Informants, Provocateurs, and Entrapment: Examining the Histories of the FBI’s PATCON and the NYPD’s Muslim Surveillance Program

Since September 11, 2001, the U.S. government and police departments across the United States, most notably the New York City Police Department, have been collecting intelligence targeting Muslim American communities. The controversial surveillance practices include the use of confidential informants, undercover operations, and entrapment, and infringing upon civil rights and civil liberties in the name of national security. A decade before 9/11, however, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) conducted the same practices against a completely different demographic – Christian Right militants, through a program called PATCON, short for Patriot Conspiracy. Building upon the concept of surveillance as social sorting (Lyon 2013) and surveillance and terrorism (Monahan 2013), This article will compare the history of surveillance tactics used by the FBI against Christian Right militants and those used by the NYPD against non-militant Muslim Americans, and assess their implications in the context of civil rights, leaving a legacy of mistrust between these respective groups and the federal government that further undermines the national security interests of the United States.