tasked with fighting terrorist threats to Americans.

Hmmm, where would Timothy McVeigh fall on that chart I wonder?

FBI Teaches Agents: ‘Mainstream’ Muslims Are ‘Violent, Radical’ from WIRED.com

“Seeing the materials FBI agents are being trained with certainly helps explain why we’ve seen so many inappropriate FBI surveillance operations broadly targeting the Muslim-American community, from infiltrating mosques with agents provocateur to racial- and ethnic-mapping programs,” Mike German, a former FBI agent now with the American Civil Liberties Union, tells Danger Room after being shown the documents. ”Biased police training can only result in biased policing.”

That's the hidden problem. The piece does a nice job of pointing out how having FBI agents taught with hateful, racist religious propaganda makes life a living hell for any Muslims who cross their paths. But, what about the real terror threats who don't get stopped while all the FBI agents are busy going to pot-lucks with Muslim families down at the local mosque? How does that catch the next Timothy McVeigh, or stop the next Eric Rudolph from trying to kill me when he set off a bomb in the midst of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics?

One of the problems we've created in our society is that the FBI now has an institutional need to find terrorists everywhere in America. They've set up special Joint Terror Task Forces in 106 American cities. Now, here's a question for you. If you are an FBI agent assigned to one of these JTTF's and you want to have a successful FBI career, which do you think is most likely to be a step in that direction. Do you report back to your bosses that a thorough investigation has revealed that while the area has its usual mix of crazies and criminals, there's no sign of Al-Qaida or a similar organization recruiting and organizing in whatever is the 81st or 92nd biggest American city? Or, do you find a way to make a big deal about some terrorist threat in your area? Do you find a way to entrap some fool into a terrorist arrest so you can report back to your FBI bosses that you've stopped a terrorist plot?

Osama Bin Laden sat in the same safe house in Abbottabad, Pakistan for four years, and we could never find him. Could it be that the reason for that was that we had our counter-terrorism agents scattered across 106 American cities desperately trying to make their careers proving that there's terrorism in Des Moines, IA or Topeka, KS? Did it occur to anyone that maybe having our counter-terrorism agents look for terrorists in some place like Pakistan might be a better use of the tax payers dollars?

Any bureaucratic organization, or sector of such an organization, tries to protect and grow their own budget. Every manager wants more dollars to spend and more people to supervise. Every manager will fight any cut backs to his portion of an organization. Thus, each of those 106 FBI Joint Terror Task Forces will attempt to justify their own existence and their own budget,and somehow even manage to plead that somehow we'd all be safer if Birmingham, AL had even more agents assigned to the local JTTF. Thus, the FBI now has a need to find terrorists everywhere.

Now we see the training materials to help the local anti-terror aqents achieve their true goal of protecting their jobs by finding terrorists everywhere. You just make every Muslim a terrorist. And, if you think its just limited to 'them', and thus that you are safe, then remember that his is the same FBI that has said in Colorado that says that anyone who 'attempts to pay cash' is someone who's a possible terrorist. Or that this is the same FBI that said in MO that everyone with a Ron Paul sticker on their car is a potential terrorist.

That's the really scary story in all of this. We have created a group of many government officials who want to justify their jobs and make their entire careers by proving that they can always find more and more and more terrorists in 106 cities all across America. If an FBI agent can't find or create terrorists in your home town, someone might decide that we don't need him there searching and thus either lay him off or to send him to some place like Abbottabad to search for terrorists over there. Its a pretty good guess that Mrs. FBI Agent won't be very happy if Mr. FBI Agent either loses his job or if the family has to move to Abbottabad because that's where it makes sense to search for terrorists. Nope. So, for domestic tranquility and for a happy career in the FBI, Mr. FBI Agent now has to prove that there are terrorists all over America. Have a nice day.

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