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FBI 'Stops' Yet Another Of Its Own Terrorist Threats

from the playing-dress-up dept

Fri, Feb 8th 2013 4:32pm — Mike Masnick

Well, there they go again. We've talked a bunch about how the FBI has gotten really good at stopping its own terrorist plots and they've gone and done it again. Right here in the San Francisco Bay Area, the FBI has gleefully announced how they've stopped an attempt to bomb a Bank of America building in Oakland. The details are familiar: random guy with no actual connection to terrorists, and no actual way to build a connection with terrorists, is taken in by an FBI undercover agent who works with him to build a "bomb" that was never a bomb. In other words, there was no plot. There was no bomb. There was just a bunch of undercover agents playing dressup, and one Joe Schmo who thought it was all real. Maybe next time, the FBI can turn it into a reality TV show on Spike. Ralph Garmin as... a fake terrorist. I'd watch it.

This all comes just a week after On the Media profiled a new book called Terror Factory: Inside the FBI's Manufactured War On Terrorism. That book appears to collect a bunch of these stories, talking about how this is a major effort in the FBI these days: making up fake terrorist plots in order to stop people they themselves convinced to take part in the "plots" and then generate big headlines around them:

The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI's Manufactured War on Terror shows how the FBI has, under the guise of engaging in counterterrorism since 9/11, built a network of more than 15,000 informants whose primary purpose is to infiltrate Muslim communities to create and facilitate phony terrorist plots so that the bureau can then claim victory in the war on terror.

Think of just how many resources are wasted in entrapping random people, rather than stopping real crime. I don't see how this makes us any safer at all. Frankly, it makes me a lot more terrified.

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Filed Under: fbi, terrorist threat

38 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 8 Feb 2013 @ 4:34pm

Frankly, it makes me a lot more terrified.

And what ink the do you think the purpose is?
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weneedhelp - not signed in, 8 Feb 2013 @ 4:42pm

Re:
The purpose is to keep funding the never ending war on terror, and to have an excuse to keep eroding are rights, just to name a couple.
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weneedhelp - not signed in, 8 Feb 2013 @ 4:42pm

Re: Re:
our.
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jupiterkansas (profile), 8 Feb 2013 @ 4:48pm

The purpose is to seek out the most gullible among us and put the behind bars.

Wait until they find out how gullible the elderly are.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Feb 2013 @ 5:04pm

We pay the government money to entertain themselves.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Feb 2013 @ 5:06pm

Re:
The purpose is for government agents to get paid to do nothing useful and to have an easy job of entertainment. Going after actual criminals and terrorists would require actual work and they don't want to get paid to do any of that, they want to get paid to engage in harmless, non-dangerous entertaining activities that require no real work or thinking. The point is for them to take our money (and give us nothing useful in return).
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Feb 2013 @ 5:17pm

The Boogieman Factory - coming up with more reasons for their existence and continued funding. It would be novel if they investigated real criminals, like oh idk ... banksters maybe.
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Cerberus (profile), 8 Feb 2013 @ 6:27pm

FBI spreading terrorist ideas among Muslims?
Not only may this hurt and anger Muslims, but they are also spreading terrorist ideas among those groups deemed most likely to include terrorist. Are they not breeding terrorists besides their specific targets this way? Unwise.
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anonymouse, 8 Feb 2013 @ 6:56pm

WOnderful;
I wonder how long it will take before someone approaches the police, and the police being the police open fire before asking questions, a few FBI deaths, now that would teach both sides a valuable lesson in playing games with Bomb threats.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Feb 2013 @ 7:00pm

Re: WOnderful;
Well, the police shot up the wrong truck here, it wasn't even the right color, in an effort to go after someone.

http://www.texashuntingforum.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4035093/Re_L_A_police_offic ers_shot_up

They took the shoot first, ask questions later, approach instead of first giving the people in the truck a chance to come out with their hands up and identify themselves. They ended up shooting two women. The keystone cops, to serve and protect ...
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k, 8 Feb 2013 @ 8:19pm

Too bad...
Too bad they can't stop any of the shootings in the past year.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Feb 2013 @ 9:08pm

Re: Too bad...
Too bad the didn't stop any of the stabbings in the past year. Too bad they didn't stop any of the DWIs in the past year. Too bad they didn't stop any of the idiotic posts in the past year.
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That Anonymous Coward (profile), 8 Feb 2013 @ 9:58pm

And eventually they will hit a patsy who is smarter than them, and they will have made material available for a real terrorist event to happen.
We'll have hearings, public outcry, lip service, and not much else.

When you have to manufacturer the plots to stop the huge bad thing, it might be time to consider that the policies are wrong. We need to move past the fear of a soundbite calling our leaders "soft" on terrorism for daring to question these stupid invented 'plots'. We need to focus much more on why specific groups are being targeted because of skin color or religious beliefs to appease a public sentiment crafted by our leaders blaming easy stereotypes rather than individuals responsible.
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Hephaestus (profile), 9 Feb 2013 @ 1:51am

Re:
Are you kidding. This is all a magic trick ... look something shiny (see we caught a terrorist) there is nothing to see over there (bankers, banking, and government corruption).
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Feb 2013 @ 3:12am

Re: Re: WOnderful;
The Keystone Cops never hurt anyone.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Feb 2013 @ 4:39am

Isn't this called entrapment?
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The Real Michael, 9 Feb 2013 @ 5:01am

Re: Re:
There are no terrorists running around in America, so the FBI has to manufacture plots in order to fool the public into thinking there are.
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The Real Michael, 9 Feb 2013 @ 5:03am

Re:
Correct.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Feb 2013 @ 5:45am

Re: Re: Re:
They are also teaching potential terrorists to work alone, as their are more FBI agents pretending to be terrorists that real terrorists.
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johnjac (profile), 9 Feb 2013 @ 7:39am

Crime vs Intelligence goals
In the new book, "The Org" by Ray Fisman and Tim Sullivan, they talk about how pre 9/11 the FBI had clear and measurable goals and objectives. Catch bad guys, and assit DOJ in winning cases.

