NY Times: 'FBI Foils Its Own Terrorist Plots' 573
Fluffeh writes "Breaking up terrorist plots is one of the main goals of the FBI these days. If it can't do that, well, it seems making plots up and then valiantly stopping them is okay too — but the NY Times is calling them on it. 'The United States has been narrowly saved from lethal terrorist plots in recent years — or so it has seemed. A would-be suicide bomber was intercepted on his way to the Capitol; a scheme to bomb synagogues and shoot Stinger missiles at military aircraft was developed by men in Newburgh, N.Y.; and a fanciful idea to fly explosive-laden model planes into the Pentagon and the Capitol was hatched in Massachusetts. But all these dramas were facilitated by the F.B.I., whose undercover agents and informers posed as terrorists offering a dummy missile, fake C-4 explosives, a disarmed suicide vest and rudimentary training. Suspects naïvely played their parts until they were arrested.'"
It's not Entrapment. (Score:5, Informative)
It's encouragement.
Very different. For one thing, the movie stars Jessica Alba instead of Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless you are the Doctor. Then everyone lives! Well, he lies. Rule 1. Also people tend to die quite often when he is around, or Daleks, or Cyber Men. Sometimes they all live. Still, life insurance policies probably become temporarily suspended on any planet he visits for the duration of said visit at this point.
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:5, Interesting)
Nope, you just encourage people to try harder and make a bigger impact. Did it ever occur to you that these people might have been saved by convincing them to use peaceful means to make their point. instead we've taught a lesson that deception, lies and treachery are the way to accomplish your goals. People do learn by example. What example has the FBI given us?
Re: (Score:3)
I believe that giving people the idea that they could have the means to accomplish their violent goals may be entrapment, but is it wrong?
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is not all the FBI is doing though. The "suspect" not presented with a plot on day one and then ignored forever if they say no thanks. These guys are softened up first and encouraged to become more radical. Then maybe a plot is suggested, and suggested over and over until their resistance is worn down. The FBI is not infiltrating existing terrorist cells or finding existing terrorists. They do not open up a fake arms store and wait for customers to show up unprompted.
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they're spreading out honeypots so that real planners have to be extra careful when planning their shit. And they're less likely to plot when they can't trust each other. In Iran, the Stuxnet led to a bunch of scientists and folks getting liquidated because the government thought they were spies. Same thing in Iraq when America embarked in the "secret killing program".
The authorities also thwarted the very real plot to bomb subways--that dude lived literally a few blocks away from me in Flushing, Queens, New York. They caught him trying to make TATP with acetone.
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:5, Insightful)
I once saw part of an episode of NCIS where they caught a terrorist. They proudly told him (roughly paraphrasing) "you have no rights, you're a terrorist, you're going to be disappeared to Gitmo thanks to the PATRIOT act...I've heard some nasty rumors about what goes on there."
They seemed to be proud of their country's human rights abuses.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention you'll at most catch absolute morons who at their best would simply win a Darwin Award because the kind of bozos these "stings" catch are frankly the same gullible dipshits that fall for 419 scams and other stupidity.
So when the FBI uses stings to catch international arms traffickers [chicagotribune.com], organized crime figures [eagleworldnews.com], corrupt public officials [nj.com], and embezzlers [post-gazette.com], are they "morons" too, or just would-be terrorists? Your post is nonsense.
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:4, Informative)
The real morons are the ones who can't tell the difference between a sting and entrapment.
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:5, Insightful)
So when the FBI uses stings to catch international arms traffickers [chicagotribune.com], organized crime figures [eagleworldnews.com], corrupt public officials [nj.com], and embezzlers [post-gazette.com], are they "morons" too, or just would-be terrorists? Your post is nonsense.
The examples you cite are generally not entrapment because the persons they catch were already doing these things before they met the FBI agents. The difference between the terrorism stings and a traditional sting can be illustrated thus:
Traditional sting: send out agents to places where drugs are sold and arrest those who mistake them for drug dealers and try to buy.
New-style sting: send agents into the community to make friends and introduce them to weed. When they convince someone to try it, they will take him to a "drug dealer" who is really a cop.
The parallel is not perfect, but I think it is close enough to show that these stings are different and the concerns some have are not nonsense.
Scientology: FBI, stop arresting future members. (Score:5, Insightful)
The real problem with this, isn't the entrapment angle. Yeah, they are finding dumb people who don't make good life choices and push them in the wrong direction, and that isn't really right. The real problem with this though, is they are wasting time and money doing this shit when they could be doing better things like building legitimate human Intel in places where the professionals might show up. But this is hard and tedious work that may or may not ever pay off, so they waste time and tax payer dollars running these sort of dog and pony show stings that they can put people in front of a federal DA and say, 'Look we are being effective.'
Quit fucking around with these dime store idiots, FBI, and get to work in preventing damage the pros will inflict. They will be much harder to catch than losers who hand around cargo vans behind the local mosque that have signs saying, 'Free Stingers'.
