Techdirt. Stories filed under "informant"

Yet Another Of The FBI's Own Terrorist Plots... Involves A Group Of Senior Citizens

Mike Masnick — Wed, 6 Jun 2012 08:29:00 PDT

The latest Radiolab "shorts" episode, entitled Grumpy Old Terrorists, seems like a bit of a departure in subject matter for that program -- but fits right in with something we've been talking a lot about lately. Over the past few years, we've noticed the rather disturbing trend in how the FBI keeps publicly celebrating stories about stopping terrorist plots -- but in almost every case the details show that it was actually just stopping its own terrorist plots that it feeds to hapless individuals, often nudging them and pushing them down the road to "become" terrorists, despite commonly displaying little to no aptitude for actual terrorism.

In the last few weeks, the mainstream press has started to notice this as well, with stories about it appearing in both the NY Times and Rolling Stone. However, the Radiolab episode highlights a similar, but slightly different story, that was actually covered in great detail in an article in Esquire a few months back, entitled Waffle House Terrorists -- which includes the mugshots of the four "terrorists."

The youngest one of that bunch is 65-years old. The oldest is 73. As the Radiolab episode and the Esquire piece detail, while these guys do seem hateful, they also seemed absolutely unable to do anything... until an "FBI informant" joined their pack and pushed and prodded them along, introducing them to the "contacts" to get weapons and even providing "the money" to buy said weapons. The Esquire article goes into great detail about the "informant" and his rather questionable legal history (he first contacted the FBI while in jail for molesting his wife's daughter from a previous marriage).

On Radiolab, they play the audiotapes the guy made of the plotting -- and there's obviously some crazy stuff being said. But, as they look deeper into the role of the informant, the Radiolab hosts conclude the episode by noting that the whole situation doesn't really make them feel any safer. Yes, these old guys were hateful and helped join in this plan to cause lots of death and destruction. But, so much much of the plot and the participation of these guys really does seem driven by the "informant," who does not seem like the most credible of guys. And it's this exact scenario that we keep seeing over and over again. It may not reach the level of entrapment, and it may put some people really ignorant and crazy people in jail -- but is this really the best use of the FBI's time and efforts? Creating bogus "terrorist" plots involving people who had no real means to actually do anything?

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NYTimes Realizes That The FBI Keeps Celebrating Breaking Up Its Own Terrorist Plots

Mike Masnick — Tue, 1 May 2012 07:29:00 PDT

Over the last few years, we've noticed that nearly every victory the FBI celebrates against terrorism is actually about stopping its own terrorist plots that it feeds to hapless individuals, often nudging them and pushing them down the road to "become" terrorists, despite commonly displaying little to no aptitude for actual terrorism.

Add the NY Times to the newspapers who are beginning to question the FBI's penchant for setting up its own plots for the sake of a high profile arrest of some clueless individuals.

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.

As the article makes clear, claims of entrapment rarely work in these cases, but it certainly raises questions about whether the FBI is actually protecting us from real plots or spending time creating publicity stunts that leave some people in jail. No doubt, some of these setups bust people who could potentially be interested in taking part in attacks if they had any real opportunity to do so. But, in most cases, it doesn't seem like they would ever have the opportunity (unless the FBI was helping). In one case, the judge -- even as she was sentencing the guy to decades in prison -- admitted that the guy wouldn't be a "terrorist" if it weren't for the FBI:

"Only the government could have made a 'terrorist' out of Mr. Cromitie, whose buffoonery is positively Shakespearean in its scope...."

This is the same guy who laughed at earlier attempts by an FBI informant to get him to get involved in a plot.

There's no doubt that there are real plots being attempted. But wouldn't the FBI be better off focusing on those, rather than play acting all the time?

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FBI Sent Informant Into Mosque To Find Terrorists... Mosque Gets Restraining Order And Reports Him To The FBI

Mike Masnick — Mon, 6 Dec 2010 12:13:00 PST

A few weeks back, we wrote about the FBI celebrating that they stopped a terrorist plot that appeared to have been mostly planned by the FBI itself -- basically encouraging one guy, who had no actual terrorist connections, to think he was a part of a terrorist plot where none actually existed... and then arresting the guy. As we noted at the time, we knew of at least two other very similar stories, where US law enforcement appeared to set up people in such a manner. Rich Kulawiec points us to a Washington Post story that's even more ridiculous, involving a guy hired as an FBI informant to spy on mosques in Southern California. As part of his "job," he also talked up terrorism and jihad in an attempt to "find" potential terrorists. Instead, the folks at the mosque were so freaked out by the guy that they took out a restraining order on him and (you guessed it) reported him to the FBI. I really would like to believe that the FBI and other aspects of federal law enforcement have a better grasp on actual plots against the US, but stories like this (which seem to come straight out of stories for bad Hollywood movies) suggest an FBI with way too much time on its hands, trying to manufacture plots so they can save us.

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