FBI halts anti-Muslim training
- 12 years ago
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has said it has discontinued a lecture that taught counter-terrorism agents that mainstream Muslims were violent.
The move comes after leaked documents revealed the controversial elements in the FBI's training manuals.
According to the FBI documents: most American Muslims are likely to be sympathizers to "terrorist" groups like al-Qaeda.
Spencer Ackerman, the journalist who broke this story for the website Wired dot com, told Al-Jazeera why the FBI teachings are "constitutionally dicey".
"There is still a real ignorance and to some degree a real fear of Islam that has found a surprising home in the FBI," he said.
"If they spend their time and resources going after indicators of violent behavior based on the amount of religiosity a person displays, then first of all they are not going to get actual terrorists, but innocent people."
The move comes after leaked documents revealed the controversial elements in the FBI's training manuals.
According to the FBI documents: most American Muslims are likely to be sympathizers to "terrorist" groups like al-Qaeda.
Spencer Ackerman, the journalist who broke this story for the website Wired dot com, told Al-Jazeera why the FBI teachings are "constitutionally dicey".
"There is still a real ignorance and to some degree a real fear of Islam that has found a surprising home in the FBI," he said.
"If they spend their time and resources going after indicators of violent behavior based on the amount of religiosity a person displays, then first of all they are not going to get actual terrorists, but innocent people."