Think about arriving at the airport from a foreign country. You are tired from a long flight, anxious about your baggage, and thinking about meeting your family in the arrivals area. You may not have seen them in years. Perhaps it is your first time in the United States. Perhaps you do not speak English well. Perhaps you plan to ask for asylum. Perhaps you are coming from a country where interactions with people in uniform generally involve bribery, intimidation, or worse. The FBI and U.S. Customs and Border Protection work closely together to turn these vulnerabilities into opportunities for gathering intelligence, according to government documents obtained by The Intercept. CBP assists the FBI in its efforts to target travelers entering the country as potential informants, feeding the bureau passenger lists and pulling people aside for lengthy interrogations in order to gather intelligence from them on the FBI’s behalf, the documents show. In one briefing, CBP bills itself as the “GO TO agency in the Law Enforcement world when it comes to identifying individuals of either source or lead potential.” When the FBI wants to find informants that fit a certain profile — say, men of Pakistani origin between the ages of 18 and 35 — it has at its fingertips a wealth of data from government agencies like CBP. The FBI gives CBP a list of countries of origin to watch out for among passengers, sometimes specifying other characteristics, such as travel history or age. It also briefs CPB officers on its intelligence requirements. The CBP sifts through its data to provide the bureau with a list of incoming travelers of potential interest. The FBI can then ask CBP to flag people for extra screening, questioning, and follow-up visits. According to the documents, the FBI uses the border questioning as a pretext to approach people it wants to turn informant and inserts itself into the immigration process by instructing agents on how to offer an “immigration relief dangle.” It is no surprise that law enforcement closely monitors border crossings for criminals or terror suspects. The initiatives described in these documents, however, are explicitly about gathering intelligence, not enforcing the law. A person doesn’t have to be connected to an active investigation or criminal suspect in order to be flagged; the FBI might want them for their potential to provide general intelligence on a given country, region, or group. The goal, according to an FBI presentation on an initiative at Boston’s Logan Airport, is “looking for ‘good guys’ not ‘bad guys.’”

Photo: Lynne Sladky/AP Images

The government materials published with this story were provided to The Intercept by an intelligence community source familiar with the process who is concerned about the FBI’s treatment of Muslim communities. The system, according to the source, amounts to an informal watchlist of people who have caught the FBI’s interest — not because they have done something wrong, or might be dangerous, but because they might be useful to the government. Signs of the informant-recruiting pipeline have been noticed outside the government. Human rights and immigration attorneys interviewed by The Intercept said it was very common for Muslim clients in particular to be questioned at the border upon returning from an international trip, and then contacted by FBI agents within days. “One client was straight-up approached at the airport by FBI agents as he was returning from his honeymoon,” said Diala Shamas, a lecturer at Stanford Law School, who worked as an attorney with Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility, or CLEAR, an initiative providing legal services to communities in New York impacted by counterterrorism policies. The documents reviewed by The Intercept imply that the program is in place at airports nationwide, something the source confirmed. They do not include extensive data on how many passengers are targeted for intelligence purposes, except for a two-month period at Boston’s Logan International Airport. According to that data, in January 2012, nearly 6,000 passengers were screened through FBI databases, and CBP conducted 47 inspections. Thirty-two of those individuals were referred to “investigative squads,” but only two generated an intelligence report of value. The systematic targeting of travelers for the FBI’s intelligence purposes helps explain widespread reports of Muslim travelers, both immigrants and U.S. citizens, experiencing invasive questioning and searches at airports and border crossings. The FBI has also reportedly threatened individuals with deportation or delayed their visa applications indefinitely as agents try to convince them to cooperate. Others have alleged they were placed on the no-fly list after they refused to talk to the FBI. The targeting is also an example of how the FBI has enlisted other agencies in its post-9/11 transformation into a hybrid intelligence and law enforcement agency where counterterrorism is the top priority. The bureau’s use of informants ballooned after 9/11, reaching more than 15,000 within about six years — and that only includes people officially opened on the FBI’s books as confidential human sources. Many others pass on information in more informal ways. These documents show the expansion of counterterrorism and intelligence-gathering missions through efforts like Joint Terrorism Task Forces, wherein an agency like CBP — not traditionally considered part of the intelligence community — works side by side with the FBI. The documents boast of CBP’s “JTTF Footprint,” with dozens of officers assigned to task forces around the country. Neither the FBI nor CBP responded to specific questions about the documents. An FBI spokesperson said that “the FBI uses a myriad of lawful investigative methods and sources of information to support investigations, including the use of Confidential Human Sources,” adding that “all Confidential Human Source relationships with the FBI are voluntary.” In a statement, CBP detailed its process for screening passengers for potential threats, and said, “Some secondary inspections produce information that is invaluable to our interagency partners. CBP shares information with its law enforcement partners in accordance with U.S. law and [Department of Homeland Security] policy regarding civil rights and civil liberties.”