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not all the FBI is doing though. The "suspect" not presented with a plot on day one and then ignored forever if they say no thanks. These guys are softened up first and encouraged to become more radical. Then maybe a plot is suggested, and suggested over and over until their resistance is worn down.
That's OK, because in the end Winston "realized that he had won the victory over himself, and he loved Big Brother. [wikipedia.org]"
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:4, Informative)
They spent almost a year trying to convince the guy, as well as paying him a quarter of a million dollars? Sure as hell sounds like entrapment to me; of course, when you consider who gets to decide what "entrapment" is the same government the FBI happens to work for, I can see how nothing the feds ever do could be considered entrapment in a legal sense - all they have to do is move the goalposts.
Side note: you said
Just yesterday such a event happened, a group of OWS protesters planned to bomb a bridge
No they didn't - a group of radical anarchists, who happened to have attended an OWS rally at one point, tried to blow up a bridge. FYI, you shouldn't believe everything you read on FreeRepublic and InfoWars.
Personally, I always thought the only thing metrosexual hipsters ever tried to blow up were their girlfriends.
Re:But is it wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, I'm almost as shocked that you have to ask if it's wrong! : (
Let's sing a song together.
"Old USA Had some towns. EIEIO. And in those towns were some terrorists. EIEIO! Here's a terrorist, there's a terrorist, everywhere there's a terrorist, terrorist. Won't somebody think of the kids? EIEIO!
Let's pass new laws like Cyber CISPA. EIEIO. And with those laws we can arrest you if you "look like a threat". EIEIO."
Oops - we made up the threats. Isn't that the entire concept of False Flags?
Re:Of course it's not entrapment (Score:5, Insightful)
"You're not going to be able to go to a street corner and find somebody who's already blown something up," he said. Therefore, the usual goal is not "to find somebody who's already engaged in terrorism but find somebody who would jump at the opportunity if a real terrorist showed up in town." - David Raskin, federal prosecutor.
So they admit that procedure is manufacturing terrorists out of otherwise innocent (albeit disenfranchised) people.
Mabye you should look elsewhere? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Of course it's not entrapment (Score:5, Insightful)
They are innocent because the before the FBI came along, gave them the means and manipulated their delusions, these people were not terrorists.
The FBI didn't just make sure there was no bullets, that was exactly what the article debunks by contrasting sting operations designed to catch actual known drug dealers. The prosecutor admits there are no actual known terrorists. So security theatre demands they find a mentally unstable "suspect", gave them a gun and convince them to pull the trigger. Creating a terrorist out of thin air.
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:5, Insightful)
you'll end up with fewer people willing or able to buy the real stuff
True in a very general sense, but it misses why these stings waste time and money. To continue with your metaphor, these fakes--though of reasonable quality--are priced so low that only boobs would be taken in by them. So you're not taking legitimate buyers off the street; you're enticing idiots who were probably never going to be buyers of the genuine item into grasping for a "bargain".
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:5, Interesting)
And really all they get are idiots. Anyone with a brain is immune to this nonsense. People that are too stupid to do anything more than whine and bitch are enticed into lending their idiocy to a crazy plot. These people are mostly a threat to themselves unless led by the hand by someone with a clue. I remember the FBI did exactly this to a militia outfit here back before 9/11 even happened. They infiltrated the group and they went from bitching about the gummint and drinking beer to acually committing crimes. The undercover agent told them what to do and how to do it and led them by the hand until they had enough to close in and send them off to jail. Without the agent they'd still be bitchin' 'bout the gummint and drinking beer. I feel no pity for them, they let themselves be led to the slaughter and deserve what they got but it removed exactly zero threat and wasted a lot of taxpayer money. At least the stupid bastards had jobs and paid taxes before, now we pay to keep the morons in jail with 3 hots and a cot.
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:4, Interesting)
. I feel no pity for them, they let themselves be led to the slaughter and deserve what they got but it removed exactly zero threat and wasted a lot of taxpayer money.
So, why do you feel no sympathy?
Most people are easily led. There are now heaps of phychology experiments which show this beyond doubt.
They were harmless until the FBI interfered. Seems pretty sad to me.
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:5, Interesting)
And please, please tell us that you really believe that everyone taken down in a sting is no brighter than a hick good 'ole boy complaining about the "gubermint"
Not everyone by any means, but it looks that way in this case.
There's nothing inherently wrong with sting operations.
The thing is that organized crime bosses, arms traffickers embezzelers and corrupt officials exist.
It seems that in this case, there actually weren't any terrorists, so the "sting" operation had to create them first, then catch them.
You'll note that in your example, the sting was only offering to buy all the weapons.
In the terrorist version, the FBI would first have to find some dumb poor guy in a bar somewhere and give him a huge bunch of weapons. Then give him lots of instruction on how to act like a proper international arms dealer. Then they would have to offer to buy the weapons. Then they could claim they've caught another international arms dealer! Woo hoo!
