Audience Member
Lyric R. Cabral's (T)error follows Saeed Torres as he surveils Khalifa Al-Akili on behalf of the FBI. The FBI hires Torres, a black Muslim man formerly involved with the Black Panther Party (a group targeted and decimated by the FBI long before Torres himself became an informant), to embed himself in different communities to surveil Muslims within those communities. Torres explains that the FBI does not merely want to incarcerate people; they want to arrest people on charges of terrorism. This documentary thus reveals how being Muslim becomes a racialized category that the FBI targets and terrorizes through its efforts to surveil and apprehend (and produce) Muslims as terrorists. It also reveals how this process is central to the United States' carceral project, which helps the US create an undercaste whose civil liberties are so compromised as to make them all the more vulnerable to state manipulation and coercion.
Manipulation and coercion are crucial components of the FBI's functioning and characterize all of the relationships in this film that are mediated by the FBI and the state. Torres explains that he works as an informant for the cash, to take care of his son, and because of the limited options available to him after being incarcerated. Even after he has been deactivated by the FBI and expresses that he should never have worked for them at all, he discusses his difficulty in finding a job and his desire to provide for his son. Tarik Shah, arrested in 2005 "for talking," as his mother aptly said, was entrapped with the help of Torres. As Torres explains the process of entrapment that created the conditions for Shah's arrest, viewers learn that the FBI exploited a moment in which Shah was under-resourced and owing child support to offer an "out" that would lead to his imprisonment, despite his not having done anything but consent to providing future support to a law enforcement officer posing as a "terrorist"-affiliate.
This all made me wonder--how can folks escape a trap set by the state to capture people who are vulnerable, people who are only trying to take care of their families and provide lives for their children? How do we combat the kind of evil that uses people's desperation against them to coerce them into fulfilling a state's fantasy about itself vs its fantasized "other"? Tarik Shah's mother explained that she could not hate Saeed for entrapping her son: "he may be physically out of jail, but mentally he is not." Saeed expressed a parallel sentiment about his work for the FBI: "this story is never-ending." No one can be truly free as long as the state produces and exploits resource scarcity towards the criminalization of vulnerable populations. How can we imagine alternative communities that meet desperation where it's at and make resources and infrastructures available to support people who are struggling? How can we see the US prison state for what it is--a manufacturer of despair, racist oppression, and widespread disempowerment--and move towards abolition, even as our state tries to teach us to feel insecure? How can we learn to prioritize collectivity over a dangerous fantasy of security, which only produces insecurity for the vast majority of our populations?
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/09/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Prior to watching this film, based on what little I knew of the FBI, I assumed that all employees - full-time, and informants alike - shared a passion for (or at least respected) the U.S. government and its values - namely, national security. I did know that many informants had unconventional paths, often having broken the law, which perhaps implies a lack of respect for the U.S. government. But I suppose I blindly assumed that when a person becomes an FBI informant, a magical transformation of sorts takes place, wherein they become a dutiful, single-minded civil servant. I thought of the FBI and its informants as machines, fulfilling their respective missions: to protect, to inform or to collect information. I think this is a common misconception many American citizens have of the more covert bureaus of our government, and those who work for them: we forget that our government workers are real people.
Indeed, for most Americans, the FBI merely lurks in the background of daily life; by and large, its mention conjures an image of an institution, and we seldom wonder about the individuals that comprise it. What (T)error does is humanize the figure of the FBI informant on two levels: people are both creatures of emotion, and, as the film's title suggests, creatures prone to error, and FBI employees and informants are no exception.
One particularly poignant scene from the film comes to mind: Saeed sits on the floor, reading one cookbook from a pile of many, leafing through the cupcake recipes. Just a few scenes earlier, we had heard him detailing his baking dreams, stating, "I really want to get into a bakery... I want to specialize in custom cupcakes ... go in with someone who is a master baker and I'll be his apprentice," while tossing two Bundt cakes into the oven. A few moments later, he sits, without looking up from his cookbook, telling the camerawoman slowly, in a satirically amused voice, "In the interest of national security, I shall oblige, by gathering information, and taking it to my securities, who at this time will be paying me some money." His tone evokes a sort of mocking, feigned dedication - he is clearly doing this work for the money. This explains the somewhat haphazard, erroneous nature of the way he treats his mission with Khalifah; for Saeed, even when he is acting as Shariff, national security is a secondary interest, at best.
