►The FBI is actively teaching agents that mainstream believers in Islam are terrorist sympathizers, according to documents obtained by Wired magazine [1]’s blog, Danger Room. The documents call Islam a cult and say the Islamic tradition of giving charity is a secret way to fund terrorism. “Focusing on the religious behavior of American citizens instead of proven indicators of criminal activity like stockpiling guns or using shady financing makes it more likely that the FBI will miss the real warning signs of terrorism…That’s why FBI whistleblowers provided Danger Room with these materials,” Spencer Ackerman writes. You can watch video of Ackerman being interviewed on The Rachel Maddow show Wednesday night here [2].

►Three Pakistani citizens pleaded guilty on Monday [3] in Washington, D.C. to providing material support to terrorists. The men, Irfan Ul Haq, 37, Qasim Ali, 32, and Zahid Yousaf, 43, ran a human smuggling operation in Ecuador. Law enforcement used a confidential source to ask the men if they would be interested in smuggling a (fictitious) member of the Pakistani Taliban into the United States. The men agreed and even began to get together false documents for the operation. In a joint operation between the FBI and the Ecuadorian National Police, the men were arrested and brought to the United States. Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 9.

►West Virginia officials told lawmakers this week that the increase in violence against jail staff can be attributed to overcrowding. The Regional Jail Authority has seen an 87 percent increase in attacks on jail staff [4]. Inmate-on-inmate altercations increased 40 percent. “Besides housing 4,530 inmates -- 1,746 more than the jails were designed to hold -- the jails are understaffed, with 92 vacancies for correctional officers,” the Charleston Gazette quoted an official saying. Having more prisoners and less guards makes jails a tinderbox, officials testified. Officials say the overcrowding in jails is because of the backlog of prison inmates who are housed in the jails because the state's prisons are full.

►In other news, several TSA workers, police officers, and 13 drug dealers were charged with running an east coast Oxycodone trafficking [5] ring. ♦ The Feds say financial firms need to embrace the spirit of information sharing [6] if they want to effectively combat hackers. ♦ And a Japanese air traffic controller posted detailed flight information [7] about President Barack Obama’s November 2010 trip to Japan on Air Force One on his blog. The information included speeds, altitudes, route of flight, and pictures of computer screens. It’s unclear whether the information was posted before or after the trip took place.