You see the trouble with sting operations to catch terrorists is that terrorists pretty much don't exist in anything more than homeopathic quantities. If you invent them first then catch them, it's a waste of time and money.
The same can't be said for all the other cases you quoted.
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:5, Funny)
That describes most genuine suicide bombers as well.
What the FBI needs is a bunch of borderline tard agents so they can arrest each other.
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:5, Insightful)
A person may be disappointed or disgruntled at the US without being a hostile terrorist, but if you take that person and start pushing at them to hate the US even more, suggesting plots to them, putting them in contact with suppliers, etc, then it seems to that the FBI is *creating* terrorists where none existed. Some of these people who were "caught" really seem like dupes who otherwise would never have caused a problem. This is being done in order to deceive the public into thinking that plots were uncovered and that the current policy is working.
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's called job security. If you don't have terrorist plots to foil you need to make some.
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:5, Insightful)
But it's still THEATER and not real security.
I understand the need for people to break the law by attempting the criminal act because you can't really arrest people for "hating" or "feeling suicidal" they have to break some laws.
On the other hand this is EXACTLY the premise of Person of Interest. Is the FBI only going after the Terror cases and not GETTING HELP for people pushed too far? Do we really have agents out there selling weapons to boost their street cred to some upset guy who takes it and kills 5 family members? When they could have got the guy some help to not commit ANY crime?
This becomes dangerously close to what the CIA used to play at sponsoring drug dealers and smugglers often against local PD. THEN it was to get inside rebels to fight Commies.
This is the problem with "Law Enforcement" and not "Officers of the Peace" in a nutshell.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Used to?
In case you haven't heard one of Obama's admins was selling guns to drug dealers in Mexico, and then when those U.S. guns turned-up in southern border states, justified passage of anti-gun laws to limit them. It's the new trick of false-flagging a U.S. operation to achieve the desired ends.
BTW I think drugs should be decriminalized. Per the 10th amendment Congress has zero authority to ban them... no more authority than they have to ban alcohol. The power is reserved to the People and the people'
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:5, Insightful)
BTW I think drugs should be decriminalized. Per the 10th amendment Congress has zero authority to ban them... no more authority than they have to ban alcohol.
Indeed. It took a freakin constitutional ammendment to outlaw liquor, but now the DEA can just publish a new drug schedule and tada, they've outlawed some new drug without congress even voting on it.
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:5, Insightful)
As would most people whose quality of life is impacted by the placement of their medicines on those schedules.
Nothing like being treated as a heroin addict when you out of pain pills, because, I don't know, you're in pain, and day to day tasks differ? Hell, some drugs aren't even scheduled, on the federal or state level, but doesn't stop some doctors from placing them on the schedule.
And you must think I am mistaken. I had a rather wonderous phone conversation with a quite irate doctor (the on call doctor, my regular doctor didn't manage to fill the script before the weekend), who lectured me on how she didn't give out scheduled substances on weekends (after hours); the only problem is, the drug isn't scheduled (something which a pharmacist and I went through the state and federal laws to double-check). This is, of course, in a state which has a quite interesting law about doctors not leaving patients in pain. The drug in question, mind you, is being somewhat considered for placement on said schedule at some point in the remote future, when the scare factor associated with it manages to exceed common sense. Still, the effect of the doctor, claiming it was scheduled, had the same effect as it being on the schedule. Argue with her? Since people with M.D.s seems to think they are God's chosen people, you can imagine how well that would have gone.
So, on behalf of all of us out there who live in hell on a daily basis, may the DEA and friends go f*ck themselves. Take some gymnastics classes, maybe work some yoga in there, and f*ck yourselves.
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:5, Interesting)
>In case you haven't heard one of Obama's admins was selling guns to drug dealers in Mexico,
In 2006.
When Obama was secretly President.
God damn him and his time machine.
--
BMO
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:4, Informative)
Might want to go back and look at that stuff. Because it was holder who authorized the selling and NOT tracking of the guns sold.
Bush however did, and didn't let them walk. Figure out the difference yet? A walking gun is one where you don't track it.
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:4, Insightful)
"+5 Insightful"? Who mods this crap? Guess what, if Obama's administration kept the operation running under their watch, THEY are responsible. It doesn't matter who started it, that's a child's logic. Time machine indeed.
No one forced him to become President.
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:5, Informative)
In 2006.
When Obama was secretly President.
God damn him and his time machine.
Operation Fast and Furious [wikipedia.org] began in 2009. I believe Obama was president sans time machine.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Lets see here, Nixon covered up two guys breaking into an office building and it was the biggest presidental scandal of our time.
Obama sells a thousand guns to Mexican drug lords, leading to 200 deaths of Mexcian civilians, and 1 US border agent. He and Holder cover it up and refuse to coorporate with Congressional inquiries to the point that Congress is threatening to pull the DOJ's budget. Now that is just "a little carried away"?
