How FBI Entrapment Is Inventing 'Terrorists'

Totalitarian regimes' innovation is making opposition to the current political setup terrorism.

The world where the police can suggest targets to a group and supply the materials for action is also a world where you can take your taxes to an accountant, have him suggest some “aggressive” reporting of expenses, and when you agree you are arrested when it turns out the accountant was an undercover fraud squad officer.

It’s a world where you can take a Porche out for a test drive and discover that the sales man who gave you directions to a deserted highway and suggested you speed was really an undercover police officer padding the unit’s statistics.

I can’t even imagine how badly this could go if undercover police officers were to pose as high school students. Actually, I can, there has already been at least one case where a female officer suggested a male citizen procure drugs for her and then arrested him when he complied.

I don’t need to sympathize with tax cheats, fast drivers, or love-smitten young men to fear the police state that doesn’t have enough criminals to catch and therefore must manufacture some of its own.

Summary: yes, these people are unsympathetic. But also yes, it’s important to ask questions about the choices the police are making to prosecute them.

I think the law is a bit more complicated than that. Anyone who commits a crime has some propensity. Entrapment is meant to draw a line between encouraging a person to commit a crime, and simply giving them an opportunity (i.e. a sting operation).

Most sting operations (not entrapments) aim to catch habitual criminals - drug addicts, dealers, thieves, etc. Habitual criminals have a propensity to commit the offense, people who were talked into it by an agent do not.

Nobody cares if someone innocent is busted for saying "Yeah, let's bomb a bridge!" What people are afraid of is that the FBI is the only thing pushing real terrorism forward. That but for the FBI, it would ALL be just talk. That's pretty dangerous if you ask me.

(To my follow-up comment, I forgot to add: what if the person who precipitates the terrorist plot and manoeuvers into being the final link in the chain simply CAN'T be that link. Maybe they get EXTREMELY ill, maybe they die, maybe someone else convinces the rest of the organization to let THEM do it, what if all the pieces are laid and then the informant is simply replaced by someone who doesn't know enough not to set the thing off at the end...)

They'd need leadership, training, and materials to actually accomplish anything.

I'm sure you could find a few people here who talk about ways they could hack into banks, but they aren't bank robbers. If you came up with a great plan (designed by a bank security specialist), and egged them on, then you might be able to convince a few to join you.

The gov't isn't stupid about this, they want convictions, they have their own lawyers (prosecutors). No doubt many conversations were had about avoiding entrapment and ensuring that the party in question committed a crime.

I'm not saying that there aren't abuses, but the gov't (ATF, DEA, etc) have been doing this for decades. This is nothing new.

former is protected under 1st amendment, latter is a criminal offense.

A full investigation of the banking system would cause credibility to be lost by the banks which would unravel the whole system as the fractional reserve system collapses. Thus the government needs to remove credibility from those who pose a threat to this system.

As to why white supremacists aren't targeted, white supremacists don't pose any fundamental threat to the banks or to power because their ideas are unpopular, occupy touches upon an angry thread running through the country that the average person cannot get ahead. Threads like these unseat governments, an unseated government cannot prevent an investigation into the banks.

I still think the tactic is unethical, but this is one way it could be effective.

So basically, nothing that terrorists do is illegal until they actually go out and try to kill someone. The FBI can use a person's history of lawful activities to find people who match the profile of someone who is highly likely to commit a terrorist act in the near future and offer them a fake bomb and a ride to the nearest synagogue. When that person pushes the button, that establishes the intent to commit a crime. It's no different than going up to a guy the police think is a drug dealer -- because of the clothes and the way he acts and other lawful activities -- and asking if he'll sell them any drugs. It's not entrapment unless the police really screw up their approach.

As for the economics, consider the alternatives. Waiting to see if the terrorist would use a real bomb carries a high risk, and the terrorist would be less likely to be convicted than in the case of a FBI-provided fake bomb. The court system has exonerated terrorists with strong evidence against them like Sayyid Nosair and Sami al-Arian because they claimed to have been oppressed and persecuted for being Muslims and found sympathetic juries. The fake bomb plots with their careful establishment of identity, motive, and criminal action have all gained convictions.

I, as a private citizen could do the same thing, though I might end up having to argue to a jury that my intentions were pure if the police stepped in halfway through.

[0] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/22/dalia-dippolito-cop...

The accused will still get a fair trial. The reason entrapment isn't besides the point is covert police activity checked by laws against entrapment are part of a long tradition of legally admissible police behaviour - there is nothing evidently abnormal about this case.

I do not believe in exceptionalism - if I were in the wrong social group I cannot say for certain I could not, eventually, be re-conditioned in a socially destructive way. Whether it is the individual's or the movement's or society's fault that a young person is found seriously contemplating (a threshold with judicial precedent that the FBI is and the jury will be made aware of) blowing up bridges is irrelevant from the perspective of justice as much as a shooter's peers bullying him is to his sentencing. Those factors, instead, inform reform discussions going forward.

Thinking about a crime is not - and should not - be a crime. Actively planning one is. The line between conception and execution is blurry. That does not mean we need to watch and wait for someone to blow up a bridge before we can arrest them.

It's not OK for the President to murder someone, but it may be OK to kill someone if it's within President's powers as chief executive and commander in chief. These powers are vast, that's the reason people carefully examine candidate's abilities, experience, moral standing, ability to take right decisions, etc. and do not base their choice on catchy bumper stickers and amount of money the candidate promises to extract from other people and give to them. Or at least they should be doing this if they don't want surprises later...