Human rights report takes at U.S. terrorism prosecutions, criticizes FBI tactics --- A new human rights report offers a blistering assessment of the Justice Department’s role in the fight against terrorism, taking aim at tactics used to identify and prosecute suspects. --- In a lengthy examination of U.S. terrorism prosecutions, Human Rights Watch, working with Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute, said the FBI and the Justice Department have created a climate of fear in some Muslim communities through the use of surveillance and informants. -- The group accused the government of using sting operations, which some critics described as entrapment, to target people with mental or intellectual disabilities and said that such tactics have driven people away from mosques. -- “The report clearly shows, in many respects, the American public is being sold a false bill of goods,” said Andrea Prasow, deputy Washington director at Human Rights Watch. “To be sure, the threat of terrorism is real,” she said. “But in many of the cases we documented, there was no threat until the FBI showed up and helped turn people into terrorists.” --- Human Rights Watch, represented by Yale University’s Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic, sued the Federal Bureau of Prisons last year to gather accurate information on the number and conditions of prisoners being held on terrorism charges or post-conviction. -- Prasow, one of the report’s authors, said the group tried to get the information through public-record requests, but the government was reluctant to comply and Human Rights Watch sued for the information. -- Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, more than 500 people, or about 40 cases a year, have been prosecuted in federal courts on terrorism charges. As of October, Human Rights Watch said, U.S. prisons held 475 people indicted in connection with or convicted of terrorism or terrorism-related offenses. -- Of those serving sentences, the report said, 49 people were held in high-security prisons, 137 in administrative facilities and 237 in medium- or low-security prisons. According to the report, 44 terrorists were serving time at a supermax prison in Florence, Colo. - More, Adam Goldman, http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/human-rights-report-takes-at-us-terror-prosecutions-criticizes-fbi-tactics/2014/07/21/018376ce-0e88-11e4-8341-b8072b1e7348_story.html