If I had a son he would have looked just like Brian Terry.
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:4, Informative)
In case you haven't heard one of Obama's admins was selling guns to drug dealers in Mexico, and then when those U.S. guns turned-up in southern border states, justified passage of anti-gun laws to limit them.
What onerous anti-gun laws were you referring to, exactly? The only thing I could turn up was that when a gun dealer sells more than 1 assault rifle in a state bordering Mexico, they have to report it (the NRA's take [nraila.org]). It's not illegal to sell a bunch of AK-47s to somebody, it's just that in 4 states you have to fill out a form that says "Hey, this guy came into my store and bought a bunch of AK-47s".
Yes, there's a tradeoff: Downside of having to explain to an ATF agent why you just bought 35 assault rifles. Upside of "Hey, this guy is crossing the border here, stopping by each of the gun stores within this 300-square-mile area here here and here, and crossing the border again." Additional upside: "Hey, this guy is collecting a lot of AK-47s, and doesn't have any sort of legal use for those guns, and after further investigation seems to have this idea about starting a revolt against the US government. Maybe we should watch him a bit more closely."
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Hey, this guy is collecting a lot of AK-47s, and doesn't have any sort of legal use for those guns...
I didn't know we had to 'prove' we have a "legal" use for things we buy.
BTW, "collecting guns" is a perfectly legal use.
Re:It's not Entrapment. (Score:5, Interesting)
Why yes... Yes, we do! [nationalgunrights.org]. And note that stories like these only refer to the ones we acci-fucking-dentally got back [cbsnews.com], not to all of what we sent South of the Border in some bizarre parody of law enforcement efforts.
So not only do these pieces of shit pretend to stop crime, they actually really cause more than they pretend to stop!
/ And people call me cynical...
Re: (Score:3)
Entrapment requires comes from encouraging someone to commit a crime that they otherwise would not have committed. It is not entrapment if the means is presented. Ie, if this is a vice sting then having a police officer pretend to be a hooker who is sitting quietly in the bar is not entrapment, but if the officer is actively trying to drum up business or encouraging the dupe to drink more alcohol then it could very well fit the legal definition of entrapment.
Part of the problem is that many of these cases
Re:It helps keep us safe (Score:5, Interesting)
The FBI has gone to the opposite extreme. Have you seen their listed of "suspected terrorists"??? It includes people who pay with cash, cover their cellphones while chatting, have a Ron Paul or Campaign for Liberty bumper sticker, carry a pocket constitution (wow; knowing the law; horrible), and on and on. At the end of the day almost everyone is a suspected terrorist by the FBI list.
Re: (Score:3)
FBI and the Constitution (Score:5, Informative)
You seriously haven't heard of that? Assuming you're not a troll:
http://rt.com/news/fbi-terrorists-guide-security-171/ [rt.com]
http://www.constitution.org/abus/terror/constitutional_terrorists.htm [constitution.org]
http://welfarestate.com/pamphlet/ [welfarestate.com]
Terrorists include those who:
-Defend the constitution
-Attempt to police the police (taping the police?)
-Lone individuals
-Non-lone individuals (members of groups)
-Rightists
-Leftists
-Pay in cash
-Attempt to hide passwords
-Nervous
-Take pictures
-Stare
This basically just confirms what has been the philosophy of the FBI for a long time (since its founding), including harassment of MLK and the civil rights movement.
Re:It helps keep us safe (Score:5, Interesting)
They take some people off the street who, at the very least, have an abnormally high interest in making war against the U.S. within our borders. More important, it makes terrorists wary of trusting one another, thus disrupting their operations.
At the time of 9/11, people criticized the FBI for sitting on its ass and letting Bin Laden get away with it. Call me crazy, but I'm all for jailing and killing people who want to destroy the U.S.
So then, we should jail and kill most of the legislature, lobbyists, and the execs of major corps and banks at the minimum? Oh that's right, they do it for money not political or religious ideologies. And they people they destroy get to go on living a shitty life since they were not destroyed with a gun or a bomb.
Re:It helps keep us safe (Score:5, Insightful)
It helps keep us safe
Yeah, like the TSA, the Patriot Act, free speech zones, NDAA...
The ability of law enforcement to law on a whim will inevitably be abused. In fact, it already has been. Innocent people have been hurt by this, but all you people care about is catching the "terrists!"
but I'm all for jailing and killing people who want to destroy the U.S.
I love thought crimes.
Re:It helps keep us safe (Score:5, Interesting)
More people died of food poisoning in any year you care to mention than died in the twin towers attack. How about we have intrusive laws surrounding food preparation. And you can pick the locality of New Yowk City for that stat and it still holds true. While more people in the world are worried about the possibility of American drone strikes, possible invasion of their country, or just the devaluation of the world reserve through quantitative easing shrinking their money supply.
