| xxxx I think this is the same article that was published on the front page of this mornings USA Today with the title that was something like "How far would the terror suspects get with out the help of the FBI". The title seem to say both of the recent terrorist plots busted by the FBI would have never gotten off the ground if FBI agents had not planned them. "[Are] investigators ... entrapping suspects who lack the genuine desire or ability to carry out the plots. In both cases, ... undercover agents engaged them in elaborate ruses culminating in the delivery of dummy bombs to their alleged targets" "the FBI could be wasting valuable resources on people who, without the FBI's planning and technical help, may be incapable of little more than spouting unpopular political rhetoric" "the FBI's Quantico, Va., laboratory serves as a studio where inert bombs and other devices are designed and assembled [before being giving to the alleged terrorists the FBI wants to arrest] ... "It's almost like a movie set, they can manufacture anything ... the deception does not constitute entrapment" http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-12-15-fbi-sting_N.htm FBI's terror sting tactics questioned By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY Antonio Martinez was suddenly suspicious. In the midst of planning a spectacular car bomb attack on a military recruiting center in a Maryland suburb, the 21-year-old construction worker also known as Muhammad Hussain learned that the FBI had infiltrated the planning of a similar, but unrelated, attack in Portland, Ore., federal court documents allege. The Portland sting operation resulted in the arrest of a Somali-born suspect on federal charges. Martinez worried that one of his new confederates in the Maryland scheme also might be a government agent, federal prosecutors and the FBI say in the court documents. "Who is this brother?" Martinez demanded, according to a transcript filed in court documents. He was referring to the seemingly well-connected partner — the man with professed access to firearms and explosives who had joined the operation just days before. "I'm not falling for no b.s." Martinez, charged last week with attempted murder and the attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction, had every reason to be suspicious. The "Afghani brother," court documents say, was indeed an undercover FBI agent whose intense courtship of the terror suspect reflected a key strategy in the government's effort to thwart new attacks against the United States. When terrorist hijackers struck on Sept. 11, 2001, the federal government had few contacts among international terror informants and little intelligence about global terrorism. Now, government investigators increasingly are resorting to a controversial tactic that has netted alleged plotters in Dallas, Washington, D.C., New York and Chicago. But the simultaneous, months-long operations in Portland and suburban Baltimore are raising new questions about whether the government is going too far in trying to identify potentially dangerous operatives, prompting a debate about whether investigators are entrapping suspects who lack the genuine desire or ability to carry out the plots. In both cases, government informants first identified the suspects on the Internet and then undercover agents engaged them in elaborate ruses culminating in the delivery of dummy bombs to their alleged targets. Federal investigators have been deployed in complex undercover stings for decades to battle a host of traditional enemies, from the Mafia and drug dealers to gun traffickers and spies. Its application in terror inquiries, however, is a more common recent strategy as the FBI confronts a growing, homegrown terror movement. "All of this seems very unusual," says Peter Fleury, an assistant federal public defender in Dallas. Fleury says he had never encountered such tactics until this year, when he was appointed to help represent Hosam Smadi, 20, a Jordanian national snared in a plot to attack a downtown Dallas skyscraper with a bomb that, it turned out, was fake and had been assembled by the FBI. "I had never seen it happen before," Fleury says of the FBI's extensive involvement. He says Smadi, ultimately sentenced to 24 years in prison, was a victim of entrapment. "Left to his own devices, he wouldn't have been able to pose a danger to anybody," Fleury says. Farhana Khera, executive director of the Muslim civil rights group Muslim Advocates, says the sting operations suggest the FBI could be wasting valuable resources on people who, without the FBI's planning and technical help, may be incapable of little more than spouting unpopular political rhetoric. "Some of these cases look and feel like entrapment," Khera says. Entrapment occurs when police persuade a person to carry out a crime the suspect had no previous intention to commit. "But for the government's role in these cases," she says, "the suspects may have been left with their own bravado. Law enforcement resources need to be focused on actual threats." U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder defends the government's tactics, saying they have been "critical" in neutralizing criminals for years. "I make no apologies for how the FBI agents handled their work," Holder told Khera's group last week. "Those who characterize the FBI's activities … as entrapment simply do not have their facts straight or do not have a full understanding of the law." Was it entrapment? The FBI's courtship of Mohamed Osman Mohamud in Portland — like that of Martinez in Baltimore — began online. Government investigators intercepted a series of Mohamud's e-mails to undisclosed contacts in Pakistan from August to December 2009, federal prosecutors and the FBI say in court documents. The suspicious electronic communications, which allegedly contained "coded language" discussing Mohamud's preparations for "violent jihad," ultimately launched an inquiry that, as described in a 36-page federal criminal