The FBI spends “every day, all day long” questioning people about their Facebook posts. At least, that’s what agents informed Stillwater, Oklahoma, resident Rolla Abdeljawad when they arrived at her home to inquire about her social media activities.
Three FBI officers arrived at Abdeljawad’s house and stated that they had been provided “screenshots” of her posts by Facebook. Her lawyer, Hassan Shibly, shared a video of the incident online on Wednesday.
Abdeljawad told agents she didn’t want to speak and asked them to present their badges on camera, which the agents denied. She said on Facebook that she later confirmed with local police that the FBI agents were indeed FBI agents.
“So we no longer live in a free country”?
“Facebook gave us a couple of screenshots of your account,” a gray-shirted agent remarked in the video.
“So we no longer live in a free country, and we can’t say whatever we want?” Abdeljawad asked.
“No, we totally do. That’s why we’re not here to arrest you or anything,” a second agent in a red shirt added. “We do this every day, all day long. It’s just an effort to keep everybody safe and make sure nobody has any ill will.”
Shibly says he’s not sure which Facebook post piqued the agents’ interest, and it was the first time he’d heard of Facebook’s parent company, Meta, preemptively submitting posts to law authorities. Andy Stone, Meta’s spokesman, and Kayla McCleery, an FBI spokeswoman in Oklahoma City, declined to comment.
Meta’s official policy is to provide Facebook data to US law authorities
Meta’s official policy is to provide Facebook data to US law authorities in response to a court order, subpoena, search warrant, or an emergency circumstance involving “imminent harm to a child or risk of death or serious physical injury to any person.” According to the Meta website, the company received 73,956 requests from law enforcement in the United States and provided data 87.84 percent of the time in the first half of 2023.
Abdeljawad’s Facebook timeline is public, thus the FBI investigators may have discovered it themselves. For the past week, she has written many angry posts on the Gaza war every day, referring to Israel as “Israhell.” But none of the posts on her feed promote violence.
Ironically, Abdeljawad had previously tweeted a warning about the very type of government surveillance she was later subjected to.
“Don’t fall for their games. Our community is being watched & they are just waiting for any reason to round us up,” Abdeljawad wrote. “If you’re Muslim and/or pro-pal consider all your media accounts, Google searches, mail, messenger, local mosques & political events monitored. #NYC #usa #PoliceState #FreePalestine”