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• 

  Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2015 @ 1:39pm

  
  

  How can you be charged with attempting to use an explosive device if the device doesn't exist? There never were any explosives. Any decent lawyer would have a field day with this case. Unfortunately for Booker, he will probably end up with a public defender in his first case.

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  • 

    Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2015 @ 1:44pm

    
    

    Re:

    Another question is if that doesn't make the FBI a terrorist group? The provided him in theory with an explosive device and showed him how to use it. Imho that is at least giving support to a terrorist group.

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  • 

    Doug Paulson (profile), 10 Apr 2015 @ 2:51pm

    
    

    Re: Any decent lawyer ..

    > Unfortunately for Booker, he will probably end up with a public defender in his first case.
    
    Pump him full of pharmaceuticals, wait two years and even he won't remember if he really did it.

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  • 

    art guerrilla (profile), 11 Apr 2015 @ 6:51am

    
    

    Re:

    the same way they can get you for soliciting for underage sex when the officer on the other end of the chat room moniker 'sexykid' is a 48 year old police officer trolling for scalps...
    
    entrapment doesn't matter anymore...
    real crime rate is down so much, they have to make up thought crimes and fake crimes to jack up the people they protect and serve...

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  • 

    Pragmatic, 13 Apr 2015 @ 4:54am

    
    

    Re:

    I hope the PD realizes that this is a case of entrapment.

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• 

  Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2015 @ 1:42pm

  
  

  Tinfoil

  Some years ago I laughed at a friend who thought that 9/11 was an inside job because I couldn't imagine that anyone in power would be that... let's call it bold to do something like this.
  But after reading time and time again that most of the time a "terrorist" plot was stopped by the government or actually happened, no matter where on the planet (USA, UK, Spain, Germany...) I kind of regret laughing back then. So far I couldn't find one actual terrorist plot or attack outside the so called Middle East that didn't involve some form of gov agency.

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  • 

    Padpaw (profile), 10 Apr 2015 @ 6:43pm

    
    

    Re: Tinfoil

    In my opinion the governments insistence that the planes brought the towers down and not pre planted demolition charges is what hurts their credibility the most.
    
    
    Have you ever seen a building collapse due to fire compared to 1 that is demolitioned? A building on fire topples pretty much to the side. While a professionally demolitioned building goes straight down and as each floors charges go off little puffs of smoke and debris come out the windows.
    
    Turns out a birdwatcher had their video camera pointed at the towers on 9/11 and caught the towers going down. Oddly enough at every window were said puffs of smoke and debris like clockwork.
    
    Much like the Reichstag fire 9/11 gave the government the ability to restrict people's freedoms all in the name of safety and security which made people much less safe and got them fired up to make war on the world

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    • 

      Anonymous Coward, 11 Apr 2015 @ 7:14am

      
      

      Re: Re: Tinfoil

      Oddly enough at every window were said puffs of smoke and debris like clockwork.

      
      When two concrete slabs come together, the air in between get compressed, and window tend to get blown out, along with dust and debris picked up by the air blast created in the collapse.

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      • 

        Padpaw (profile), 11 Apr 2015 @ 6:38pm

        
        

        Re: Re: Re: Tinfoil

        just a coincidence then your saying the towers went down like a controlled demolition opposed to a building collapsing from a fire?
        
        I still think it was the terrorists that did it, just that the planes were a distraction

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        • 

          teka, 11 Apr 2015 @ 7:17pm

          
          

          Re: Re: Re: Re: Tinfoil

          "the terrorists" or "The Government" managed to get into the building and rip out hundreds and hundreds of areas in the walls and floors, jackhammer apart concrete slabs and pre-stress untold numbers of steel beams before packing thousands of pounds of explosives in those places and wiring them all together into a carefully controlled explosives system.
          
          They did this without anyone who was in the building over the proceeding MONTH noticing, much less anyone who was there the previous night and left their overnight janitorial shift that morning or went downstairs to pick up a apackage from receiving and was able to escape. This perfect sneak operation was conducted by operatives who have never and will never say anything about it, supplied by suppliers who will never say anything about it and have kept the secret far better than piddling little things like atomic bombs.
          
          In an entirely unnecessary distraction they also masterminded the capturing of airplanes and conspired to crashed them into the pre-demoed building, without damaging any of the controlled demo materials. Another plane was crashed into a military office building while still another was crashed into the ground, presumably to strike fear into a field.
          
          
          This was all carefully planned
          /s
          
          ffs

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          • 

            Silence Doogood, 12 Apr 2015 @ 3:41am

            
            

            Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Tinfoil

            The government always engineers terrorism:
            
            On September 11, 2001, Baker was at the Ritz-Carlton in Washington DC, for the annual investor conference of the Carlyle Group. Also present with Baker was Carlucci, "representatives of the bin Laden family,” and George H. W. Bush.[19] Carlyle had been doing business with the bin Laden family since the early 1990s.
            