complaint, reads in part like a movie script. It also set in motion a widening national debate — accelerated by last week's arrest of Martinez in Baltimore —over whether the government pushed the suspects to do something they could not have done, and perhaps would not even have attempted, on their own. "The question we'll be looking into is the question of entrapment," Steven Wax, chief federal public defender in Oregon, said after a hearing last month in which Mohamud pleaded not guilty to the attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. "One of the issues that will be coming up is whether and how he was directed by government agents." In all, undercover FBI agents met with Mohamud seven times from July 30 to Nov. 26, when he was arrested after attempting to detonate a dummy explosive near a crowded public square. The court documents describe contacts including: •Undercover FBI agents, posing as eager jihadists with connections to Mohamud's contacts in Pakistan, arranged secret meetings at Portland-area hotels. •There were discussions of possible targets before Mohamud settled on a Nov. 26 Christmas tree-lighting ceremony at the city's Pioneer Square. •A Nov. 4 dry run, just three weeks before the designated attack date, displayed the bonafides of undercover agents who arranged for the assembly and the detonation of a test explosive in rural Lincoln County, Ore. •Agents posing as jihadists after the test explosion also helped Mohamud — dressed in a white robe, head-dress and camouflage jacket — prepare a "Sheik Osama-style" video in which Mohamud allegedly recites a rambling statement taking responsibility for the planned attack. The extensive contacts, Wax has argued, raises the prospect that the alleged action "was instigated by government agents." "The government provided the money, the government provided the transportation, the government was involved in the meetings," Wax told reporters after last month's hearing. The defense team also plans to delve into details surrounding the first meeting between Mohamud and the FBI — July 30 — when the suspect allegedly told an undercover agent that he wanted to become "operational but noted he did not know how and he would need training." Unlike other meetings and contacts with Mohamud, the July 30 conversation was not recorded "due to technical problems," according to the court documents. "There will be questions raised about that," Wax says. But Portland FBI chief Arthur Balizan says in a statement that Mohamud was "absolutely committed to carrying out an attack on a very grand scale." FBI agents offered Mohamud several chances to withdraw from the plot, the court documents say, and he pushed forward each time. "I want whoever is attending that event to leave … either dead or injured," Mohamud allegedly told agents. The FBI's lab On the day Mohamud allegedly had selected to carry out the attack, he unknowingly was videotaped inspecting the handiwork of FBI technicians. Stowed in the back of a white van were six 55-gallon drums, a coil of detonation cord, blasting caps and a gallon of "strong"-smelling diesel fuel, all arranged to look powerful vehicle bomb. "Beautiful," Mohamud allegedly declared — just moments before he unsuccessfully tried to detonate the phony device and was placed in handcuffs. The elaborate props, says Don Borelli, a former assistant agent-in-charge of the FBI's New York Division, often are integral parts of investigations that have targeted drug lords, spies and now, terrorists. In the highly secretive espionage investigation of former FBI counterintelligence agent Robert Hanssen unmasked in 2001, for example, the FBI purchased a house across the street from the now-convicted spy's house in Vienna, Va., and had an agent posing as a neighbor conduct constant surveillance. The deception was designed to catch Hanssen turning over classified government documents, but agents did not actually pose as Russian spies. Hanssen later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison. In terror cases, Borelli says, the FBI's Quantico, Va., laboratory serves as a studio where inert bombs and other devices are designed and assembled. The design and study of bomb-making has been an intense focus of investigators, especially since U.S. troops increasingly began encountering improvised explosive devices in Iraq and Afghanistan. "It's almost like a movie set," Borelli says. "They can manufacture anything." Borelli says the deception does not constitute entrapment. "We are getting more (terror) cases that avail themselves to this type of investigation," says the former counterterrorism agent, now vice president of a New York-based security firm. He says federal prosecutors "like the technique" because the sting operations lend themselves to gathering potentially powerful audio and video evidence. "We have to show in court absolutely that the intent of the subject was to follow through with the plan," Borelli says. "We want them to go through all the steps, dialing the cellphone or pulling the trigger. As we're doing so, we're giving these guys options to back out. It's not entrapment." In New York Wednesday, Abdul Kadir was sentenced to life in prison for plotting to bomb JFK International Airport. Early in that sting operation, which also involved an FBI informant, Kadir's lawyers raised the prospect of entrapment. The Center on Law and Security at New York University School of Law, which tracks federal terror prosecutions, reported in September that the entrapment defense has never been successful in a post 9/11 terror trial. A 'grinning' suspect In a Baltimore federal courtroom Monday, prosecutors again defended the tactics used by FBI agents in last week's arrest of Martinez. The investigation began in September, after an FBI informant noticed a series of threatening postings on Martinez's Facebook account, according to federal court documents. An FBI affidavit outlining the operation portrayed Martinez as so eager to lash out against the USA that he unsuccessfully