Just because something makes a great show on TV does not mean it is any more important than the thousands of news stories that didn't, but we're somehow working as if this is the case, case in point the Syria issue as opposed to the Bahrain issue. Per head the regime in Bahrain has killed more people than the Syrian regime. Since Bahrain is a small nation. We hear little of Bahrain however, perhaps due to the American Naval Base in the country. Due to the propaganda you're fed you find it laughable that I suggest the two nation's states are even remotely equivalent. Yet I remind you that in relation to their populations the Bahrain regime has killed more citizens then the Syrian regime.
Re:It helps keep us safe (Score:4, Interesting)
This sure sounds like circular, self-justifying logic. "The fact that we irrationally spaz out over terrorism means terrorism is worse and justifies our spazzing out over it."
This has been obvious for a while (Score:4, Interesting)
It is much easier to create a problem and then solve it than it is to solve a real problem. If they don't catch terrorists, they will lose funding. Solution: Create a terrorist. Problem is, they arent able to create believable ones.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Imaginary Hobgoblins (Score:5, Insightful)
--H.L. Menken
Happened in Dallas Too (Score:5, Interesting)
It happened in Dallas too, they gave a guy a truck and a fake bomb and a building to blow up. Then they celebrated when they caught the terrorist. I am not sure why his defense is not "I knew the bomb was fake".
Re:Happened in Dallas Too (Score:4, Interesting)
If only this were an isolated incident.
Turns out that every major foiled terrorist plot on US soil since 9/11 was dreamed up, planned, funded, coordinated, and ultimately foiled by FBI agents. And there have been quite a few of them. This is such a persistent theme that the biggest surprise in this story is that the newspaper actually called them on it instead of using the fear-inducing headline to bolster readership.
The best one... (Score:4, Insightful)
While that is interesting in itself, the really telling part comes from the fact that the City of Portland refused to cooperate with the FBI after 9/11, refusing to allow agents unfettered library access and other information into the citizens of Portland. Not only this, and while it may be conjecture, Portland has never seemed to be on the top of anyones attack list as far as foreign terrorists go... Needless to say Portland quickly subscribed to the FBI's intelligence program after the attempted attack and decreed that it would fully cooperate in the future with any investigations.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Tom Potter (mayor) asked the FBI NOT to be of service because he wanted no one breaking laws
Even the FBI. Well we know how that went now. We are all scared or scarred. Take your pick.
They miraculously save us all here, by grooming a suspect including detonating a real truck bomb
in a gravel pit near Lincoln City, Oregon to prove they could (to the suspect).
Highly illegal, period. I'm not afraid, I'm pissed they needed to prove their point that badly.
Who's the real terrorists? Be afraid of 'them' f
Re:The best one... (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Why let it go as far as they did? They easily had enough material for a conviction on numerous charges that would have put him away for a long time before they actually went all the way with the "attack". Why actually let the suspect go all the way down to the ceremony, place the "bomb" and let him try to detonate it? The moment he was even in possession of the "explosives" he would have been guilty of a number of major felonies. The fact that they let it play out in a public place was clearly theater meant to induce some sort of reaction in the Portland leadership.
Apparently they weren't sure they could get a conviction unless he actually pressed the button. So, they let him believe there was a bomb, gave him the button, and waited for him to press it. He did, and when nothing happened, he pressed it again. Had they not done so, his lawyer could have argued that he never really intended to go through with it.
Re:The best one... (Score:4, Informative)
There's a big difference between the scenario you originally presented and what actually occurred. His own family alerted authorities (which you twisted into "more angry at his parents than the US or any 'infidels'"), and he was actively seeking outside help (which you misrepresented as "by all accounts had no prior involvement in anything radical beyond browsing the internet"). When somebody calls you on that it's poor form to complain about how far they went along before they arrested him.
But whatever, your original, mistaken post went to +5, and your followup post went to +3. Good for you and the dumb moderators who modded you up.
Stinger missiles available on fedbay (Score:3)
Focusing away from the legality and what is or is not entrapment there are two obviously fucked up things about this.
1. Searching for mental midgets who could be lead into confessing or going along with LEA invented schemes because they are easily manipulated.
2. Inventing schemes designed to capture headlines and instill more terror in terrorist fearing public....stinger missles..WTF.....
Government pissing away their legitimacy on crack shit like this has consequences for society. For godsakes look at the polling on 9/11 showing more than 1/5th of US population believe it was an Inside or Isreali job.
Thanks to the Internet and media we never forget anymore... What happens when the majority assume the next attack was an inside job?
Well, what do you want? (Score:4, Interesting)
That has always been the risk when the police take a more pro-active approach. There is a famous story (real or not) about a US fire chief who managed to create laws in his city that forced the installation of sprinkler installations in residential homes. It worked and it made the fire service pro-active rather then re-active. They prevented fires, rather then fighting fires. Since a fire is a bad thing, this is desirable.
Would you want the army to focus on fighting wars or on preventing wars?
