Without knowing any details about this case, this could be true, however it sounds like he was quite willing to go ahead with the purchase of the C4 to destroy the infrastructure.
It seems to me your argument can be extended to justify any form of entrapment: "if an undercover police officer can convince you to buy a gun with the intent to rob someone at gunpoint, who says someone else couldn’t?"
If an undercover cop sells you a gun knowing you want to use it to murder your spouse, you should definetly be charged with both, illegal purchase of firearm and intent to murder, regardless whether you actually to managed to murder someone first.
Does it matter that all someone (be it undercover cop or criminal) proved was you are able to be convinced to murder your spouse AND buy a gun? In my books you either charge the person at that point (for intent to murder), or it will be too late.
Same applies to "suspectible to destroy". They proven their intent AND purchased C4... Shall we give them benefit of the doubt until it actually goes boom?
I am sure many things can be prosecuted before they even happen (like intent to murder as oposed to murder itself), and those should apply regardless of who talks you into intending to carry out the crime
occam's razor and a complete lack of actual white supremacists on the ground suggests this is another example of same.
It seems that the FBI might have been tipped off.
"Beginning in June 2024, Philippi told a confidential human source (CHS) about his desire to commit a mass shooting at a YMCA facility"
How can you tell this scenario apart from an Oklahoma City?
Cursory research will produce the following links:
https://theintercept.com/2023/06/15/fbi-undercover-isis-teen...
>Critics say the FBI is running a sting operation across America, targeting – to a large extent – the Muslim community by luring people into fake terror plots.
https://www.cair.com/blog/fbi-entrapment-harms-vulnerable-mu...
>Every day was the same for Khalil Abu Rayyan, 21, a depressed pizza delivery man from Dearborn Heights, Michigan. Working for a pizzeria in Detroit, he’d drive late nights on desolate inner city streets...
https://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/29/politics/aby-rayyan-fbi-t...
>“We are tremendously pleased that our clients are on their way home -- even if it’s fourteen years too late,” said Amith R. Gupta, part of a group of lawyers representing Payen and the Willamses, who are not related. Gupta in his statement described the three as destitute men “entrapped for their race, religion, and working-class backgrounds by a government looking to spread fear of Muslims and justify bloated budgets.”
https://apnews.com/article/newburgh-four-terrorism-sting-fbi...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
I agree in that there's hypocrisy on either side. You'll also find commenters on this site who cite the FBI claiming, "White supremacists are the number one terror threat". Meanwhile, mass media pundits sought to paint all of their political opponents as racists. Comments echoing that talking point were also prevalent on HN. Thankfully, that narrative has mostly moved out of popular imagination.
From my perspective the pendulum swings between targeted groups. Each respective group has their turn to run the gauntlets of media demonization and security service targeting. Many of the same people who were cheering the expanses of the security state during the heights of the War on Terror clutch peals when the pendulum swings back upon their demographic. Each tribe has their chance to shout down the 'others'. We shouldn't be surprised if similar tactics are used to pursue the formerly favored BLM activists in the coming years. The only constant is the expansion of the security state. Classic divide and conquer.
The FBI has been running this playbook since at least the 50s. Other commenters on HN have rightly compared it to Soviet internal security policies. There's nothing truly new under the sun. Human nature is tribal and there will always be those who seek to exploit it to gain power. The judgement of whether this is deliberate or the result of natural incentives such as career advancement and political necessity is an exercise for the reader.
He is a disabled person clearly not qualified to buy firearms. The store would not sell him a real rifle on his first attempt, so the FBI agents told him to buy a pellet gun.
It would have been a “hilarious prank” if he didn’t end up spending 3 years in federal custody. TBF he was probably a lot better off in federal custody than in his normal day to day, so hard to say if this was really a bad thing for him.
Still, it’s frustrating to know that the resources of the FBI are spent on pranking disabled people.