sought to recruit three unidentified accomplices. He was arrested Dec. 8 after allegedly trying to detonate a fake car bomb outside the Catonsville, Md., recruiting station. Assistant U.S. Attorney Christine Manuelian said video recorded throughout the investigation shows the suspect "grinning" as he armed a vehicle bomb to attack the suburban military recruitment center. "There is no indication of any remorse, any concern … that he is about to kill people," Manuelian said before Martinez was ordered to jail pending trial. Defense attorney Joseph Balter, like his counterpart in Portland, disagrees with the government's assessment. He characterized the plot in Monday's court hearing as "the creation of the government." "There was nothing provided," Balter said, "which showed that (Martinez) had any ability whatsoever to carry out any kind of plan." http://colorlines.com/archives/2010/12/the_fbi_caught_another_homegrown_1.html The Feds Are Cultivating Their Own “Homegrown Terrorists” by Seth Freed Wessler Friday, December 10 2010, 5:15 PM EST The FBI caught another homegrown terrorist this week, except like many recent plots the agency has “uncovered,” the attack was a plant, a plan concocted by the FBI itself. It’s the latest in a growing number of terrorism plots that the FBI stirs up by infiltrating communities and helping to devise attack plans. The practice raises serious questions about the government’s implementation of it’s ongoing war on terror. The recent case involves 21-year-old from Baltimore named Antonio Martinez, who’d reportedly converted to Islam, changed his name to Muhammad Hussain and planned to blow up a bomb outside a military recruitment center in Baltimore. None of the plot, however, existed before the FBI instigated it and Martinez had no contact with any real terrorist organization. The FBI deployed an informant to pose as an accomplice by adding Martinez as a friend on Facebook and communicate with him through Facebook messages. Martinez reportedly updated his status with comments about his devotion to Jihad. Once the young man had been identified as a target, the FBI informant helped imagine and orchestrate the plot, and supplied Martinez with a fake bomb and a vehicle to transport it. After he attempted to detonate the explosive remotely, the FBI arrested Martinez. If convicted of charges, he could face life in prison. The case is the second since Thanksgiving and one of many more over the past decade, in which the federal government has deployed informants to “catch” terrorists inside the country. It’s all part of the FBI’s wider practice of targeting American Muslims—largely, according to some reports, Muslim converts as well as American born black Muslims. But far from stopping ongoing plots and interrupting “radicalization,” the FBI is fabricating plans, providing the tools to carry out attacks and inciting suspects to do so. As U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein told the AFP, “There was no actual danger,” because the people posing as accomplices were FBI employees. Nonetheless, the FBI claims that Martinez posed a real threat because, according to Richard McFeely, an FBI special agent, the young man was “absolutely committed to carrying out an attack which would have cost lives.” “The case,” reports the AFP: bore a striking resemblance to that of a Somali-American arrested in Portland, Oregon, last month after trying to set off what he thought was an explosives-laden van parked near a Christmas tree ceremony. The device was actually a dummy bomb supplied by undercover FBI agents who had contacted him months before and pretended to be accomplices, and the would-be attacker, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, was charged with “attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction.” The informant program targeting American Muslims is part of a larger and developing FBI policy. As I wrote in October: An extensive investigation, Anjali Kamat reports that the FBI has repeatedly used secret informants to gather questionable information and even entrap groups of people into supporting acts of terrorism. These informants are often Muslim men found guilty of non-terrorism related crimes and who face deportation or jail time. In numerous cases, documented at length by the DN investigation, there are serious questions as to whether the tactic is creating crimes out of thin air. In one case, an FBI informant befriended a Muslim business owner. When that business started failing, the informant, who was himself facing deportation, offered the other man a loan that was allegedly laundered for weapons buying. The exchange led to terrorism convictions. Karen Greenberg of the NYU Center for Law and Security explains, “the conviction rate for cases that involve informants is almost 100 percent.” But according to James Wedick, a former FBI agent, “90 percent of the cases that you see that have occurred in the last 10 years are garbage.” Wedick also says that economic strains are often the way that informants entrap others. In Newburgh, NY, an FBI informant allegedly entrapped four black Muslim men from a poor neighborhood, pushing them to participate in an attempted attack on a synagogue in the area High profile domestic terrorism plots appear to have increased in recent months, but they’ve been largely concocted. As the 10th anniversary of September 11th approaches, the government appears to be one of the key players in the maintenance of a believable terrorist threat. Amna Akbar, fellow at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice of New York University School of Law, says, “What’s really interesting is that there’s been a significant increase in high profile so-called homegrown terrorism cases recently where the the actual threat is constructed by the government. There does not seem to be very much actual threat to justify the ongoing ‘war on terror’ and there are serious questions about why the government is going to such lengths in these cases.” |