August 13, 2010

By the end of his stint working for the FBI, informant Craig Monteilh was earning over $11,000 a month to secretly film and record worshippers at the Islamic Center of Irvine, California. Monteilh, who has a lengthy rap sheet of his own, is now suing the FBI for allegedly instructing him to plead guilty to criminal charges of grand theft so as to maintain his cover. The Associated Press report on Monteilh's lawsuit reveals details of the informant's world that the public rarely gets to see, particularly the government's ability to use private individuals/informants to obtain information that the government would otherwise need evidence of wrongdoing and a warrant to obtain: US Judge gives informant time to amend FBI lawsuit. From the story:

In court papers and his ACLU declaration, [Monteilh] says he was asked to work as an informant for local law enforcement in 2004, when he became friendly with some police officers in a local gym. By 2006, he was promoted to the FBI's counterterrorism operations. Monteilh alleges he gathered phone numbers and contact information for hundreds of Muslim-Americans and recorded thousands of hours of conversation using a device on his key fob or cell phone during his stint with the FBI. His said his handlers told him to work out with Muslims at gyms, asked him to get codes for security systems so they could enter mosques at night and encouraged him to ask mosque members about "jihad" and supporting terrorist operations abroad. In June 2007, however, mosque members became suspicious of Monteilh and requested a restraining order, saying that he had spoken repeatedly about engaging in jihad.