Drugs and terrorism aren’t major offences, but the police like to use them to accrue power and money and so on, so they take the opportunity to trick vulnerable people into commiting not-quite-crimes.
In short, that’s the story of a police force which sent at least half a dozen undercover cops into a high school, where they pretended to be school kids, apparently going so far as to seduce horny young lads, and ended up arresting 31 children on drugs charges, including arresting people as dealers for giving their undercover paramours single joints as gifts.
Obviously that’s the kid the article focuses on, the honours student who fell in love with an undercover cop who harrassed him into getting her drugs and refused payment, and is now looking at a felony rap, the result of weeks of undercover work by several undercover cops.
The second case is this one: FBI Arrests Terror Suspect, Says Man Was Targeting U.S. Capitol, far from unique. The feds find an idiot, supply him with camo gear and fake guns and explosives, then arrest him when he tries to act on the plot dreamed up by the feds, fed to him by the feds and wholly equipped by the feds. Being charged with “knowingly and unlawfully attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction against property that is owned and used by the United States”. The fat is he never did anything off his own bat. Someone heard him criticising the war on terror and the FBI involved him in a terrorist act which simply wouldn’t have existed without them. Not a particularly egregious case, here, but it’s recent.
Favourite quote:
The face of Islamic terrorism in the post-9/11 era.
So this is what the police get up to. Spend their time encouraging kids to buy drugs and recruiting total idiots into fictional terror plots.
I heard the first one on This American Life (their Valentine’s episode), and I know you’re hearing him tell it and all that, but it really did sound like he had fallen hard for her - he was even trying to help her in class by waking her when she’d doze off, that kind of thing - and she was seriously nagging him to get her some pot. He didn’t know anyone who sold the stuff, so it took him quite a while. He was 18, and had wanted to go into the Air Force, so because he was a horny teen who was kind of stupid for this lovely girl, instead he’s got an adult felony record and no military career hopes.
There was a turn-of-the-20th-century pundit (Laurent Tailhade) who said (after hearing about an anarchist bomb thrown into French Parliament): “What matter the victims if the gesture is beautiful?"
He later lost an eye in an anarchist bomb explosion.
The first case is bullshit, because a guy who can be talked into buying a joint is going to hurt anyone. But a guy who can be talked into committing a terrorist act by the FBI can be talked into committing a terrorist act by actual terrorists. Based on the information supplied in the OP, at least, that sounds like a good bust to me.
Idiots that can be convinced to perform acts of terrorism are a dime a dozen. Security forces should focus on finding the guys doing the convincing - those are the actual terrorists.
This summary is absolutely inaccurate, even accepting everything “This American Life” says as true.
For instance, there is no seduction described. And why should the kid’s story be taken as true? As the source story acknowledges about the interbiew of the undercover officer:
Yet you credulously accept his version as gospel truth. Why is that?
I don’t think you understand the concept of entrapment. The fact that the kid wouldn’t hurt anyone is irrelevant. The problem is that the cops in both cases specifically enticed someone into committing a crime. If they had not done so, the crime would not have happened.
It’s not like the undercover prostitute who gets the guy who would have gone out with the real prostitute down the lane if she’d not been there.
It seems to me that somewhere along the way, he must have committed a crime that they could have arrested him for, and thrown him in jail for a year or whatever. Instead they strung him along, abetted him, and waited until they could make a great deal of publicity out of it. Typical FBI.
I’m not comfortable with this type of bust. It’s hard to judge it entrapment, as he did continue along the path he was on, but it’s equally hard to judge it as “the FBI saved us!” I judge it as he should have been busted much earlier. He wouldn’t have faced as long in jail, and the FBI wouldn’t have got as much publicity, but justice would have been served.
That’s a fair point, and I can see making an argument that this was a waste of resources, but I’m not seeing a huge human right violation, the esteemed legal opinion of Mr. BigT, Esq. not withstanding. Dude was willing to kill himself and dozens of innocent people. I’m okay with him being in jail for that.
There’s an old saying… If the most skilled and capable member of your terrorist cell is an undercover agent, you may have been entrapped.
But who cares? The image is now etched in a collective cortex of the nation and no amount of rational analysis will change that. The funny thing is, three months from now people will casually reference this as a proof of whatever far fetched claim they are selling.