            Baker’s grandfather started the law firm Baker Botts, which had offices in Saudi Arabia and which, after 9/11, represented the Saudi Arabian government in a lawsuit filed by families of those killed and injured in the attacks. The Saudi connection is interesting considering that Carlyle owned, through BDM International, the Vinnell Corporation, a mercenary operation that had extensive contracts in the Middle East since 1975, training the Saudi Arabian National Guard and also training Turkish security forces.
            
            Vinnell was considered “by some experts to be a CIA front.”[20] Of course Frank Carlucci was Deputy Director of the CIA, and George H.W. Bush, who was Baker’s boss for many years, was in the CIA for a majority of his career.[21] Perhaps as a result, in 1995 Vinnell was reported to be one of the first targets of al Qaeda, in Saudi Arabia.
            
            BDM, Vinnell’s parent company, was sold to TRW in 1997. Directors at BDM at the time included Carlyle Group executives and a former assistant to Henry Kissinger, Philip Odeen, who went on to become the CEO of TRW. Directors at TRW at the same time included Robert M. Gates, former Director of Central Intelligence and current Secretary of Defense. Arden Bement, who was appointed by George W. Bush to lead the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) one month after the 9/11 attacks, had left his position as TRW Vice President in 1992, moving to Purdue University in the interim.
            
            In 1998, at the time that Barry McDaniel moved to Stratesec, TRW merged with Lockheed Martin, the company that sub-contracted the WTC security job to Ensec.[22] Stratesec and Ensec, along with E.J. Electric and Electronic Systems Associates, worked to build the security system that was in place at the WTC when the buildings were destroyed. All four of these companies had done significant work in Saudi Arabia before working at the WTC.[23]
            
            Marvin Bush was a director of Stratesec from 1993 to 2000. It was during that time that Kroll and Stratesec planned and executed the extensive rebuilding of the security systems at the WTC complex. As his stint with Stratesec ended, Marvin Bush became a principal in the company HCC Insurance, one of the insurance carriers for the World Trade Center.
            
            SAIC
            
            Marvin Bush was the cofounder of Winston Partners in 1993, a company that benefited greatly from the War on Terror. In 2000, Winston Partners invested heavily in a defense contractor called AMSEC that was 55% owned by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). It has been noted that SAIC was not only a major contributor to the NIST WTC report, it was also a company that had expertise in nanothermites, explosive materials which were found in the WTC dust as mentioned earlier.[24]
            
            Founded by a scientist from Los Alamos National Laboratory, SAIC had a long history at the WTC, having evaluated the basement levels of the buildings as a potential terrorist target in 1986.[25] Interestingly, the company was hired to investigate the 1993 bombing of the WTC, an event that was “remarkably like the one which” they had foreseen in 1986.[26] In fact, SAIC later boasted that — “After the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, our blast analyses produced tangible results that helped identify those responsible.”[27]
            
            After 9/11, SAIC supplied the largest contingent of non-governmental investigators to the WTC investigation conducted NIST. At the same time, “SAIC personnel were instrumental in pressing the case that weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, and that war was the only way to get rid of them.”[28]
            
            SAIC was also a pioneer in the intelligence contracting business, as a founding member of the Security Affairs Support Association in 1979, along with companies like TRW, Booz Allen Hamilton, Lockheed and Hughes Aircraft. A special taskforce of the Defense Science Board, which was led in 1993 by BDM’s Philip Odeen, recommended a vast increase in the outsourcing of intelligence, which all these companies ended up benefiting from greatly.
            
            Today a majority of government intelligence work is outsourced, and SAIC is known first and foremost as an intelligence contractor. SAIC sells expertise about weapons, about homeland security, about surveillance, about computer systems, about “information dominance” and “information warfare,” and has been awarded more individual government contracts than any other private company in America. In fact, the company was paid huge sums to rebuild the NSA and FBI systems that supposedly failed before 9/11.[29]
            
            SAIC is integral to the operations of all the major intelligence collection agencies, particularly the National Security Agency (NSA), the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the CIA. In fact, the CIA relies on SAIC to spy in its own workforce.[30] But SAIC has also played an integral role in the “War on Terror”, and was even responsible for capturing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. It was SAIC staff and technology that “tease[ed] out crucial clues about Mohammed's activities from intercepted text messages that he sent to his al Qaeda operatives using as many as 20 different cell phones.”[31]
            
            In an interesting coincidence, while the Carlyle/BDM subsidiary Vinnell Corp was training the Saudi Arabian National Guard, SAIC was training the Saudi Navy and bringing Saudi military personnel to company headquarters in San Diego for further study. Simultaneously, Booz Allen Hamilton was managing the Saudi Marine Corps and running the Saudi Armed Forces Staff College.[32] Vinnell now works with SAIC to train the Iraqi military.[33]
            
            SAIC employees or board members have included Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, former Deputy Director of CIA Bobby Ray Inman, former NYC OEM director Jerome Hauer, anthrax attack suspect Stephen Hatfill, former CIA Director John Deutch, and Lawrence B. Prior, a military intelligence officer and former TRW executive. Also formerly with SAIC, during the time of the planning and implementation of the 9/11 attacks, was Dick Cheney’s undersecretary of defense, Duane Andrews.
            
