NEWSSNITCHES & INFORMANTS

Two weeks after a Somali-born teen was charged with terrorism for plotting to detonate what turned out to be a fake bomb supplied, built and issued to the suspect by the FBI, American Muslims are talking about what they believe to be a religiously-driven effort by the bureau to ferret out terrorism in their communities -- even if that means using informants and creating plots and scenarios out of thin air.

Indeed, as Lynne Jackson, founder of the Albany-based Project SALAM (Support and Legal Advocacy for Muslims), told Change.org last week that it feels "as though the FBI is playing off the same playbook, the same script," with its recent string of terrorism-related arrests based on information provided by undercover informants. Jackson and others will be sponsoring a public forum, "The Violation of Human Rights: The 'War on Terror' Continues at Home and Abroad," at Judson Memorial Church in New York City, on Dec. 10.

Meanwhile, the FBI's tactics are provoking a backlash on the opposite side of the country among activists and others in the Muslim community who say the FBI's tactics are alienating those whose help it needs the most.

Nearly 3,000 miles away from Albany, New York, Muslim community members in Portland, Oregon, are wondering today if the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has targeted them as easy prey for a counter-terror sting operation.

News that Somali-born Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, had been arrested in an elaborate plot to blow up a crowded tree lighting ceremony in Portland with a fake bomb -- provided by undercover FBI agents -- has elicited mixed responses. Muslims and human rights advocates, in particular, are seeing similarities with cases on the East Coast where critics allege the bureau entrapped vulnerable Muslims: in Albany (Jailed Yassin Aref and Mohammed Hossein), Newburgh (the 'Newburgh Four') and New Jersey (the 'Fort Dix Five').

"I am very struck with the similarities of the case, particularly with the Newburgh Four," said activist Lynne Jackson, founder of the Albany-based Project SALAM (Support and Legal Advocacy for Muslims), in an interview with Change.org. "I also feel as though the FBI is playing off the same playbook, the same script."

Evidence surfacing in a  40-year-old case involving the shooting of college students by Army National Guardsmen reminds us that not only is the FBI's meddling in the antiwar movement not new, but that it can be deadly --  and history changing, too.

Last week, Congressman Dennis Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat, asked for key documents related to the FBI's use of an informant, Terry Norman, who may have been responsible for firing the initial shots that triggered the infamous Kent State Massacre on May 4, 1970. Four students were killed in the resulting fusillade of bullets fired by guardsmen, who were on campus that day to disperse an angry crowd of Vietnam war protesters. Nine others were wounded.

According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, which commissioned two researchers to analyze a recently unearthed audio tape of the events that took place that day, four pistol shots can be heard, as well as an altercation among the protesters, which seem to corroborate earlier charges that Norman had fired his gun moments before the National Guard fired upon the crowd.

The presidential commission responsible for the official investigation found that Norman had nothing to do with the Guard shootings, but a battery of conflicting police and witness reports, plus the fact that Norman himself changed his story at least once -- telling investigators he never fired his gun, but immediately after the shootings claiming to a TV reporter that he in fact shot in the air and into the ground to defend himself from protesters -- have called that finding into question.

Four men now known as the "Newburgh Four" are awaiting their fate in a U.S. District Court in New York this week. The federal prosecution gave its final arguments on Tuesday; now the jury must decide whether the four New Yorkers are guilty of plotting to bomb a Bronx synagogue and Jewish community center, and to shoot down military planes.

But their attorneys and legal experts closely watching the case are wondering if the men, as well as others in the New York area charged with being "homegrown terrorists" since 9/11, weren't actually just entrapped by the FBI.

"The big story is who took the lead here, who created the story for the the crime ... and who made it happen? If we are going to have a public debate on informants in terrorism cases, this is the case," said Karen Greenberg of New York University's Center on Law and Security. She was interviewed for a special Democracy Now! report on FBI informants that was first broadcast on Wednesday  morning.

Critics charge that the FBI used the same Pakistani informant, Shahed Hussein, to ferret out desperate and vulnerable individuals and to convince them, over time, to assist in fake terror plots in Newburgh, as well as Albany, where two Muslim men of Kurdish and Bangladeshi descent were convicted on money laundering and conspiracy to commit terrorism charges in 2006. According to family members in both cases, the men were not part of any terror operation or "cell" before Hussein came to town. Rather, after enticing them with promises of cash gifts and loans, he secretly taped their conversations in order to "catch" them in the act of plotting terror. (Read more after the jump.)

The video is dark and blurry. As the lens focuses, a single family home, illuminated only by its porch light, comes into view. A gaggle of men in black body armor converge near the front door. Their guns are at the ready as one yells, “Columbia Police, search warrant.” The officer repeats himself, and then the door is down.

