Ahmed had no idea he was a suspect until one Saturday morning when two police officers, who had been carefully observing him and his social media for weeks, stopped over at his family’s home to question him. The officers were acting with the help of an informant, a school acquaintance who kept tabs on Ahmed in exchange for reduced probation time for a crime he had committed. Ahmed had done no wrong, he had no prior convictions, no criminal record at all, and yet he was deemed a subject of interest—a prospective radical on account of his nationality, neighborhood, and especially, his spiritual evolution from secular to devout Muslim.

QUESTION: How widespread is informant-based surveillance of citizens with no record? What legal thresholds govern this?

Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Unde…, loc. 362