            Duane Andrews considered Dick Cheney to be his personal, lifelong hero.[34] While he worked for Cheney, Andrews supervised Stephen Cambone, who went on to become Donald Rumsfeld’s “special assistant.” When Andrews left the Pentagon in 1993, he became chief operating officer for SAIC, where he supervised “much of the company's work on secret projects with defense and national security agencies.”[35] Andrews and Cambone both later hired on to the British intelligence firm Qinetiq, along with George Tenet. Coincidentally, The Carlyle Group was a major shareholder in Qinetiq as of February 2003.On September 11, 2001, Baker was at the Ritz-Carlton in Washington DC, for the annual investor conference of the Carlyle Group. Also present with Baker was Carlucci, "representatives of the bin Laden family,” and George H. W. Bush.[19] Carlyle had been doing business with the bin Laden family since the early 1990s.
            
            Baker’s grandfather started the law firm Baker Botts, which had offices in Saudi Arabia and which, after 9/11, represented the Saudi Arabian government in a lawsuit filed by families of those killed and injured in the attacks. The Saudi connection is interesting considering that Carlyle owned, through BDM International, the Vinnell Corporation, a mercenary operation that had extensive contracts in the Middle East since 1975, training the Saudi Arabian National Guard and also training Turkish security forces.
            
            Vinnell was considered “by some experts to be a CIA front.”[20] Of course Frank Carlucci was Deputy Director of the CIA, and George H.W. Bush, who was Baker’s boss for many years, was in the CIA for a majority of his career.[21] Perhaps as a result, in 1995 Vinnell was reported to be one of the first targets of al Qaeda, in Saudi Arabia.
            
            BDM, Vinnell’s parent company, was sold to TRW in 1997. Directors at BDM at the time included Carlyle Group executives and a former assistant to Henry Kissinger, Philip Odeen, who went on to become the CEO of TRW. Directors at TRW at the same time included Robert M. Gates, former Director of Central Intelligence and current Secretary of Defense. Arden Bement, who was appointed by George W. Bush to lead the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) one month after the 9/11 attacks, had left his position as TRW Vice President in 1992, moving to Purdue University in the interim.
            
            In 1998, at the time that Barry McDaniel moved to Stratesec, TRW merged with Lockheed Martin, the company that sub-contracted the WTC security job to Ensec.[22] Stratesec and Ensec, along with E.J. Electric and Electronic Systems Associates, worked to build the security system that was in place at the WTC when the buildings were destroyed. All four of these companies had done significant work in Saudi Arabia before working at the WTC.[23]
            
            Marvin Bush was a director of Stratesec from 1993 to 2000. It was during that time that Kroll and Stratesec planned and executed the extensive rebuilding of the security systems at the WTC complex. As his stint with Stratesec ended, Marvin Bush became a principal in the company HCC Insurance, one of the insurance carriers for the World Trade Center.
            
            SAIC
            
            Marvin Bush was the cofounder of Winston Partners in 1993, a company that benefited greatly from the War on Terror. In 2000, Winston Partners invested heavily in a defense contractor called AMSEC that was 55% owned by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). It has been noted that SAIC was not only a major contributor to the NIST WTC report, it was also a company that had expertise in nanothermites, explosive materials which were found in the WTC dust as mentioned earlier.[24]
            
            Founded by a scientist from Los Alamos National Laboratory, SAIC had a long history at the WTC, having evaluated the basement levels of the buildings as a potential terrorist target in 1986.[25] Interestingly, the company was hired to investigate the 1993 bombing of the WTC, an event that was “remarkably like the one which” they had foreseen in 1986.[26] In fact, SAIC later boasted that — “After the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, our blast analyses produced tangible results that helped identify those responsible.”[27]
            
            After 9/11, SAIC supplied the largest contingent of non-governmental investigators to the WTC investigation conducted NIST. At the same time, “SAIC personnel were instrumental in pressing the case that weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, and that war was the only way to get rid of them.”[28]
            
            SAIC was also a pioneer in the intelligence contracting business, as a founding member of the Security Affairs Support Association in 1979, along with companies like TRW, Booz Allen Hamilton, Lockheed and Hughes Aircraft. A special taskforce of the Defense Science Board, which was led in 1993 by BDM’s Philip Odeen, recommended a vast increase in the outsourcing of intelligence, which all these companies ended up benefiting from greatly.
            
