(Congressional Agenda) – 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.”
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
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. CongressionalAgenda.com
