Hush that fuss
The Wall Street Journal reports that some Muslims in America are being threatened with deportation if they don’t agree to spy on their communities. (Link via TalkLeft, and kudos to WSJ for making the article free to non-subscribers.)
Last November, when Yassine Ouassif crossed into Champlain, N.Y., from Canada, border agents questioned him for several hours. Then they took away his green card and sent him home to San Francisco by bus, with strict instructions: As soon as he got there, he was to call a man named Dan.
Dan, it turned out, was Daniel Fliflet, a counterterrorism agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Mr. Ouassif met the agent at an Oakland subway station on Nov. 30, and the two men walked the streets together for 90 minutes.
Mr. Fliflet told the 24-year-old Moroccan that he’d been monitoring his friends and him for many months, Mr. Ouassif recalls. Mr. Fliflet made him an offer: Become an informant and regularly report to the FBI on what his Muslim friends in San Francisco were saying and doing. In exchange, he would get back his green card. He could resume his education, bring his Moroccan wife to America, and pursue his dream of buying a car, moving to Sacramento and becoming an engineer.
Because I’m sure that right wing wonks are going to jump all over the reporting of this story, let’s address a couple of issues right now. Let’s address what this is not about, and what it is about.
This is not about the government using inside men to gather intelligence on terrorist organizations – or any other organization, for that matter. Espionage has been a fact of political (and even social) life for centuries – millennia, even. Spies within an opposing network have always been a rich source for data and the information received from them has turned up some valuable gems. It’s also turned up a lot of dross, but that’s generally excusable – except when we go to a war based on the dross instead of the gems, but I digress. The point is, espionage is a valuable tool. Nobody is arguing (not here, at least) that all espionage activities should cease.
This is about blackmail. This is about taking somebody who is trying to be a contributing member of society and threatening them with damage to their lifestyle and reputation if they do not cooperate.
Blackmail may have been part of the tradition of espionage. It might even be what the other side would do to our people if it had the chance. That doesn’t change the fact that it is wrong, and that there are better (and, probably, more effective) ways of getting your mole in an organization than threatening to take his green card away.
“I want you to know something important,” the FBI agent added, according to Mr. Ouassif. “America is just like a bus, and you have a choice to make: Either you board the bus or you leave.”
Ah, yes. “If you’re not with us, you’re against us.” It’s the rallying cry of the neocons, the constant refrain of the current administration’s war on terror. It’s also a far cry from the beliefs of one of the President’s favorite philosophers.
9:38 And John answered him, saying, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and he followeth not us: and we forbad him, because he followeth not us.
9:39 But Jesus said, Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me.
9:40 For he that is not against us is on our part.
The Gospel According to Saint Mark