Im a former fbi agent. Today is my great pleasure to talk to tamara, and, i think i want to start by having you explain why it is you have to speak from behind a screen. Thank you for having me. The reason obviously is because of the fact that im still an active operative for the Fbi Joint Terrorism Task force. My identity even if i wasnt still active is sensitive. And should never be revealed. Host i think that is what makes your book unusual. A lot of fbi undercover agents after they have retired have gone out and written memoirs. Those have to go through a screening process before theyre allowed to be published. But why did you want to write the book while youre still working undercover. I get that a lot from within and outside the organization. Its a great question, but i guess its a bit of of a perfect storm. One of my International Terrorism cases was declassified so that gave me a chance to be a voice to those who dont have one. I have a unique perspective into the world most americans know nothing about. Im hoping to honor the brave men and women of the fbi who combat terrorism every day to keep our country safe. Host tell me as much as you can about how you got into Law Enforcement and the fbi. Guest i was born in egypt and came to the states when i was four and a half years old. I speak arabic like i speak english. Im sunni muslim. I grew up in the northeast of new jersey and new york area. I wanted to lawenforcement out of college i worked undercover narcotics for 12 years after the events of 9 11 i wanted to dedicate my career and life to combating this evil. Host you mention in the book when he first approached the fbi they were very responsive. That was the immediate aftermath of the attack. When he didnt hook up with fbi recruiter one thing you suggested was it was difficult for the fbis to get people have aerobics Language Skills through the school. Or was that just a recruiting tool . The recruiter explained to me that especially lawenforcement theres many different tentacles you can do, various forms within the lawenforcement community. It could work spot, all kinds of different avenues that the undercover skill set was a bit rare to find. Not everybody hasnt it doesnt make you a good cap or backup, just makes you different. Some guys have a niche for doing undercover work so youre already working with a smaller pool to choose from. Throw in the Language Skills, cultural skills, religion, i just happen to be at the right place at the right time. And thankfully with the right skill set to do the work. And when you are working in Law Enforcement what attracted you to undercover work . I worked on a Fugitive Task force and are more overt lawenforcement work. I loved it but it did not have the same crap to me is working undercover. I started off making a lot of mistakes i have a lot to learn and its only by the grace of god that i made it through a live. I made a lot of mistakes. It was challenging every day, figuring out my subjects getting them to confide in you, its a different type of adrenaline and different type of work stephen that rings true, i work with a a lot of lawenforcement officers who worked undercover was shocked to see how little training they had before theyre put out there. How do you feel about the training you got before you got to the fbi and maybe describe the fbis training. Guest you are spot on. Undercover work at the state and local levels is a sink or swim type endeavor. You either get it or you dont. Ive seen the training get better but when i first started there wasnt much available. The fbi has taken it to a new level. I worked with agencies across the globe, lawenforcement and Intelligence Officers from all over and theres nothing that compares to the fbi undercover program. The reason is that yes the training, but the elaborate commitment to these legends that undercovers per tray. It gives us multiple tools to do the job regardless of criminal or National Security. One thing i saw was the people who did the work while is willing to come back and provide that training. I hope that still the case. It is the case. It is the strongest brotherhood and sisterhood in Law Enforcement ive ever encountered. I can be on the east coast and call a guy in need you to represent yourself to be ex, y, z and there would be on the next flight out. We support each other videos make time to come back to train. Host when you are brought in your in lawenforcement for more than a decade. In fact doing some hazardous and detailed work. You say about 252500 different drug buys. Did you have to go back through the fbi academy . No. I was able to be brought into the joint Terrorism Task force. Is able to go to the fbi Undercover School and had the ground running. Typically you had therefore years as an fbi agent before he started working undercover. Did that apply to because the love of your experience . A measure if it was a combination of that with the language and skills i have, my knowledge of the religion in the current need for that skill set. It may have been a combination. Was a difficult picking up on the paperwork in the rules . Guest yes, the paperwork. Every case agent ive ever worked with have all gone out of their way to help me because if you read member paperwork is always lengthy. Host did you ever feel there is discrimination against you because of your background or other reason . I know theres another complaints from other muslim arab agents over the years. Guest have you mean . Host within lawenforcement general. Guest know. I can tell you quite the opposite. I say this much, sometimes when you have a skill set, he could be adapted for trading by cursor drug dealers are gun runners, are terrorists, and sometimes what i tell students is dont believe the hype about yourself. To become the diva that says any discount a car of this apartment. Dont be a person who isnt part of the team. No matter how good or successful you may be. Ill go another step further and say ive always been treated extremely well. Almost the other end of thi spectrum. Theres a program called the post adjudication Risk Management program. Most agents go through a background