A woman arriving from overseas gives paperwork to a border control officer at Newark International Airport in New Jersey in 2009. Photo: Chris Hondros/Getty Images

Placement, Access, Willingness An April 2012 unclassified CBP presentation aimed at FBI agents, titled “US Customs and Border Protection Overview/Capabilities,” notes that the “airport is a great place to spot/assess” sources. After all, “travelers are already expecting law enforcement interaction,” and with the “wide variety of travelers,” agents “can look for passengers fitting key demographics as needed.” In order to do this, the FBI makes use of the massive amount of information that CBP collects on travelers and cargo entering and exiting the country as part of its regular mission to control the border. CBP flags incoming passengers and shipments for possible extra screening according to rules based on perceived threats, a process sometimes referred to as “threshold targeting.” The targeting could be based on country of origin, but also “travel pattern, age, name, origin,” or they could be “scenario-based,” “list based,” or “affiliate based,” according to the “Overview/Capabilities” document. Travel to Yemen, Pakistan, or Somalia is also singled out as something that might be flagged. (This type of screening based on travel pattern appears to have put Ahmad Khan Rahami, accused of the bombings in Manhattan and New Jersey in September, on authorities’ radar, though the extra screening reportedly did not turn up any immediate concerns. Terror watchlists also factor into the targeting rules.) CBP provides the FBI with a list of passengers arriving from “countries of interest” at a given airport over the next 72 hours. The FBI runs those names against its own databases and searches for them in public records, looking for any associations or background knowledge in which the FBI might have an interest, which can include ties as benign as geographic origin or knowledge of a particular demographic group.



A 2012 FBI memo, classified secret, describing the process as it works in Boston’s Logan Airport, insists that it is at CBP’s discretion whether to actually flag the person for an extra screening or interview, and that the FBI “merely provides all available intelligence related to the traveler.” FBI slideshows, however, imply a more active role — giving briefings on intelligence requirements to CBP officers and encouraging them to view their job from an “intelligence perspective.” A 2012 FBI memo, classified secret, describing the process as it works in Boston’s Logan Airport, insists that it is at CBP’s discretion whether to actually flag the person for an extra screening or interview, and that the FBI “merely provides all available intelligence related to the traveler.” FBI slideshows, however, imply a more active role — giving briefings on intelligence requirements to CBP officers and encouraging them to view their job from an “intelligence perspective.” When the individuals arrive, CBP pulls them aside and questions them for the FBI to determine their “placement, access, and willingness”; in other words, what information they could obtain, and whether they would be open to cooperation. According to the Logan memo, the FBI could be present for those interviews. A CBP briefing to the Buffalo, New York, Joint Terrorism Task Force, an interagency group comprised of federal and local law enforcement, including the FBI and CBP, notes that “important information elicited” during the CBP interview includes place of birth, “not just country but district/village,” and “current/former employment.” Another document gives sample questions such as, “What is the individual’s tribal/clan affiliation (if any)?” “What physical location(s) of interest does the person live/work/spend time?” and “Does the individual have established contacts overseas? (family/friends, etc.)” “Prior coordination can help make interviews as quick or as long as necessary,” another CBP presentation notes. The CBP materials indicate that as part of secondary inspections, CBP can search “pocket litter,” documents, and cellphones. The April 2012 presentation promises a “full cell dump, including #s, text messages, pictures, etc.” at certain airports. (It also notes, “We don’t do laptops.” It’s unclear whether this is for legal or technical reasons at all or just some airports; in recent years, judges have ruled that government agents needed reasonable suspicion to search electronics, but in 2012, the legality of those searches was still unsettled.) All of this helps the FBI form a detailed profile of the life history and habits of a potential informant. Armed with that information, members of the local Joint Terrorism Task Force visit the individual at home to evaluate him or her as a recruit, the Buffalo briefing says. “The initial interaction with CBP provides the JTTF with a pretext to visit the individual,” it adds.

A traveler looks up toward a mini camera as a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer records her picture and fingerprints upon arrival at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport in Texas in 2004. Photo: Tony Gutierrez/AP Images