We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Shamiur Rahman: NYPD Paid Me To 'Bait' Muslims Into Saying Things About Jihad, Terrorism

Click here to access article by Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo of AP via Huffington Post.

At last we have an inside story from a young American Muslim on how the New York City police recruited, paid, and used him to spy on various domestic and foreign Muslim students. He also had some minor drug infractions which the police took care of in exchange for his cooperation.
A paid informant for the New York Police Department's intelligence unit was under orders to "bait" Muslims into saying inflammatory things as he lived a double life, snapping pictures inside mosques and collecting the names of innocent people attending study groups on Islam, he told The Associated Press.
Shamiur Rahman, a 19-year-old American of Bangladeshi descent who has now denounced his work as an informant, said police told him to embrace a strategy called "create and capture."