The Terror Factory (Inside the FBI's Manufactured War on Terrorism: The ISIS Edition)

“Compelling, shocking, and gritty with intrigue.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A real eye-opener that questions how well the country’s security is being protected.”—Kirkus (starred review)

A groundbreaking work of investigative journalism, The Terror Factory: The Isis Edition exposes how the FBI has, under the guise of engaging in counterterrorism since 9/11, built a network of more than 15,000 informants whose primary purpose is to infiltrate Muslim communities to create and facilitate phony terrorist plots so that the Bureau can then claim it is winning the war on terror. This updated edition of The Terror Factory examines the FBI’s use of stings to catch ISIS sympathizers in the United States, as well as how the bureau, already transformed into an intelligence agency whose tactics are similar to those of the CIA and NSA, has and will change under the presidency of Donald Trump.

Trevor Aaronson is a contributing writer at The Intercept and executive director of the nonprofit Florida Center for Investigative Reporting. Previously, he was a reporter with Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit and a fellow at the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California-Berkeley. He has also been an editor and reporter at newspapers in Florida and Tennessee. A two-time finalist for the Livingston Awards, Aaronson has won the Molly National Journalism Prize, the international Data Journalism Award, and the John Jay College/Harry Frank Guggenheim Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting Award.