After 9/11, the FBI adopted a preemptive strategy in its counterterrorism measures. It relied increasingly on informants and agents provocateurs, individuals tasked with inciting others to engage in terrorism so that they could be identified and arrested. In other words, the FBI secretly infiltrated Muslim communities, targeting individuals who were not engaged in criminal activity in an effort to transform them into terrorism suspects. The idea was to stop terrorism at its roots, before it had a chance to materialize and do damage, but it was based on the assumption that Muslims were already guilty of terrorism. On this model, the job of law enforcement was to induce Muslims to actualize their latent terrorist tendencies.

Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Intro…, loc. 568