            Today a majority of government intelligence work is outsourced, and SAIC is known first and foremost as an intelligence contractor. SAIC sells expertise about weapons, about homeland security, about surveillance, about computer systems, about “information dominance” and “information warfare,” and has been awarded more individual government contracts than any other private company in America. In fact, the company was paid huge sums to rebuild the NSA and FBI systems that supposedly failed before 9/11.[29]
            
            SAIC is integral to the operations of all the major intelligence collection agencies, particularly the National Security Agency (NSA), the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the CIA. In fact, the CIA relies on SAIC to spy in its own workforce.[30] But SAIC has also played an integral role in the “War on Terror”, and was even responsible for capturing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. It was SAIC staff and technology that “tease[ed] out crucial clues about Mohammed's activities from intercepted text messages that he sent to his al Qaeda operatives using as many as 20 different cell phones.”[31]
            
            In an interesting coincidence, while the Carlyle/BDM subsidiary Vinnell Corp was training the Saudi Arabian National Guard, SAIC was training the Saudi Navy and bringing Saudi military personnel to company headquarters in San Diego for further study. Simultaneously, Booz Allen Hamilton was managing the Saudi Marine Corps and running the Saudi Armed Forces Staff College.[32] Vinnell now works with SAIC to train the Iraqi military.[33]
            
            SAIC employees or board members have included Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, former Deputy Director of CIA Bobby Ray Inman, former NYC OEM director Jerome Hauer, anthrax attack suspect Stephen Hatfill, former CIA Director John Deutch, and Lawrence B. Prior, a military intelligence officer and former TRW executive. Also formerly with SAIC, during the time of the planning and implementation of the 9/11 attacks, was Dick Cheney’s undersecretary of defense, Duane Andrews.
            
            Duane Andrews considered Dick Cheney to be his personal, lifelong hero.[34] While he worked for Cheney, Andrews supervised Stephen Cambone, who went on to become Donald Rumsfeld’s “special assistant.” When Andrews left the Pentagon in 1993, he became chief operating officer for SAIC, where he supervised “much of the company's work on secret projects with defense and national security agencies.”[35] Andrews and Cambone both later hired on to the British intelligence firm Qinetiq, along with George Tenet. Coincidentally, The Carlyle Group was a major shareholder in Qinetiq as of February 2003.

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• 

  Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2015 @ 1:50pm

  
  

  Is there some particular legal reason why they're so averse to being specific about dates? Or is "on or about" SOP for this kind of thing? I can see it in cases of actual uncertainty (on or about a certain month, for example) but for the actual date something happened?
  
  "On or about September 11, 2001, four or approximately four airliners were hijacked by one or more terrorists..."

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  • 

    David, 10 Apr 2015 @ 2:22pm

    
    

    Re:

    "At precisely 8:32-ish..." - Ham, Toy Story

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• 

  Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2015 @ 1:57pm

  
  

  The FBI created a fake terror plot.
  The FBI convinced someone to go along with their fake terror plot.
  The FBI trained someone in their fake terror plot.
  The FBI supplied all of the equipment for the fake terror plot.
  The FBI supplied the location of the fake terror plot.
  The FBI built the fake terror plot bomb.
  
  This guy literally did nothing to be arrested for terrorism.
  
  How the hell is this legal in ANY STRETCH OF ANY IMAGINATION OF ANY BEING?

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  • 

    Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2015 @ 1:58pm

    
    

    Re:

    To me, this is like setting a building on fire and handing some poor person the matches and running off.

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    • 

      Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 13 Apr 2015 @ 4:16am

      
      

      Re: Re:

      To me, this is like setting a building on fire and handing some poor person the matches and running off.

      No, it's not....
      it's like making one of those fake fires with a fan, some silk and a light, handing some poor person a huge, plastic Swan Vesta match that wouldn't burn if you tried... and then having him arrested for killing hundreds of people by burning down a building that doesn't in fact exist.

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  • 

    pixelpusher220 (profile), 10 Apr 2015 @ 1:59pm

    
    

    Re:

    yeah after the statement
    
    "Anything. Anything you think is good. I will follow you."
    
    how is this anything other than entrapment?

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  • 

    Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2015 @ 3:34pm

    
    

    Re:

    Because you need terrosits to keep the military industrial complex going.
    Because without a terrorist plot a huge chunk of the USA econnomy will go down.
    Because you need a working economy to keep people alive in a capitalist country (if you don't have money you die even in a hospital, google).
    Because you need to keep people alive you need terroists.
    Because you need you need terrorits you need people who entrap them.
    Because you can't make a supposed terrorist plot without a fall guy you need the government agencies.
    Because you need government agencies they are allowed to do what they want.
    Because gov agencies are allowed what they want they spy on leaders and find dirt.
    Because the gov agencies find dirt on gov leaders they dictate who is a gov leader.
    ALL HAIL THE NEW DICATATOR: gov agencies

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    • 

      Pragmatic, 13 Apr 2015 @ 4:57am

      
      

      Re: Re:

      Uh, you may find that the MIC is being run by corporations subcontracting to the government, and that the anti-terror laws were lobbied for by them.

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  • 

    Padpaw (profile), 10 Apr 2015 @ 6:44pm

    
    

    Re:

    kangaroo courts with secret evidence, secret trials, secret witnesses. guilty if the government declares your guilty.
    
    Might as well be Russia or north korea

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• 

  GooberedUp (profile), 10 Apr 2015 @ 1:58pm

  
  

  Silly article

  "until the FBI shows up and provides them with the fake tools to do so."
  
  Or until the person goes and shoots some mall up and then you idiots scream about how the government knew about him but didn't do anything.
  
  Stupid article.
  
  P.S. SOP on the date. I'm an attorney and that's the way we write it all the time.

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  • 

    pixelpusher220 (profile), 10 Apr 2015 @ 2:09pm

    
    

    Re: Silly article

    Nobody said stop keeping track of him.
    
    But wholesale manufacturing of 'plots' like this is more time they aren't spending looking for actual criminals.

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    • 

      David, 10 Apr 2015 @ 2:25pm

      
      

      Re: Re: Silly article

      They don't want to do that. That's hard. It's so much easier to have him tag-along in your terrorist plot and then arrest him because he tagged along.
      
      I mean really. He didn't add ANYTHING to the plot. It's not even clear if he even drove the vehicle.

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  • 

    Mike Masnick (profile), 10 Apr 2015 @ 2:09pm

    
    

    Re: Silly article

    Or until the person goes and shoots some mall up and then you idiots scream about how the government knew about him but didn't do anything.
    
    When have we done that?

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    • 

      GooberedUp (profile), 10 Apr 2015 @ 2:29pm

      
      

      Re: Re: Silly article

      Not "you" as in you personally or techdirt. "you" as in much of the public, including me, when I hear about people being persons of interest that weren't arrested/detained/whatever at some point or another right before they go nuts and kill people. Maybe I should have said "we idiots".
      
      It's impossible to know who the next person will be that commits an evil act. So as opportunities come up to possibly stop some future act, I support eliminating the threat.

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      • 

        Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2015 @ 2:55pm

        
        

        Re: Re: Re: Silly article

        I view this as entrapment (although I'm sure the courts will find a way to claim it isn't). More importantly, I find it very aggravating that the FBI pushes the media to report this as if it was an actual attack stopped at the last second by some brilliant bit of police work, when the reality is nothing of the sort.

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        • 

          Anonymous Coward, 11 Apr 2015 @ 7:34pm

          
          

          Re: Re: Re: Re: Silly article

          I think that the FBI should rename themselves 'FBFBI' (Federal Bureau of Face Book Investigations).

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      • 

        pixelpusher220 (profile), 10 Apr 2015 @ 2:58pm

        
        

        Re: Re: Re: Silly article

        Since you have expressly stated your desire to punish people for things they haven't yet done...
        
        We should be arresting you for depriving people of their liberties without cause.
        
        I mean, here its just text on a page, but as you say, we can't tell when you'll turn into a fascist dictator - so we should eliminate the threat.
        
        
        We should also probably arrest anyone for having an alcoholic beverage, because we can prevent possible future acts of DUI.

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      • 

        Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2015 @ 4:23pm

        
        

        Re: Re: Re: Silly article

        > It's impossible to know who the next person will be that commits an evil act. So as opportunities come up to possibly stop some future act, I support eliminating the threat.
        
        What an odd combination of statements. You can't know who will commit an evil act, so everyone is a threat. You support eliminating the threat as opportunities come up.
        
        Does this mean that you are in favor of killing ("stop future acts", "elminating") everyone ("impossible to know who...") you can get away ("opportunities come up") with killing?

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      • 

        Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 13 Apr 2015 @ 4:50am

        
        

        Re: Re: Re: Silly article

        It's impossible to know who the next person will be that commits an evil act. So as opportunities come up to possibly stop some future act, I support eliminating the threat.

        OK, let's pretend for a moment that this argument makes sense....
        
        Where's the bar set?
        This guy apparently committed no criminal act (since there was in fact no actual bomb involved at any point in the "conspiracy") and it appears that he's pretty much all talk and seems too stupid to actually plan anything on his own.
        
        So, that means it's OK to arrest people who:
        1/ Are easily led and might be convinced by someone malicious to commit a violent crime if they happen to meet the wrong person.
        2/ Are unthinking and at least borderline sociopathic enough to maybe commit some random act of violence if the right set of circumstances of anger/means/trigger/target happen to come their way at the wrong time.
        
        So that leaves me two questions;
        Where are you going to put all the people that fall under that definition?
        How are you going to find enough people who don't to look after them?

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        • 

          Pragmatic, 13 Apr 2015 @ 5:02am

          
          

          Re: Re: Re: Re: Silly article

          Where are you going to put all the people that fall under that definition?
          
          Private prisons. Incarceration rates aren't supposed to fall below 98%, remember.
          
          How are you going to find enough people who don't to look after them?
          
          People? Ahahaha! They'll automate it as much as possible.

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  • 

    Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2015 @ 2:11pm

    
    

    Re: Silly article

    Or until the person goes and shoots some mall up and then you idiots scream about how the government knew about him but didn't do anything.

    
    There is a huge difference between monitoring someones activities and arresting them if and when they try to obtaining items for terrorist activities and providing the plot and dummy materials. The first is good police work, the second is making someone take a fall for thought crime.

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  • 

    Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2015 @ 3:41pm

    
    

    Re: Silly article

    They did know about him and they did not do anything about it. But they did use him in a bigger plot they created and provided the material for.
    
    Without the FBI the person could not have done anything because the person tried and failed.
    
    By the way what is your real name? If you are indeed an attorney and stand for what you believe in then your clients deserve to know who they are dealing with in my opinion. At least I don't want to hire an attorney that doesn't see my point of view. Meaning if you don't publish your name I assume you are nothing but a troll saying she or he is an attorney.

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  • 

    me, 13 Apr 2015 @ 4:27am

    
    

    Re: Silly article

    Nope, it raises some very valid questions that should concern you. Except you're likely one of them.

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• 

  Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2015 @ 2:00pm

  
  

  The FBI has to do this

  Work it out. They have zero, zip, zilch, nada ability to stop real plots (e.g., Boston Marathon bombing) even if they're concocted by ignorant amateurs and very poorly carried out (e.g., Boston Marathon bombing).
  
  The FBI knows this. They know they're helpless. The serious people in government know this. The serious people outside government know this. But nobody wants to admit it. Nobody wants to go on national television and tell the truth: "Hey, folks...by its very nature, terrorism is unstoppable. Some of you are going to die and there's nothing we can do about it."
  
  Instead, by pretending that they can actually do something effective, they can shred the Constitution, accumulate power, and justify their horribly-bloated budget via occasional dog-and-pony shows like this. Spending a million or two taxpayer dollars on this pathetic loser (investigation, prosecution, incarceration, etc.) provides air cover for everything else.
  
  There will be more. They'll find the mentally ill, the disenfranchised, the radical, anybody and everybody they can. They'll push them over the edge -- INSTEAD of trying to help them and keep them from going that direction. They'll destroy their lives and their families' lives.
  
  And when the next REAL terrorist attack comes, they won't have a clue. Remember: this is the agency that was so amazingly stupid that it didn't grasp the significance of a field agent report that an oddly high number of middle eastern men were learning to fly planes, but not to land them.

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  • 

    Padpaw (profile), 10 Apr 2015 @ 6:49pm

    
    

    Re: The FBI has to do this

    the FBI knew about the boston bombers though. IT is on record Russian intelligence warned them about it, and the FBI chose to do nothing about it.
    
    Then there is the question of why the boston PD were running a bomb drill shortly before the marathon, why they detonated a bomb at the library and why they had such a large presence at the marathon. snipers on the roofs, bomb sniffing dogs, craft mercenaries, federal agents.
    
    Looks more to me they chose to let this attack happen. Just like they choose to setup up people for terrorist acts that they most likely could not or would not have ever done on their own.

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• 

  Fuck, 10 Apr 2015 @ 2:03pm

  
  

  shit

  Yet another article with a completely unnecessary obscenity. Its starting to come off as desperate.
  
  At this point, its old hat. "Shit" and "fuck" just aren't cutting it anymore. If you're gonna do it, just DO it. It's high time you dropped the word "cunt" into an article. THEN you'd be one of the cool kids. ;)

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• 

  John Fenderson (profile), 10 Apr 2015 @ 2:15pm

  
  

  Every time I see this

  I think even less of the FBI and the criminal "justice" system every time I see this sort of thing.

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  PRMan, 10 Apr 2015 @ 2:22pm

  
  

  Interesting

  I find it interesting that this site was so adamant about everyone using Chelsea Manning's chosen name, but couldn't care less about Hassan's.

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  • 

    John Fenderson (profile), 10 Apr 2015 @ 2:51pm

    
    

    Re: Interesting

    Huh?
    
    From what I can tell, this goes by two names, and the site is using the one the media most uses. Manning doesn't go by two names, she changed hers to Chelsea and therefore has asked everyone to use the new name. I don't see how the two situations are remotely similar.

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  Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2015 @ 2:24pm

  
  

  Are there so few bad guys (actual criminals) that some higher-up in the FBI thinks, whenever someone reports a funky FB post, "Get those agents over who have nothing to do on to creating a new crime" ? Shouldn't they be after the 10 Most Wanted or something? How many agents are taken off investigations into stuff that has ALREADY HAPPENED just to create new crimes to juice the 'solved' numbers?

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• 

  Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2015 @ 2:30pm

  
  

  So the government is allowed to give money and weapons to IS but the people are not?

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  • 

    Padpaw (profile), 10 Apr 2015 @ 7:02pm

    
    

    Re:

    Obama wrote an exception into that law last year about that. Otherwise his administration could have been charged with treason for aiding and abetting terrorism. The exception is essentially the government is exempt from that law.

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• 

  Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2015 @ 2:53pm

  
  

  This man was clearly deranged and dangerous. Removing him from the populous, unless/until he can be reformed, is the correct thing to do. The entrapment aspects of this story aren't without merit, however, I think what's missing here is acknowledgement for the lack of (or failure to utilize) more rational options (like involuntary mental health commitment) to deal with situations like this- or the failure of those systems to achieve a desirable outcome. There's more to all this then just 'the fbi needs to justify itself' - that conclusion seams very sort sighted.

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• 

  Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2015 @ 2:58pm

  
  

  Mike, How would you suggest someone like this be handled?

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  • 

    Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2015 @ 3:09pm

    
    

    Re:

    Post on Twitter that you want to kill the President, ask the nice Special Agents from the US Secret Service that show up at your door how they handle such situations.

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  • 

    pixelpusher220 (profile), 10 Apr 2015 @ 3:26pm

    
    

    Re:

    The exact way it was handled? They talked to him and determined he wasn't a threat. Keep monitoring for hints of actual plans but until then he's just a lunatic ranting...which isn't a crime or many of us would have incarcerated grandparents.

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  • 

    That One Guy (profile), 10 Apr 2015 @ 3:34pm

    
    

    Re:

    Don't know about Mike, but as for my suggestions...
    
    Go to a judge asking for a warrant to observe the communications of the idiot(though for the most part that would seem to be unnecessary, if he's going to make his crazy public anyway). Still, better to get the warrant just in case, and it's not like doing so would take much work.
    
    With the available evidence, should be no problem at all to get a warrant to monitor his communications. Do so. At this point, do absolutely nothing other than monitor his communications. At most, if he seems to be getting a bit too deranged, to the point where he might be a danger to himself, consider asking a judge to sign an arrest warrant to place him in protective custody so he can get some psychiatric help.
    
    Until it looks like he's actually going to do something, stand back and do nothing other than monitor communications.

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  • 

    John Fenderson (profile), 10 Apr 2015 @ 6:05pm

    
    

    Re:

    My suggestion? Investigate. If he's just a random nut, as it sounds like, then put him on a list of people to check out if something bad happens, maybe keep track of where he lives, and otherwise ignore him.
    
    If he appears to be a dangerous nut, then keep him under some greater level of surveillance.
    
    Nothing more needs to be done than that.

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    • 

      Pragmatic, 13 Apr 2015 @ 5:05am

      
      

      Re: Re:

      Yes! Nutty rants = Probable cause, get a warrant. Keep an eye on him but do nothing till he starts to amass weapons or bomb-making materials.

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• 

  Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2015 @ 3:33pm

  
  

  It's the world we live in

  Two days before the Columbine anniversary my son was evicted from high school (1 month before graduation) and arrested for felony bomb threats and felony harassment.
  
  Did he call in a bomb threat to the school (we had 5 of those when I was in high school, never caught the callers)?... Nope.
  Did he specifically threaten any individuals?... Nope
  
  He pissed off some of his "friends" and two of the girls went to the administration with "he said...."
  
  My son has NO disciplinary issues, other attendance related issues (who really wants to be at high school...).
  No research, No analysis, No talking to parents. Office to Mental Health evaluator (who said he was fine), then arrested the next day.
  
  Headlines 2 days before the columbine anniversary, "Local Police force stops plot to blow up school." A year later, after one of the key "witnesses" admitted that she was under the influence when talking to the police (didn't want to admit that she just flat out lied), the charges were finally dismissed as there was no actual evidence.
  
  But lets look at the effects...
  Prosecutor gets BIG headlines for a small town...
  Police force "justifies" it's school presence...
  My son doesn't get to graduate from High school with only a month of work left...
  My son looses his job due to "pending charges"...
  
  And everyone is so much safer...

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• 

  beltorak (profile), 10 Apr 2015 @ 4:45pm

  
  

  > CHS 1 ... asked Booker what he wanted to do. Booker answered, “Anything. Anything you think is good. I will follow you.”
  
  You know, at this point if there were any functional brain cells in the agent's head he would have just said "OK pal, game's over. I'm really with the FBI [flash badge], and you are really an idiot. Just keep in mind we're watching you now, and if you think you can get away with any of this jihad-y bullshit we'll be all over you like shit on rice." and cooly walk off into the sunset.
  
  There, crazy averted.
  