What about the cops, should they just look away UNTIL a crime has happened or act to prevent one if they can?
Holland recently had Queens day, the day we prove we are even below Americans in our reference for a whore who doesn't pay taxes on a million Euro income and still claims every benefit intended for poor people. But that aside, the Mayor of Amsterdam decided that no large parties would be allowed in the city center, instead they would be held on the outskirts of the city. It worked, it was a peaceful day. The police (Mayor is head of the police) acted to prevent crime, rather then wait until the shit hit the fan.
BUT in doing so, it labelled EVERY single attendee as a hooligan bound to cause trouble and in need of police control to keep things inline. Silly? Yes, but that is one side of the coin of police acting to prevent things.
Entrapment is the other. We want the police to do the "good" preventing not the bad but where the line is drawn, that is hard to say.
A repeating story is that of the would be murderer by proxy trying to hire a killer, the police being tipped off and posing as a hired killer and the person being arrested. IF the police had ignored it, nothing might have happened. No killer might have shown up and it might have all blown over. On the other hand, something might have happened and would the police then be called out on not having done anything?
You betcha! Often by the same people screaming entrapment.
It is rather well known that the 9/11 attackers were known about but the FBI ignored the warnings. Would the same people screaming conspiracy scream entrapment if the FBI had acted and setup up a trap to capture them? You betcha. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Part of the failing of democracy is that it is power without responsibility. Not of the politicians but of the voters. The average voter thinks nothing (doesn't think at all in many cases) of demanding completely opposite things,at the same time. Having your cake and eat it doesn't even begin to describe not just bankers who want low taxes, no government oversight, strict laws on competitors and welfare for needy banks. You can't have it all except when it comes to voting in a democracy. And it ain't just the super rich.
"The FBI should have acted on warnings before 9/11 and stopped it"
"The FBI shouldn't act on warnings of people planning attacks and stopping them".
Politics ain't a division between left and right, between bleeding hearts and hard-liners, between capitalists and socialists. It is a melting pot of multi-personality disorders were the same voters votes multiple ways on the same issue and expects all of them to heard.
Want to prove me wrong? Prove how a fire-chief insisting on sprinklers to be installed in private homes had saved any lives over a fire-chief who has bravely rescued a single person in the last decade alive while hundreds died in flames? None of the people in private homes with sprinklers needed a daring rescue. The man is a coward! Somewhere a tax payer is arguing just this. For real.
Re:Making Up vs. Facilitating (Score:4, Interesting)
Encouraging a bunch of j*ckoffs who couldn't find their asses with both hands at high noon is bullsh*t propaganda.
The FBI aided the _first_ WTC bomb plot.
The FBI aided Olklahoma City.
Bunch of fscking leeches that need to get real jobs. And stop being such a scared rabbit, America is not supposed the land of pissed pants.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Making Up vs. Facilitating (Score:5, Insightful)
But what it seems its doing is much more appropriate than that -- flooding the pools of potential recruits with undercover agents, flooding the supply chain for explosives etc with informers, etc so anyone who tries to get a major attack off the ground ends up running into one of the traps and ultimately arrested before the plot can come to fruition.
The problem with your analysis is that it presumes there are realistic threats somewhere out there in the first place. There aren't. All of this work is for naught. How do I know? Because universally these cases turn out to be witless patsies. If they were stopping real threats there would be some seriously hardened guys in there with all the doofuses. But there aren't.
Then there is the lack of actual succesful attacks. It would be ridiculous to believe that any system would be perfect in the face of the existential threat these guys are made out to be. And yet the record for actual home-grown attacks over the last decade is basically two or three whackjobs with some guns and that one guy who flew his plane into the IRS building. I think the death toll is under 20 people all told. That level of risk just does not justify the resources that are put into these schemes not to mention the erosion of public confidence that it brings.
Meanwhile real crimes go unsolved because of the resources spent on these con-job photo-ops.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Fact:
You are more likely to die from unlawful conduct from law enforcement officers than you are of dying from a terrorist act.
"these cases turn out to be witless patsies" (Score:3)
yeah, it's a honeypot operation. and better the fbi catch the witless pansies before someone hardened and malintentioned puts them to bad use
who do you think puts a bomb in their underwear or in their shoes? who flies airplanes into buildings?
witless pansies do
people who do very horrible things, by order of truly evil people, without any complaint: witless pansies
that's not entrapment. anyone with a functioning cerebellum who can tell the difference between simple right and wrong does not get into this situ
Re:"these cases turn out to be witless patsies" (Score:5, Insightful)
yeah, it's a honeypot operation. and better the fbi catch the witless pansies before someone hardened and malintentioned puts them to bad use
If you want to lock up all the idiots in the world then that prison is going to have be really, really big.
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Like, say, the size of the Lower 48 of the US? Papers, please!