reinvestigation every five years. If youre born abroad after go through it every year but has not been something apply to . I follow the 5yearold. Host your coauthors kevin mauer, who is written another box, how did he reach out to you because youre working in the alias and your real name is unknown, how did he get in touch with you is a funny story. Once i decided to get this message out for personal professional regions my first phone calls to fbi headquarters and the security division. I wanted to doubt every on cross every t because i wanted it to be an open book moving forward and i wanted to follow all the rules because i wasnt wanting to give someone an insight into what they werent supposed to have. I wanted to do it within the fbis purview. Once i got the outline on how to move forward and got permission to start, reached out to joe pistol. Was one of my instructors. I asked how to go about doing it and he set me up with my agent. Frank reached out to a publisher who arranged a meeting. I met with him for an hour and a half shortly thereafter we had a contract. Publisher then called me and said i have just the guy we should talk to. I think 11. He was right. Kevin and i are good friends and we spent the last year and half talking. We spent a lot of time together. He is not only a brilliant author, a journalist, a very special skill set that i was impressed to learn and see. This process was amazing and he had a knack for when he was interviewing me to caption my voice and also put me in a spot where that chapter was taken place. What foods were eating, who is there, he was able to draw on my memory and put me back in that situation so brilliantly. I love the way he sees the world and the way he writes. Very fortunate that i got to work with him on this project. The book does put you in the place and those details are very helpful. Im sure your sense of humor rather than his comes through quite a bit through the book. As far as the why, you mentioned there are things going on in different time when i was working at the aclu there some counterterrorism training materials that i obtained that reflected a strong anti muslim bias. Over the course of the last president ial campaign there is a lot of anti muslim expressed by President Trump and a muslim band. You touch on that on the book. Is that what was driving . What was driving why you needed to come to this now . As a professional doing what i do, things that you hear the new some peoples comments you have to let that slide. We see articles all the time i would love to be able to answer to about the job we do but were not allowed to do that. Were not allowed to talk about what we do, generally. This was different. I was working at the office one night a news program was on it was on the heels of an isis attack in europe. One of the broadcasters asked the question, how many millions of Muslim Americans either in the u. S. Why are they standing up to denounce terrorism . For some reason that one stock. Is very good at overlooking but that one stock. Some raising my hand, and this american islamists. Its not just about religion, its about the backdrop of deep cover its a deep dive into the terrorists mindset and how they work the religion for political reasons. Its a deep dive into three different terrorists mindsets. It was imperative because i had a platform and if this is my 15 minutes and here i am. Im here today, [inaudible] behalf of the fbi, or anybody but myself. But i would say that i hope and pray that im speaking on behalf of the millions of Muslim Americans in 1. 7 billion across the globe. I want them to feel comfortable thats whats being warped by al qaeda and isis. Theyre not the only ones with the voice anymore. I thought you said it very well towards the end of the book, keeping americas stores open ensures that when were threatened by an enemy will always have someone who looks like them to defeat them. Our best offenses inclusion. If your family have been denied entry into the United States uinta been available to do the work that youre doing. I think thats a wellplaced law and i appreciate you coming out with the book now. You have another line we talk about the same issue on how the way some commenters describe muslim terrorism but you say youre not afraid of the label radical islam and dont object to it is politically incorrect, but its factually incorrect, it doesnt adequately describe her too broadly describes two very different things. Isis has different political goals, and that label can confuse things. Much less when you get down to the individual level of the subjects of the individuals all come with different motivations as well. For starters, yes, i believe radical between the different groups youre right, and a point that out the book. If i need to elaborate on the term radical islam and if is politically correct, im not a politician or pretending to be politically correct. I am a muslim american. I can tell you im not offended by that term. I really dont care what they call it. You can call savages that are twisting a religion. The truth is, spending this time discussing the label is taken away from what they are, who cares what we call them. All you need is to understand the fundamental differences between the groups in between the two true tenants of the religion. Thats the only way to defeat them. To beat and when the global era terror we first have to understand that. Host and you say the problem starts whenever a muslim gets painted with a jihadist brush. I think thats will said. Lets talk about the case, the major case you discuss the book. The case prosecuted in canada. Ill let you tell the story. Im interested in what you call the ball and we can get into that. What are you give the viewers an idea of what that case was about. The program is working as an undercover at this stage was 2012, primarily all National Security cases and when this came around was a montreal resident who is talking to some bad people overseas. He had two trips to iran back to back. In two consecutive years. There are some red flags the suggestion you might pose a threat. Get a conference scheduled in california. The