Once inside, the police yell. A shot is fired, then four more. A woman emerges from a back room crying. Her son, 7, walks in front of her slowly, his head bowed. He's so frightened he moves like a geriatric. The camera focuses on Jonathon Whitworth, the man the police are searching for. He's lying face down on the ground. “What is happening?" he asks. “Narcotics search warrant” is the only answer he receives.

The verdict's in: We now have final proof that Colombian President Alvaro Uribe doesn't take policy advice from Lil' Wayne. In fact, responding to an increase in violent crime, Uribe's calling on Colombia's citizens to become....snitches.

Effectively, Uribe is suggesting that the country recuit a class of informants, paying them $50 a month for their services.

There are so many reasons this is bad policy. Where to start?

Fortunately, the Colombian public seems more likely to side with Lil' Wayne -- who's repeatedly spoken out against informants -- than with their president. Sure, the "Stop Snitching" campaign supported by Lil' Wayne and dozens of rappers is destructive in its own way. Still, though, it's not surprising that many Colombians value their own safety more than Uribe's bribe to talk to cops.

Snitching can be a lucrative business. But for just this reason, it isn’t reliable. Most honest people won’t want to risk their lives to work as snitches -- they’ll call the police for free if they see the police as actually working to protect public safety. Public trust in police is key to increasing public safety, not bribes.

That's not to say the "Stop Snitching" campaign isn't problematic. By encouraging people not to talk to police even if they witness a violent crime, it is. (To hear more about the issue, check out a recent interview by CNN's Anderson Cooper -- who "listens to a whole variety of music" -- and recently spoke about this concern with Common and Steve Perry.)

Though it doesn't fit well on a T-shirt, a more suitable campaign in Colombia would be "Don't Snitch for Money."

These days, countless informants are talking with police, prosecutors and federal agents in the United States. They influence criminal cases and make secret deals, and the information they provide -- right or wrong -- will lead to prisons sentences and other grave consequences.

So who’s watching the snitches?

An excellent three-part series on NPR last week investigated the federal government’s reliance on informants and their shadowy role in our criminal justice system. The series focused on one informant in particular, a Mexican man by the name Lalo. His case is a cinematic tale of violence and intrigue, and a shocking example of law enforcement misconduct in the War on Drugs. One serious accusation against him is that he participated in multiple murders at Juarez’s famous House of Death -- all while working for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Everyday informants in America may not have such salacious stories, but their impact on the workings of our courts and police investigations is enormous. Often given incentives -- either money or reduced sentences in exchange for their testimony -- informants have plenty of motivation to lie for personal gain. While the law requires that prosecutors disclose deals with informants, this is rarely done in practice. Only a few state laws require that snitch testimony be corroborated before it's used in court.

Jimmy McNulty, meet Facebook.

For decades, police have relied on informants, investigation and intuition to dismantle criminal networks. We have pictures in our heads of detectives like the Wire’s Detective McNulty tackling particularly complicated family crime empires with photos tacked to bulletin boards. Now, they have social networks to build these webs for them, too.

An Associated Press story this week does a good job examining the impact of social media on crime and policing. Cops and prosecutors are increasingly using Facebook wall posts, MySpace pages and YouTube videos to trace criminal connections and gang membership. Meanwhile, statements made on social websites are increasingly being used as evidence in court.

"You find out about people you never would have known about before," says Dean Johnston with the California Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, which helps police investigate gangs. "You build this little tree of people."

Of course, social networks won’t replace investigations, but police are smart to use them as a tool. If a thief is stupid enough to log into Facebook from the house he’s burglarizing, he deserves to get caught. When a gang member brags about committing a violent crime, it should spark an investigation.

Two concerns spring to mind, however.

Syndicated radio talk show host Tom Joyner announced this week that he is seeking pardons in South Carolina for two of his great uncles,Thomas and Meeks Griffin, who were executed in the electric chair in 1915 for a murder evidence shows they probably didn't commit.

Joyner learned about his ancestors as part of Henry Louis Gates' African American Lives series on PBS last year, and now he's taking action to clear the names of his great uncles. It's an extraordinary case and an example of the deep roots of injustice and racial inequality in our criminal justice system - and I'm glad Joyner is giving this case the attention it deserves.

Two new blogs have joined the criminal justice reform conversation online, both are worth a look (and adding to your feed reader).

The first is Alexandra Natapoff's new Snitching Blog. Natapoff, a professor at Loyola Law School in L.A., is one of the country's leading experts on the role of snitches and informants in the criminal justice system and I've linked to her research and commentary in this space plenty of times in the past. She posted yesterday on the effects of sanctioned crimes committed by informants while they are working for the government. She wrote:

When law enforcement tolerates crimes committed by cooperating offenders, whether it is drug use, property crimes, or violence, the neighborhoods in which those offenders live have to put up with it.

Visit her new blog - aptly named the 'Snitching Blog' here.