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You're going to have more people in prison than out! According to Milgram's experiment [wikipedia.org], 65% of people (and not just idiots, either) are willing to kill somebody they don't know if somebody tells them to. Odds are you'd end up in there, too, by the way.
dom
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"Eventually the mere fact that something has been investigated eleven times becomes suspicious."
"And therefore the number of suspected enemies of the people?"
"Would Explode! The Government Machine is looking at itself in the mirror, of course; it's seeing an image of its own weaknesses."
"So what, practially speaking, would be the upshot of this?"
"You end up with a machine which knows that by its mildest estimates it must have terrible enemies all around and within it, but it can't find them. It therefore deduces that they are well-concealed and expert, likely professional agitators and terrorists. Thus, more stringent and probing methods are called for."
[..]
"Did you just drag me through that entire fandango to get an explanation of 'stat filler' for one of your chums with a secure annexe?"
Nick Harkaway's "Gone Away World" one of the best descriptions of State paranoia I've ever seen.
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Because universally these cases turn out to be witless patsies.
Yup, just like the witless patsies that used home-brew explosives they couldn't have made themselves (and which they got from a somewhat mysterious-to-them third party more or less insdistinguishable from the informants the FBI allows them to encounter) to kill hundreds of people in London and Madrid. Just like the witless patsy who - if he hadn't been sweating so much - would have killed hundreds of people over and in Detroit. Those sorts of witless patsies, right? The kind that actually slaughter lots of
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
>>>This would be a scandal if the FBI was making up its own attacks, recruiting people to join them.....
That's exactly what the FBI is doing. They hatch the plot in their D.C. offices. Then they use undercover agents to recruit some unhappy person to help them execute the plot. It's FBI-run from start to finish.
Re: (Score:3)
Or the NYT is, wittingly or unwittingly, part of an even bigger game to put out the perception that the FBI is broadly and deeply infiltrated into the underground supply chain that caters to would-be domestic terrorists, so as to inject mistrust among them, making them take extra precautions that would make them more detectable. Oh boy, wheels within wheels!
Re:Making Up vs. Facilitating (Score:5, Interesting)
This would be a scandal if the FBI was making up its own attacks, recruiting people to join them, and then arresting those people.
It did. The FBI agents found "dissident" groups with no malicious intent, but possible malicious thoughts. The agent would then conceive the plans and pressure the non-violent dissidents to act, then arrest them when they did.
None of these are cases where the terrorist was trying to purchase C4 and the FBI set up a fake buy and nabbed them. The FBI agent was the one looking to buy the C4 and convinced innocents to stand next to him while he did, then arrested them.
If the FBI agent had not approached the dissidents, there would have been no crime. Thus, any actions by the FBI to create a crime is entrapment.
Re:Odd... (Score:5, Informative)
Did you read the story? The guy said no like 100 times. They pushed on him for 11 months, paid him $250k and promised him no women or children would be hurt. Hard for me to call that willing. If the catch a predator people offered the perps $50k to come have sex with them, you might have a similar situation.
Re:Odd... (Score:5, Funny)
If the catch a predator people offered the perps $50k to come have sex with them, you might have a similar situation.
$50k to have sex with Chris Hansen? I'm in.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm confused where blowing up men is more moral than blowing up women. The guy was perfectly eager to kill men.
I heartily support women's rights. But I also support everybody's rights to not be murdered. The fact that his psychopathic ambitions only aspired to kill *half* of the population doesn't seem like coercion.
If a terrorist is worried their bomb will Kill a muslim so they promise it'll only kill Jews I don't view that as coercion--the intent to kill *somebody* is all that matters.
Re:Odd... (Score:5, Insightful)
He didn't say "no" 101 times, though. When someone asks "wanna go blow up a bridge", you have to choose the correct answer EVERY SINGLE TIME. Forever.
Peer pressure is no excuse for enacting a terrorist plot. If you're corruptible and in a position in which your corruption gets people killed (either by your own hand or by your willful inaction), you're everyone's rightful prey.
Re:Odd... (Score:5, Insightful)
That the people involved did in fact commit crimes and prosecuting them is perfectly fine isn't the point, it's a usefullnes issue. From the article:
It can't be that hard to find someone willing to blow people up - there's plenty of crazy people around. Do we really gain anything by removing a handful of morons from the potential recruit pool? If we do then is what we gain worth the cost - both direct and the opportunity cost of the agents involved not doing other work?
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But is it an effective technique for reducing terrorism? Would it be better to track down and eliminate existing terrorism plots and cells, or to manufacture your own and take those down instead?
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Not when it's the cops pressuring you.
Then it's called entrapment.
Re:Odd... (Score:5, Interesting)
When the DA asks you "did you do it", even after answering "no" 101 times, "you have to choose the correct answer EVERY SINGLE TIME. Forever."
And yet, just about everyone will eventually give in (usually after 20-30 hours without sleep or food) and say "yes", regardless of guilt, just to make the interrogation stop.
Peer pressure is no excuse for enacting a terrorist plot
Legally, no. Realistically, you can quite seriously get just about anyone to do just about anything, with enough pressure. Yes, even you.