fbi asked if i could get in front of them and get a feel for who he is and his ideology and if he poses a threat. And thats what i refer to as the bone. A casual meeting mental casual and accidental in an effort to insert my persona and legend that i crafted into this individuals life. Host you describe it in an interesting way. I thought it described in microcosm what undercover work was. Meticulous planning that fell apart almost immediately and he had to work by the seat of your pants to make it work when someone was sitting in your seat on the airplane. Guest absolutely. You can craft an intricate plan, game plan, you can lay it all out but at the end of the day real life happens. Recorders dont work, surveillance gets lost. Mistakes will happen. Its human nature. I like to craft more of a lesson outline and let the subject dictate which whale go. In this case there was a legitimate mixup. But it worked in my favor. Unlike a criminal subject he saw someone who looks like him and was hoping talk like him was rewarded when he approached me himself by an individual who could speak to him and his foreign tongue. Host originally was supposed to be a short involvement and youre going to go back to your other cases. , but that change quickly partly because of the good work you did in establishing a strong bond with him. Guest i appreciate that. Id love to sit here and say him a brilliant undercover and was on my mastermind but the truth is this, when i pushed him away that week when he tried to recruit me, it wasnt because i was using a masterful technique, is busy. I had six cases and in my mind he was canadas problem. Im confident hes a danger and i was going to give him my report so they can follow up on it. I do not think i would ever see him again. Nothing brilliant on my part just looked at back that way. Looking back on it now, course someone tries to recruit you to do something criminal evil and push them away that led him to believe face think basically they have a profile of what they think the government infiltrate all will look like and when you dont show that profile works against them. So how did it turn into a major operation . Chad and i develop that relationship that week like i mentioned i thought i would never see him again. But apparently we maintained relationship throughout the summer i met him in june of 2012. But i figured that was me keeping up appearances. Intelligence was received that he was traveling to go on a fishing trip with an unknown individual. After that socalled fishing trip that was planned turned out to be a recognizance mission. And you are sure that right from the start when you heard about the fishing trip. It goes back to the g had a mindset. Not that im special or smarter, im never the smartest person in any room. But as my culture and religion. Its what i do. So yes, i spent a good deal of time with i know his rationale and his thought process. He brushes his teeth so his teeth stay healthy so he doesnt have to waste time going to a dentist. He is so he can survive and heat so he can continue on. He doesnt do anything for pleasure. Its an extremist view that everything he does is on the path of the law. The way he viewed that was ours what she had. Thats what separated him and what i tried to explain during that meeting. And thats the canadian service. Thats correct. It turned out that your intuition was correct, they went fishing, theyre on some scouting mission looking for a potential target. Court and discovered, i get it that this point if this was just an intelligence operation in canada where is the fbi and intelligence enforcement so once they realized this was a Reconnaissance Mission and they were looking for the latrine and kill people it became a Law Enforcement action in canada. They are planning a terrorist attack on canadian soil. That is what they receive and have to generate their own investigation and take it from there. To get deployed and operational with all the countermeasures in place. Host people that read your book may not realize the nightmare that must have been involved. It might be assumed it easy for an fbi agent to operate in canada but its actually not. You go into how it was irregular from th the bu were way you wero operating in the United States. That is just a testament to the foreign partners enddoublequote creating terrorism but i will say one of the first of its kind and very proud to have been a part of that. I think it was assumed that some level the anniversary was 9 11, labor day weekend, so we had about eight days to act, but it turned out the anniversary of that was interpreted was the anniversary of jesus christs birthday, the literal translation on Christmas Day. Host interesting. Talk a little bit about a plot. Guest to derail the train from new york city to toronto to kill as Many Americans and canadians as possible. Supposed to be done over a body of water as shallow as possible so there was no chance for survival. It was supposed to take place on Christmas Day because they would have a plan to hit around 7 a. M. So they would be able to start getting the attack in place around 5 p. M. And above the scene of the cover of darkness. My role was to upload a video that they were going to pre record and send a message that they are here, they are not leaving. This would continue to happen again and again. They went to scout the railroad tracks. Guest as a matter of fact they were the original two. Host what do you think the motivation was . As the primary subject that you found out later. He was looking to hurt people that have a bit of a complex in the sense that he didnt like taking orders from the al qaeda senior leadership. He believed hes been in canada for 20 years and that key more than they did knew how to hurt these people and active shooter type of attacks. He wanted to be the leader in calling the shots. He didnt like taking orders from the al qaeda senior leadership. So there was a bit of a rest from the getgo but he was still on board as an active participant and training. Host and shahada was a phd student. How much did the work that he was doing come into play and raise concerns for yo