FBI Agent Admits Spending ‘Every Day’ Interrogating Americans About Social Media Posts

(Congress Report) – FBI agents recently paid a visit to Rolla Abdeljawad regarding her social media activity and informed the woman that the bureau spends “every day, all day long” interrogating folks for their posts on Facebook. Gee, that seems like a real good use of taxpayer dollars, doesn’t it? Nothing like attempting to silence President Joe Biden’s political adversaries and trample all over their constitutional right to freedom of speech while calling it a hard day’s work.

A total of three agents showed up at Abdeljawad’s residence in Oklahoma and stated they were sent “screenshots” of her Facebook posts. The attorney representing her, Hassan Shibly, then posted a video of the incident.

As per Reason, “Abdeljawad told agents that she didn’t want to talk and asked them to show their badges on camera, which the agents refused to do. She wrote on Facebook that she later confirmed with local police that the FBI agents really were FBI agents.”

“Facebook gave us a couple of screenshots of your account,” one agent sporting a gray shirt declared in the video.

“So we no longer live in a free country and we can’t say what we want?” Abdeljawad responded.

“No, we totally do. That’s why we’re not here to arrest you or anything,” a second agent quickly replied. “We do this every day, all day long. It’s just an effort to keep everybody safe and make sure nobody has any ill will.”

So, the FBI is getting paid to harass people online for sharing their opinions on hot button issues of the day? Really? The swamp truly does need to be drained, starting with the Justice Department.

“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,” the report continued.

“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,” Reason noted.

Abdeljawad’s Facebook timeline is public, so it’s totally possible the FBI agents who visited her home found the posts themselves. Over the course of the last week, she has made several posts concerning the war in Gaza, making antisemitic references to Israel as Israhell. However, not a single post called for acts of violence.

While I would disagree with her take on Israel and Gaza, that does not mean the right to share her thoughts and opinions should be limited. The First Amendment is for all Americans. Period. We may not like what someone has to say. In fact, what they have to say might be evil. However, as long as there are no calls for riots, violence, and such, people can speak their minds freely.

“Ironically, Abdeljawad had also posted a warning about exactly the kind of government monitoring she was later subjected to,” the article said.

“Don’t fall for their games. Our community is being watched & they are just waiting for any reason to round us up,” Abdeljawad proclaimed. “If you’re Muslim and/or pro-pal consider all your media accounts, Google searches, mail, messenger, local mosques & political events monitored. #NYC #usa #PoliceState #FreePalestine”

“Shibly claims that Abdeljawad knew how to assert her rights from her time volunteering at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, where Shibly used to be a state-level director,” Reason continued.

“It’s unfortunately normal behavior for the FBI to target the community like this,” Shibly went on to say.

In the caption of the video he posted, Shibly provided some advice to others.

“Abdeljawad was right to refuse to speak and right to record the interaction, but should not have stepped outside the house to talk to the FBI agents,” he commented.

“It’s wrong what they did. Realistically, with where the community’s at, I don’t know if we have the bandwidth to go after them for it,” Shibly remarked. “Moreso, it’s, ok, continue to exercise your rights. If they do contact you again, they’re going to be hearing directly from us. We’re going to deal with it. We’re going to put them in check.”

After the initial publication of Reason’s article, McCleery provided a statement which read, “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.”

Copyright 2024. CongressReport.com

7 COMMENTS

  1. People need to realize that when it comes to Islam, the United States Constitution holds no weight in their system of justice because it’s not based on the Koran. It’s that simple.

  2. There are laws in the United States and the FBI is good at pursuing lawbreakers. That includes threats to federal public officials or their families, insurrection, and many other good and worthy limits to free speech. Free speech demands accountability. Get used to it MAGA followers. Your candidate Trump won’t be president again to trample on the free speech of his ‘enemies’, who are not really enemies but political opponents. There’s a difference that Trump doesn’t recognize in his ignorance and bluster trying to evade his own plethora of lawbreaking ways in the past for which he’s under indictments right now. We want to live under the rule of law, not a tyrant.

    • First you say speech needs to be regulated, which is not Free Speech, than you say Trump will not be allowed to trample free speech. You sound very confused. Perhaps you’ve been drinking to much of the acidic cool aid and starting to believe your own senseless propoganda. If you wanted to live under the law you would elect officials who enforced all the laws not ones who ignore law they don’t like and make up charges for laws that don’t exist whenever it benefits them politically. Like all democrats you talk in circles and sound completely senseless.

    • You just violated your own claims on “free speech”. You don’t want anyone else to say what they need to say, yet you said what you thought was a right only you have, you used “free speech” against others. You can’t have it both ways or in other words, you can’t have it only YOUR way. News flash – breaking news – Trump IS the President of the United States Republic and Commander in Chief as we speak. You precious Joke Biden is dead. He never got inaugurated. His fake inauguration was an actual funeral service with only three cannons and no honors at Arlington National Cemetary after being executed for 6 counts of treason. At the same time or actual time of 12 noon, Trump was reinaugurated by the military with a 21-gun salute and full honors. Also, you may be arrested in the near future for your treason. Yes, it IS treason. You have the same rights as all the rest of us. The laws were made for everyone. You are not special and deserve the same judicial laws as the rest of us.

  3. ” Free speech demands accountability”
    WRONG. Only Illegal actions requires accountability in remedial redress (the courts). Otherwise the chilling effect of arbitrary accountabilty of the bonfide exercise of right, freedoms, and liberties is not to be tolerated.
    ” Your candidate Trump won’t be president again to trample on the free speech of his ‘enemies’, who are not really enemies but political opponents.”
    Not only is it expected that President Trump be re-reelected to a second term, due to the government political persecution he has suffered both politically, and personally extending to even to his family members, aquaintances, and his lawyers, politically seasoned and connected Trump is likely to blow torch the entrenched Deep State resident in the Executive , Judicial, Legislative , and particularly the extra-Constitutionally acting Administrative state.
    Let’s see, shall we? Lawfare isn’t working against him, he has tremendous polling advantages, and money is now flowing in a torrent into he campaign war chest.

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