Post 9/11 domestic intelligence became their #1 objective. The problem becomes how do you measure and reward staff for doing well at intelligence gathering? Compounding this was
*everyone in the agency has been hired and promoted based on their crime fighting skills not intelligence gathering skills
* because crime is mostly regional, offices are NOT used to working together

The book doesn't talk about these fake plots, but I'm going to imagine that this is what crime fighters do to make it look like they are doing the work of domestic intelligence.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Feb 2013 @ 9:01am

Resources aren't being wasted, because the point of these exercises isn't to make the general population any safer. Thousands of years of history has shown that over time governments invariably shift towards a totalitarian/authoritarian form of control unless/until opposed by a countering force. As freedoms are slowly repealed, as is the case that is happening now, resistance will invariably build. The point of these exercises is to help hone the governments skill in ferreting out potential (early) supporters of the sort of people who led the American Revolution. Too many people seem to blissfully believe this can't possibly happen in America, but the fact is, if you really look around, the symptoms are all there.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Feb 2013 @ 9:42am

Re: Re: WOnderful;
From what I read, it appears to be an execution squad.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Feb 2013 @ 9:50am

Re: Too bad...
I wouldn't be surprised if they were handing out weapons with disabled firing pins, loaded with blanks, to known mentally challenged people and then following them around telling them to do bad things just so they could stop them at the appropriate moment. Pats on the back were had all around.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Feb 2013 @ 9:53am

Re: Crime vs Intelligence goals
Not only that, but there are accounts of prior knowledge which had they been followed up would've led to the plot prior to 9/11.
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Thomas (profile), 9 Feb 2013 @ 2:15pm

Just shows...
that it's a lot easier to find fake terrorists than to find real ones. After all, fake terrorists aren't going to shoot you or blow things up. Has the FBI and DOJ become too cowardly to find actual terrorists or are there actually too few terrorists for the FBI to find? I keep thinking the DOJ doesn't really care about keeping Americans safe anyway; only about promoting their own "success".
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Feb 2013 @ 5:50pm

Re:
I don't think my grandmother is gullible enough to try to blow people up. And if she is, she should probably be in some kind of custody.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Feb 2013 @ 1:55am

I saw this story in my local newspaper in Australia. My first thought was: "TechDirt will have a post on this".
Thanks for not disappointing. :)
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hjumper, 10 Feb 2013 @ 6:18am

I think I saw this movie
The main actor's names are: Graham, John, Terry #1, Terry #2, Eric and Michael. The Feds mindsets appear to have certainly changed. "If we can't find any real crime, let's make some up. Think of the book deals and movie rights. I tell ya we're onto something big here."
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Feb 2013 @ 7:15am

Re: I think I saw this movie
"If we can't find any real crime, let's make some up. "

I doubt they are looking
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Raybone (profile), 10 Feb 2013 @ 10:00am

Re:
"they will have made material available for a real terrorist event to happen." look up details on the '93 WTC bombing where FBI provided the explosives.
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Mordreas, 10 Feb 2013 @ 3:07pm

think the idea is to terrefy the terrorist and make them suspicious of coorperation.

I wonder what happens when you scare a religious nut
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ahow628 (profile), 11 Feb 2013 @ 6:56am

Overheard on the tapes...
"What is going ON!?!?!"
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me, 11 Feb 2013 @ 8:31am

short-sighted
if you cannot see the reason to infiltrate the Muslim community to identify radical elements then you do not have the experience to judge the tactics used. No one seems to have an issue when the fake hitman is used to get evidence against someone trying to hire an assassian.
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Tex Arcana (profile), 11 Feb 2013 @ 4:04pm

Re: Re:
In other words, we're talking about a bunch of budding CEOs that are practicing doing nothing for obscene amounts of cash, while destroying the very thing that supposedly keeps them employed?

I guess that FBI virus is real...
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Ninja (profile), 13 Feb 2013 @ 7:26am

Last time I checked this was called Schizophrenia.

I admit I've never heard of a collective form of this mental disorder.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Apr 2013 @ 12:16pm

Re: Re:
Sounds like a John Scalzi sequel! Old Man's Terrorism.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jun 2013 @ 10:56am

Response to: That Anonymous Coward on Feb 8th, 2013 @ 9:58pm
that already happened - in 1993 the FBI provided a real device, lost control and the result was the 93 WTC basement bombingg. not a theory, this is officially on record.
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Head Tech, 17 Jul 2013 @ 12:56am

FBI Virus Removal Service (Recommended)
Services from Tech Support Heroes for fbi virus removal are what I see a majority of consumers with this problem checking out. They remove the infection for a low flat fee, and if they can't remove it, you don't pay a dime!
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