Another interesting thing is that worry about Government today is focused on its size and expenses whereas original issue with the Government was exactly this kind of theater that leads to control by fear.
Imagine how different political discourse in US would be if none of the cases of terror entrapment happened.
Exactly, if everything the student is saying is true then the case will be thrown out of court. Police sting operations have to show that the defendant had a disposition to commit the type of crime that pre-existed the police contact.
If that’s what happened…then…damn stupid “police work” on their part! Actually manipulating the suspect into making a decision he wouldn’t have made on his own is illicit…and slimy!
I’m in favor of “give them enough rope” stings. Let it be known that you have a bunch of stuff that could be used in weapons…and then, if someone contacts you and says, “I’d like to buy some of that,” then you reel 'em in.
Remember the old “AbScam” (yeah, so, it’s Wikipedia…) where the FBI caught Congressmen who were inviting offers of bribery? The point was that the suspects (later convicts) had to make the first move.
Sheesh. What is this? “Police Academy, Part IV: The Dropouts?”
Or maybe they were conducting surveillance to see who else might come out of the woodwork to help this bozo and contribute to the plot. Might he have friends and contacts willing to assist? Bust him alone for small stuff and everybody else runs for cover.
Incidentally, if we’re to assume that incompetence and stupidity render a terrorism plot unimportant, then the Thai authorities should only sentence those Iranian bombers who were caught in Bangkok to 30 days community service.
Assuming that the FBI are competent and not stupid, it should have become obvious somewhere in a year-long course of [del]aiding and abetting[/del] investigation that the only people involved were him and the FBI.
Quite frankly, I don’t think it’s necessary to string someone along like that. Just bust him a year ago or six months ago or whenever he committed a crime, and send him to jail (or prison). After a year (or five), he gets out. If he’s not scared straight, there’s no reason the FBI can’t sting him again.
I’m not familiar with the details of the investigation but I’m going to assume the FBI didn’t set up this operation to catch one individual.
They presumably set up a fake organization to attract potential terrorist recruits. When the first one showed up, it would be foolish to arrest him right away. A much better idea is to string him along as long as possible while you wait and see if more recruits come in.
Yes, I agree, they did so. At what point does a competent and not-stupid police organization realize that ain’t happening? Whatever point that may be, it was never realized by the FBI.
Look, they’re presenting us with they saved the Capitol from Joe Schmoe, who they encouraged, aided, abetted, and provided equipment to. They’re presenting us with Joe Schmoe, about to bomb the Capitol, after being encouraged, aided, abetted, and provided equipment to by the fucking FBI for a fucking year. Just fucking arrest the dick already.
A couple of decades ago a 19-year-old Irish kid I knew was befriended by a Canadian couple. They smoked hash together and after a few weeks they asked if he could get some for them. He supplied them with an eighth of an ounce. Another couple of weeks later they asked if he could get them half a kilo.
Being a mouthy jack-the-lad, and despite not knowing where he could possibly get hold of such an amount, he said “I’ll see what I can do”.
He got six months for supply of the 1/8, which IMO was fair and square, but his words got two years for intent to supply the larger amount (concurrent sentences, which was nice of them). In the jurisdiction in which he was busted there is no defence of entrapment.
It might have been legal, but it sure wasn’t fair.
I don’t think the FBI has the slightest idea how to mount an anti-terrorist effort. The CIA is going to give them all their hot leads? Sure. Hugh Betcha.
They find some dumb schmuck, god alone knows how, then they can tap his phone, follow him 24/7, check his every contact, his every move, and hundreds of agents get to write reports about how they were central to the investigation. They pass all this to Federal prosecutors, who will assign twenty lawyers to a case that can have no other result but conviction, and each of them has earned his salary.
I have little doubt that somewhere there are men plotting against us all. But the FBI has no idea who they are, where they are, or what they are doing.
One would think that, on a messageboard as sophisticated at this one, people could be expected to know that the Police Academy Franchise currently boasts seven feature films. Should you wish to illustrate a point of rhetoric by positing a hypothethical addition to the series, it should be numbered “Police Academy VIII”.
Others marked the decline of this messageboard at various points in the past. I hereby mark this woeful ignorance of The Guttenberg Bible as the offical harbinger of our downfall. Excuse me while I string my fiddle.