Kludge
11-30-2010, 03:53 PM
"from the feeling-safer? dept
With all of the new security procedures we keep hearing about, it's important for the government to keep convincing us that we're under a very real immediate threat that could put us at risk at any moment. Along those lines, you may have heard over the weekend about how the FBI supposedly stopped a terrorism bomb plot in Portland, Oregon. Except it appears more and more people are scratching beneath the surface and realizing that the entire plot appears to have been cooked up by the FBI itself. Yes, it sounds like they found a dumb kid who was willing to carry out a bombing. But there doesn't appear to be any evidence that he actually had any ability to actually do so... until the FBI came along and provided him with all the details.
Of course, this is hardly new. There appears to have been a very similar story just a month ago, involving a guy in DC who wanted to bomb Metro stations, but the only actual plotting he was able to do was after federal authorities stepped in and helped him plan everything.
Even that is hardly new. I remember a fascinating episode of This American Life back from the summer of 2009 describing (in great detail) a very similar story of a supposed "arms dealer" that the Justice Department championed as a success story when it arrested and prosecuted him for selling missiles to terrorists. The only problem is that the deeper you dig, the more you realize that the whole plot was also set up by the feds. The guy had no way to get a missile. It was actually provided by the feds themselves. "
More @ http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101130/05014712057/fbi-celebrates-that-it-prevented-fbis-own-bomb-plot.shtml
With all of the new security procedures we keep hearing about, it's important for the government to keep convincing us that we're under a very real immediate threat that could put us at risk at any moment. Along those lines, you may have heard over the weekend about how the FBI supposedly stopped a terrorism bomb plot in Portland, Oregon. Except it appears more and more people are scratching beneath the surface and realizing that the entire plot appears to have been cooked up by the FBI itself. Yes, it sounds like they found a dumb kid who was willing to carry out a bombing. But there doesn't appear to be any evidence that he actually had any ability to actually do so... until the FBI came along and provided him with all the details.
Of course, this is hardly new. There appears to have been a very similar story just a month ago, involving a guy in DC who wanted to bomb Metro stations, but the only actual plotting he was able to do was after federal authorities stepped in and helped him plan everything.
Even that is hardly new. I remember a fascinating episode of This American Life back from the summer of 2009 describing (in great detail) a very similar story of a supposed "arms dealer" that the Justice Department championed as a success story when it arrested and prosecuted him for selling missiles to terrorists. The only problem is that the deeper you dig, the more you realize that the whole plot was also set up by the feds. The guy had no way to get a missile. It was actually provided by the feds themselves. "
More @ http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101130/05014712057/fbi-celebrates-that-it-prevented-fbis-own-bomb-plot.shtml