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NY Times: 'FBI Foils Its Own Terrorist Plots'
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 encouragement.
Very different. For one thing, the movie stars Jessica Alba instead of Catherine Zeta-Jones.
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.
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
--H.L. Menken
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".
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.
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.
Was when the FBI encouraged a young immigrant boy in Portland, OR to try and carry out an attack on a Christmas Tree lighting ceremony. The boy by all accounts had no prior involvement in anything radical beyond browsing the internet, and seemed more angry at his parents than the US or any 'infidels', was approached by undercover FBI agents and brought into this plan as the trigger man.
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.
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.
Actually we do. They did 11 months of pushing and pulling. Then they offered the guy $250k.
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.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
These people may (and likely are) be shitbags, but we pay the FBI to stop crime not create it.
Theft of U.S. federal property I guess. It's a catch 22.
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.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
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.
i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation
>>>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.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
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?
Fact:
You are more likely to die from unlawful conduct from law enforcement officers than you are of dying from a terrorist act.
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.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Sounds like a plan to m.... waaaaait a minute.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
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.
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.
Silence is a state of mime.
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.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
"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.
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.
Learn to love Alaska
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.
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.
Your logic fails because everyone is corruptible: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
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.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You're going to have more people in prison than out! According to Milgram's experiment, 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
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.
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.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
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"?
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!!
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
"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.
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?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
You seriously haven't heard of that? Assuming you're not a troll:
http://rt.com/news/fbi-terrorists-guide-security-171/
http://www.constitution.org/abus/terror/constitutional_terrorists.htm
http://welfarestate.com/pamphlet/
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.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
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.
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'.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
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.
If they're not at street corners, you should be looking elsewhere if you want to find actual terrorists. Creating your own to glorify your existence should be punished by society. Come on, they just admitted they're not very good at their actual assignment so they make something up to look good. if you look long and hard enough, you'll find someone gullible and disgruntled enough to try and do something illegal. That's a fact of life. They weren't put in office to find those gullible people, but to prevent the real bad guys from finding them. No matter hard you try, the real bad guys will always find one, so you're not actually preventing anything, other than tax money being put to proper use. Stop doing the terrorists job and start doing your own, find the real criminals and terrorists. Oh what? There are so few terrorists, you can't really find any? Well maybe you should put an end to the whole charade and start working on the economy and the environment for a little while.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
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."
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes