How FBI Entrapment Is Inventing 'Terrorists'

I don't see anyone commenting on a specific part of the article where basic it implies that white-supremacy groups are basically flying under the FBI radar.<p>Isn't that quite the bothersome perspective? It's to me in the same level of awe as the part of hand-leading people into terrorist acts. Probably even related, as a police state can make use of home-grown hooligans that are just waiting for the oportunity to put their 'peers' in line through violence.<p>How much further along is there before the US turns into a full-blown totalitarian regime?<p>This all seems eerily in line with this bleak proposal: <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/ten-steps-to-close-down-a_b_46695.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/ten-steps-to-close-...</a> (2007)

The damage inflicted goes beyond those who are being entrapped. This type of behaviour develops a culture which lives in irrational fear. The type of irrational fear that makes a population believe that body scanners at airports are acceptable, that all muslims must be Terrorists, and that no one is trust worthy anymore.<p>We need to remember what our core principles are. We have allowed terrorists to influence the way we live our lives, and in doing so we have allowed them to win. That's right, we ALLOWED them to win.

I last reread Solzhenitsyn's <i>Gulag Archipelago</i> not long after 9/11. What was particularly salient is how many of the people he describes had been charged with terrorism by Stalin's organs.<p>There's nothing particularly shocking in the rolling stone article. Terrorists are so designated for political ends.<p>That's not to say that they're never criminals, just that conspiracy to blow up a bridge is already a crime.

Oh dear. Have all the proofreaders at the Rolling Stone been locked up in a similar entrapment case?<p>&#62; "[...] the indictments of Animal <i>Liberal</i> Front activists who burned down [...]"<p>&#62; "In the Harrisburg 7 trial <i>of in</i> 1972 [...]"<p>&#62; "They have no place in <i>American</i> and those who advocate them have no place in this government."

DHS needs to justify its budget and spying on Americans. To do so they need homegrown terrorists. Put yourself in the position of a DC bureaucrat. It's a lot safer to deal with losers than dangerous wackos.

I'm sorry, but I have little sympathy for someone who was able to be convinced to blow up $thing with nothing more than a "Gee, it would be nice to blow up $thing wouldn't it?"<p>That's not entrapment. Any sane, law abiding person would react viscerally and negative to such a suggestion.<p>I don't even like Congress, but if you were to suggest that setting a bomb in the building was a sane course of action, I'd ask what you were smoking.

Legally it is not entrapment. Entrapment requires that the defendant not have a propensity to comment the offense.

Moving a serious conversation about blowing up "a bridge" versus a "cargo ship" using bleach explosives to a "big bridge" using C4 isn't "inventing terrorists".

Any of you beancounting/game theory types fancy analysing this trend in the FBI's behaviour from an economic perspective? What is the driver or incentive for them to do this?

Articles like this are pointless. Americans as a whole will not band together to prevent or rectify problems like this because of one or more of the following:<p>FEAR) We're all expecting the government to view anything related to freedom as an act of terrorism that will get us into pound-me-in-the-ass prison or worse.<p>DENIAL) That will never happen to me if I just keep my head down. Only bad people have that happen to them.<p>DISTRIBUTION OF RESPONSIBILITY) I'm nobody, so how could I change government policy? That is something that important people can do, but not me, I'm just a(n) __________.

This is great. We need more of it.

Suppose I went out and sought out people who I think might have a beef with the american government, proposed a terrorist plot to them, and supplied them with the tools to do it (and the FBI has supplied real explosives in the past to these groups).. and then they do it and all die in the process, but cause death of innocents as well.<p>If I did all that, would I be guilty of something? Probably conspiracy and a dozen other crimes.<p>Ok, now, if I'm doing the exact same actions, but I'm a member of the government, does that make my actions less of a crime?<p>If something is a crime, does the criminality of it change depending on who is doing it?<p>Is it ok for the president to murder someone but not for a distraught spouse?<p>Is it ok for an FBI agent to set up a terrorist plot that gets foiled, but not ok for a truck driver?<p>Imagine in both cases, before the plot can be put in motion, that law enforcement swoops in. The plot hasn't occurred yet, so they haven't actually committed an act of terrorism. But they did plan one and engage in a conspiracy to do it.<p>In that case, isn't the FBI agent legally as guilty as anyone else in the conspiracy?<p>How can the law be relative and let certain members of society off the hook- especially if, as it appears, those members were the primary conspirators, and without whome nothing would have happened?<p>Whether this is "entrapment" or not is besides the point here-- if participating a conspiracy to commit a terrorist act is itself a crime, then isn't organizing the same also a crime?<p>And shouldn't' criminality apply to anyone, no matter what their profession.<p>If the law starts treating certain members of society differently than others, you don't have the rule of law so much any more and you start having two classes- the untouchables and the common.<p>Police getting away with speeding doesn't always hurt society (thought it does cause wrecks) but over time, it seems natural that more and more laws will apply to the common folk and not to the "elite" and the elite will come to use their powers more and more for their own advantage.<p>This disconnect is corruptive in nature, I believe.