Given that it is his primary incentive for being an FBI informant, I assumed that Saeed agreed to be featured in the film because he needed the money. During the film's opening scenes, Saeed is, to say the least, camera shy, complaining about his face being filmed. In fact, the film never reveals exactly why he agrees to partake in the documentary. However, as I continued to watch the documentary, I came to wonder if perhaps he agreed to be filmed because it meant he wouldn't have to spend quite as much time alone.
The filmmakers provide us with intimate, often painful insight into Saeed's personal life. In many moments throughout the film, we hear Saeed lament the life he has chosen for himself; his work as an FBI informant has torn apart his past relationships, alienated him from his former religious community, and continually draws him away from his son for months at a time. The FBI has even assigned him targets who were close friends, including Tariq Shah, whose case we hear about from Saeed, as well as Tariq's mother, throughout the film. During these solitary scenes, Saeed is often smoking marijuana, cracking open a beer, or eating takeout food, seeking solace. He is hostile, he is arrogant, but more than anything, he is deeply sad and alone.
By the documentary's final scenes, we come to understand that not only is Saeed alone, but he is, in fact, no less a prisoner to the FBI than is Khalifah, and all of the hundreds of others convicted by the FBI using informant tactics. Though he might claim otherwise, it is apparent that Saeed's entire life has become swallowed up by his informant identity, Shariff. Just after the Khalifah case ends, Saeed is distraught, and embittered with the FBI, lamenting, "I blame this all on the government... I'm just trying to be a good fucking citizen and look what happens... I'm a fucking Muslim and I cant even go to the mosque." Yet, during the flash forward one year later, Saeed is reinvigorated by his need for money. Caught in a vicious cycle of necessity and denial, he feigns excitement for the upcoming case, boasting his past convictions, saying that the government, "remember(s) (his) expertise."
In one of the final scenes, we see the mother of Tariq Shah tell the camerawoman, "(Saeed) may be physically out of jail, but mentally he's not... so I don't think I would want to be in his place right now." In a moment during which we can only hope Saeed is revealing a glimmer of self-awareness, he tells the camera, "this story is never-ending." Sadly, I think he's right. As Tariq Shah's mother suggests, he's imprisoned, not only mentally, but in a sense, by the FBI itself.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/30/23
Full Review
brandon w
(T)error is directed by Lyric R. Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe, and it stars Saeed Torres in a documentary film about a FBI informant that was going on a mission to be friends with a specific white Muslim man name Khalifah Ali Al-Akili to see if he has anything to say that's threatening to America. I thought the premise about a FBI that's ongoing when the film crew were involved with, was quite interesting enough for me to watch it, and with the right time for me, I got to watch it, and it is quite a fascinating one. You enough about the FBI informant that you understand what he has to deal with, and why he keeps coming back to do his job. I also like how the documentary crew had to make some risks to get their footage, although not to the point of Citizenfour, which I know they weren't in that type of risky situation. When the movie keeps going, you start realize that this is a completely different film, especially when the film crew is documentary the subject himself. There were some parts that I wasn't quite interested in, or not exactly pulling its punches as powerful as it wanted to be, but I still really enjoy (T)error very much and I like when something like this does something different.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
03/30/23
Full Review
Audience Member
This documentary tracks an absurd cat and mouse game between a counter terrorism informant and terror suspect. It offers an insight into the real 'Homeland' on which billions or dollars are spent every year.
It is absurd and banal and tragi-comically entertaining. The informant is an ex-con who, let's just say given that he has agreed to have a camera crew with him without reporting to his FBI bosses, is not exactly flush with competence or mental health (and I am not saying this in a trivialising way). He is legitimately very unwell.
The target is a 21 year old former WASP from Pittsburgh who has rebelled against his parents by growing an insane red beard, becoming a Muslim, and posting angsty I-hate-the-West rhetoric online.
Watching the 'operation' unfold is alternately mesmerising in it's own right, and mesmerising in it's banality. The seriousness with which the FBI take the whole affair is deeply troubling.
They come across like ticket inspectors trying to meet quota rather than serious law enforcement agents, just desperate to bribe, entice, entrap FB unwary angry Mulsim men into saying something that could potentially be construed as intent to one day commit a terrorist act.
It's a great look insight into counter-terrorism measures which at best are a strange placebo and at worst are a blatant violation of civil liberties.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/23/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Haunting, a must watch.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/18/23
Full Review
Audience Member
2/23/16 PBS Independent Lens
A very interesting look into the world of government Confidential Informants and how the FBI must balance Americans safety against Americans freedoms. The potential for both thwarting terrorism and abuse of power is evident in this film. Provocative and thought provoking, it is a never before behind the scenes look at where we have come since 9/11
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
01/12/23
Full Review
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