  OK, maybe this wouldn't be the best thing to happen, but it might make a great scene in some True Lies-esque movie.

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  • 

    Padpaw (profile), 10 Apr 2015 @ 7:04pm

    
    

    Re:

    how would they justify removing people's rights to stop terrorism then?
    
    WE will probably see a really big fake plot busted right before the NDAA is set to be renewed. Something to get people all fired up on giving up more of their rights when logically they would realize it isn't doing anything

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  David, 10 Apr 2015 @ 11:47pm

  
  

  Sigh

  You don't curb terrorism by arresting malleable idiots. There will never be a shortage of them.
  
  You curb terrorism by making sure that smart people don't have a motive to plan terrorist acts.
  
  Recruiting large numbers of FBI agents for the sake of planning believable terrorist attacks at arbitrary levels of plausability is not a smart step.
  
  Without training, schooling and other resources by the CIA, people like Saddham Hussein, Osama bin Laden and a number of other notably effective enemies of the U.S. would likely still be chewing cud.

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• 

  Anonymous Coward, 11 Apr 2015 @ 3:40am

  
  

  win-win situation

  Conspiracy theory of the day:
  
  The NSA spies on US citizens to find simple minded people easy to manipulate and passes that info to the FBI. The FBI helps those people to become terrorists and then arrests them to prevent an terrorist attack. I'd call this a win-win situation.

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  • 

    Anonymous Coward, 11 Apr 2015 @ 8:25am

    
    

    Re: win-win situation

    Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me anymore. There was a point it would have sounded ridiculous, but today, it sounds reasonable.

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• 

  Anonymous Coward, 11 Apr 2015 @ 3:33pm

  
  

  Fake bomb

  Maybe they could have told him the bomb would blow up the whole planet, and then they really could have had a big headline.

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• 

  Anonymous Coward, 11 Apr 2015 @ 4:03pm

  
  

  Propaganda

  They're probably ratcheting up these bogus terrorist plots to help gain support for banning strong encryption.

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• 

  Anonymous Coward, 11 Apr 2015 @ 9:00pm

  
  

  I notice that many comments are screaming entrapment, but my understanding of entrapment is when the government (or one of their agents) forces you into some action you would not normally take.
  
  For example, a FBI undercover agent making you courier drugs by a fake threat to you family's lives would be entrapment, if the same undercover agent approached you asking you to courier drugs for money wouldn't be if you just said yes.
  
  I'll admit I'm not American, so I may be misunderstanding how the legal system there defines entrapment.
  
  Cheers

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  • 

    John Fenderson (profile), 13 Apr 2015 @ 7:49am

    
    

    Re:

    Entrapment happens when law enforcement induces you to commit a crime that you would not have otherwise committed. For example, if you're walking around downtown asking to buy illegal drugs from people, and you happen to ask a cop -- that's not entrapment. If the cop is standing on the street corner talking you into buying drugs -- that's entrapment.
    
    Whether or not entrapment has happened is often very subjective, which is why most "sting" operations carry with them a great risk of being entrapment.

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• 

  Anonymous Coward, 12 Apr 2015 @ 10:21am

  
  

  Thoughtcrime is not a crime.

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  qyiet, 12 Apr 2015 @ 2:29pm

  
  

  FBI is better than Hans Blix.. they found some.

  attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction
  
  Is no-one else bothered by this change in definition of 'weapon of mass destruction' that seems to have happened. When Hans Blix was searching Iraq for WMDs these seemed to include Nukes, Chemical and Biological weapons. The sort of things where a single attack could wipe a city off the map. Now we are down to car and pressure cooker bombs? Why couldn't Hans Blix find a single one of those in Iraq?

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    Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2015 @ 5:09am

    
    

    Re: FBI is better than Hans Blix.. they found some.

    I think the US definition of WMD went down a slippery slide of gotta catch'em all and now its just weapons of single destruction, only harmfull about one person like "assault with a deadly weapon", and weapons of mass destruction, harmfull to more than one person.
    
    So any explosive and incendiary device and whatever, equals wmd.
    Can of gas in the car? Could be wmd.
    Can of gas on your farm truck? WMD.
    
    You can't sympathize with someone charged with WMD.
    
    It's just like "you wouldn't download a car" rhetorics-

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• 

  Anonymous Coward, 12 Apr 2015 @ 6:11pm

  
  

  I'm sure entrapment of the mentally ill is illegal, now this guy will have difficulty finding a public defender who would have the balls to state this plain fact.

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• 

  me, 13 Apr 2015 @ 4:25am

  
  

  out of curiosity

  Are you legally required to talk to the FBI? All these stories show is these dicks are trying to set you up. I see absolutely no incentive to interact with them at all under any circumstance.

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    Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2015 @ 6:21am

    
    

    Re: out of curiosity

    He did not know that the ones setting him up worked for the FBI.

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