FBI Caves to Muslim Pressure, Nixes Anti-Radicalization Program

From Judicial Watch:

The Obama administration has once again caved into the demands of Islamic activists that have already strong-armed federal and local law enforcement agencies into purging anti-terrorism training material considered offensive to Muslims.

This week the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) suspended a new internet program aimed at preventing the radicalization of youth because Muslim and Arab rights groups determined that it discriminates against Muslims and will lead to bullying, bias and religious profiling of students. The interactive website (“Don’t Be a Puppet”) was created by the U.S. government as a tool for the nation’s schools to prevent susceptible youth from getting recruited online by terrorists. The ultimate goal is to combat a growing epidemic of violent extremism by keeping youth from falling prey to online terrorists.

The new internet program was supposed to go live on Monday but, like a good lapdog, the FBI nixed it after Muslim rights groups whipped out the discrimination card. One of them, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, issued a victory statement saying the website improperly characterized Muslims as a suspect community with targeted focus and stereotypical depictions that could exasperate the problem by leading to bullying, bias and religious profiling. The group also fired off a follow-up letter, signed by other Muslim rights advocates, suggesting the FBI stay away from schools. The newly cancelled online initiative “creates a dangerous precedent of FBI overreach into sectors of our society that are best managed by experts, like teachers, curriculum developers, and other educators,” according to the council and its allies.

Muslim rights groups, especially the terrorist front organization Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), have proven they wield tremendous power in the Obama administration. This is especially true when it comes to the way the nation’s law enforcement agencies conduct anti-terrorism training. In fact, it was CAIR that got the FBI to purge anti-terrorism material determined to be offensive to Muslims. Judicial Watch uncovered that scandal a few years ago and obtained hundreds of pages of FBI documents with details of the arrangement. JW also published a special in-depth report on the subject.

CAIR and its allies also got several police departments in President Obama’s home state of Illinois to cancel essential counterterrorism courses over accusations that the instructor was anti-Muslim. The course was called “Islamic Awareness as a Counter-Terrorist Strategy” and departments in Lombard, Elmhurst and Highland Park caved into CAIR’s demands. The group responded with a statement commending officials for their “swift action in addressing the Muslim community’s concerns.” CAIR has flexed its muscle in a number of other cases during the Obama presidency, including blocking an FBI probe involving the radicalization of young Somali men in the U.S. and pressuring the government to file discrimination lawsuits against employers who don’t accommodate Muslims in the workplace.

Last year Islamic activists took it a step further by demanding a complete overhaul in the way all law enforcement officers are trained in the United States. In a letter to Lisa O. Monaco, the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, the coalition of Muslim rights organizations request that the Obama administration implement a mandatory retraining program for all federal, state and local law enforcement officials who may have been subjected to materials they deem “biased and discriminatory” against Muslims. They also called for an audit of all federal law enforcement and intelligence gathering training and educational materials to identify and remove information that could exhibit bias against any race, ethnicity, religion or national origin.