Don’t offend the regime, or they will come for a “chat.”
Apparently, according to the FBI agents (multiple agents showed up for the visit) who came to interrogate Rolla Abdeljawad, teams of FBI agents spend “all day, every day” visiting people to discuss their social media posts.
FBI agents hassled an Oklahoma woman over her Facebook posts.
“We do this every day, all day long,” one of the agents said.https://t.co/AQSrgw3nlt
— reason (@reason) March 30, 2024
The video of the encounter was, to say the least, disturbing. At no point did the agents threaten or directly intimidate Ms. Abdeljawad, unless you consider multiple armed law enforcement officers showing up at your door to question you about your social media posts intimidating.
WATCH: FBI visit the home of an American Muslim Woman’s home to question her about her pro-Palestine social media posts after they were flagged by @meta’s @facebook!
What she did right:
1. Refuse to speak to them without a lawyer.
2. Refuse to let them in her house.
3. Record… pic.twitter.com/VLgAjV5fY8— Hassan Shibly (@HassanShibly) March 28, 2024
Abdeljawad is not a fan of Israel and made that clear on her Facebook page, although there doesn’t appear to be anything there of a threatening nature, according to the Washington Times.
The FBI defended its actions in a statement to The Washington Times, saying, “Every day, the FBIengages with members of the public in furtherance of our mission, which is to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution of the United States. We can never open an investigation based solely on First Amendment-protected activity.
“The FBI is committed to ensuring our activities are conducted with a valid law enforcement or national security purpose, and uphold the constitutional rights of all Americans.”
Although the agents didn’t specify what Ms. Abdeljawad said on the internet to warrant their visit, she did post statements recently discussing her exasperation with the Hamas-Israel war. In one post, she called Israel “Israhell.”
“Israhelli terrorist filth,” she wrote. “They think Ramadan is a weakness for Muslims not realizing Ramadan is the strength. #FreePalestine May Allah destroy every single despicable zionist, their supporters and backers. Ameen.”
Her page was public, so the FBI could have seen her posts without getting screenshots from Facebook.
Last week, she warned fellow Muslims and others supporting Palestinians to be careful about the federal government surveilling them.
I disagree vehemently with her sentiments, but the idea that the FBI would show up at one’s door for expressing unapproved sentiments is scary as hell. Millions of Americans, including many of my family members, are outraged by what is happening in Gaza.
The agents claimed that Facebook sent them screenshots of her posts, which I assume is possible. But not likely, in my judgment. The FBI is likely watching people or doing searches for certain content, or is contracting with Facebook to do it for them. We know that the government compensates tech companies to do such things.
Shibly says that he doesn’t know which Facebook post caught the agents’ attention, and that it was the first time he had heard of Facebook’s parent company, Meta, preemptively reporting posts to law enforcement. Andy Stone, a spokesman for Meta, and Kayla McCleery, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s Oklahoma City office, declined to comment.*
Meta’s official policy is to hand over Facebook data to U.S. law enforcement in response to a court order, a subpoena, a search warrant, or an emergency situation involving “imminent harm to a child or risk of death or serious physical injury to any person.” The company received 73,956 requests from U.S. law enforcement and handed over data 87.84 percent of the time in the first half of 2023, according to the Meta website.
Abdeljawad’s Facebook timeline is public, so the FBI agents could have found it themselves. For the past week, she has made multiple angry posts per day about the war in Gaza, referring to Israel as “Israhell.” But none of the posts on her feed call for violence.
The FBI wants you to know, though, that they are doing all this to protect us, not harass people for saying unapproved things. They would NEVER do that, you know.
McCleery provided the following statement; “Every day, the FBI engages with members of the public in furtherance of our mission, which is to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution of the United States. We can never open an investigation based solely on First Amendment protected activity. The FBI is committed to ensuring our activities are conducted with a valid law enforcement or national security purpose, while upholding the constitutional rights of all Americans.”
You have every right to say what you want. Just ensure that it doesn’t offend the wrong people, or you might get a visit from the FBI.
I wonder if any of the people who threaten Chaya Raichek with death on a daily basis are ever visited by the FBI?