The FBI, the DHS, even the local Boys in Blue, understand this, and exploit it on a daily basis and as a matter of regular procedure to guarantee they look good regardless of the truth of the situation.
Re:Odd... (Score:5, Insightful)
Your logic fails because everyone is corruptible: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment [wikipedia.org]
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It likely doesn't work quite as well when the person giving the orders is someone perceived to be a criminal.
Terrorists don't perceive themselves as "criminals". They're freedom fighters, martyrs, heroes, etc. They are, to someone sympathetic to their cause "respected authority figures".
Re:Odd... (Score:5, Interesting)
If you're corruptible and in a position in which your corruption gets people killed
He was never in that position, and could never be in that position. The FBI constructed a months-long distortion of reality, which could not have happened without the FBI, which created the delusion in the fool's mind that this thing was possible. Without that delusion, he never posed a credible threat. He-as-effective-terrorist was entirely a creation of the FBI.
Now, if you want to put him in jail because in his mind he believes that doing this thing is a good idea -- fine, argue that position. But don't pretend he would ever have been anything more than a thinker of foolish thoughts without the FBI fabricating the context in which he acted.
That is the fundamental question: Did the FBI prevent a credible threat? If not, then it can be nothing but theater. If no crime would have happened without the FBI's participation, then he cannot have been a harm and can hardly be considered a criminal unless you want to go down the road of thought-crime.
Re:Odd... (Score:4, Interesting)
So why keep asking 101 times? At what point does the FBI say "I guess there's nothing here, let's call our boss and tell him we were wasting our time"?
Re:Odd... (Score:4, Funny)
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Heh, now there's an idea.
Act like a loudmouth ter'ist on Internet message boards until the FBI comes along and tries to entice you into doing it for real. Act reluctant until they offer you a quarter million dollars. Then take the cash... and then back out.
If the "terrorists" threaten to retaliate for taking their cash without going through with the deed... you can always turn them into the FBI. :)
Re:Odd... (Score:4, Insightful)
Apples and oranges. Yes, the nutjob that decided to blow up the tree lighting ceremony should have been arrested. He came up with the idea and put it into action. Well done, LEOs.
The schmuck who withstood FBI pressure to do something stupid for 11 months and finally broke? Nope. That's entrapment. BAD cop, NO donut!!
Re:Odd... (Score:5, Insightful)
The issue isn't that these people shouldn't be in prison. They took the FBI's bait and I don't feel sympathy for them. Let them rot.
Where the FBI is doing wrong is in the way they are publicizing these busts. I keep seeing headlines that read: FBI FOILS PLOT TO BLOW LOTS OF PEOPLE UP. Which scares the hell out of people, and convinces Americans to give the FBI more taxpayer dollars (and surrender more freedoms), which the Federal Agency uses to stage more fake terrorist attacks, which gets them more funding, etc, etc, etc.
The point of terrorism isn't to kill people, it's to terrorize them for personal gain. If the FBI is staging fake acts of terrorism using people who would never be capable of pulling a terrorist attack on their own in order to foil those fake terrorist plots, then the FBI is terrorizing Americans for personal gain.
I consider that a serious problem.
Re:Odd... (Score:4, Insightful)
>>>When a young-looking woman poses as an underage girl online and 40-year old men get arrested for trying to have sex with her, it's catching predators. But when the FBI pretends to be terrorists selling explosives, Stinger missiles or other such things, it's wrong.
>>>
Huge difference. The prowler was already in the underage chat room, looking for teens to exploit. What the FBI did in the case of the fake terror plot is equivalent to (1) setting-up the chat website (2) walking-around looking for people (3) giving them a laptop whose homepage is set to the chat room (4) handing them a bag of condoms and saying, "Go for it. We'll tag team her together."
(5) Then announcing on TV, "Hey we caught someone visiting the underage chat. Look here's the bag of condoms to prove it." The FBI is running the WHOLE show from start to finish.
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Not necessarily. The people were first persuaded to commit some sort of revenge or retaliation act against the US. The FBI did not just walk up and say "hey, wanna fly model airplanes into the Pentagon?" Materials and plans were not offered until after they suspect was entrenched and committed to some sort of action, which could have taken months.
Similarly, a real 13 year old girl probably would not have worked for months to wear down the resistance of the 40-year old guy, and a real terrorist cell proba
Re:Odd... (Score:4, Informative)
Actually we do. They did 11 months of pushing and pulling. Then they offered the guy $250k.
Re: (Score:3)
Sounds suspiciously like recruitment tactics used by terrorist organizations. So what did the FBI accomplish here, besides proving that you can convince people to become terrorists given enough time and a budget?
Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
These people may (and likely are) be shitbags, but we pay the FBI to stop crime not create it.
Re:May Day Proceed (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like a plan to m.... waaaaait a minute.
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Isn't that News of the world was doing??