Inventing-Terrorists-study

Often the FBI charges a defendant with lying to agents, whichis a federal offense. The FBI has an official policy of not recordingformal interviews; instead oral interviews are typically conductedwith two or more FBI agents present, so that if the target is chargedwith lying it will be the latter’s word against two or more FBIagents’. Under such conditions, targets have little chance to defendthemselves. The FBI can then threaten the target with lying to agentsduring a voluntary conversation unless the target cooperates. 37 Onother occasions, the FBI has investigated a target’s past (as far backas decades) in an attempt to find something that was questionable, nomatter how technical, and then has used that minor offense as a toolto obtain the target’s cooperation. 38 All these attempts to unfairlypressure targets to cooperate represent preemptive prosecution.• Use of pre-trial solitary confinement and Special AdministrativeMeasures (SAMs)The government often places targets in solitary confinement, orimposes Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) pre-trial, basedon the claim that the defendants are too dangerous to be in thegeneral prison population, as evidenced by the as-yet-untestedcharges themselves. This isolation of prisoners at a time when theyare presumed innocent can be devastating psychologically and putenormous pressure on defendants to plead guilty. For example,Mohammed Warsame 39 returned to the U.S. from Afghanistan after9/11 and told the FBI what he knew about Islamic groups there. TheFBI was so impressed with his information that they asked him towork for the agency. Warsame refused, and the FBI threatened tomake his life hell if he didn’t cooperate. Warsame still refused, so29