19-year-old Jordanian arrested in Dallas bomb plot

awesome. rep'd...

good point. i was gonna say that we dont have virgins, but obviously he didnt want the virgins since he wasnt willing to blow himself up.

 

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The following taken from www.dallasnews.com article:

In Jordan, Smadi's father told Agence France-Presse, the French news service, that his son was innocent and the accusation against him was "fabricated."

"The charges are false," said Maher Hussein Smadi, a ministry of agriculture engineer in the town of Kofranjeh, northwest of Amman.

"We as a family never believed in terrorism and we never believed in violence."

He added: "The FBI fabricated the entire thing to embarrass [President Barack] Obama because of his good relations with Muslims."

"They used my son, who is married to an American woman, because he apparently visited Islamist websites frequently."


Sad because it seems like a pretty open and shut case to me given all the evidence the FBI should have. Dad is in for a bit of a shock. These comments serve me to reflect on just how evil these terrorists can be cause their ability to turn it off/on leaves even their own families clueless.

 

Interesting... they found him on some extremist web site, and not through the newfound all powerful weapon of a warrantless wiretap via the patriot act.

Wow, I mean, I didn't know we could catch them without trampling the constitution! Sweet!

 

they should try this ad in free republic. I wonder if anyone will fall for that.

Take back your country: Drive a truck we provide to a specified location and dial number into cellphone we provide. Travel and food expenses also provided.

 

They have been doing this kind of trickeries for as long as paper nappies have existed.

I guess in this there will be legal hurdles for the prosecution to overcome. I also guess he will get some time, but probably not as a full-blown terrorist, but you never know.

 

You are correct it isn't entrapment.

The reason this isn't entrapment is that the FBI didn't induce him to commit a crime.

If the FBI had just randomly selected him off the street and then proceeded to convince him to do this then you could claim entrapment.

The opposite happened here in that the suspect sought them out to commit a crime. They didn't have to convince (induce) him to do anything as it was his intent all along to blow something up.

This tact is something that has been used forever by local law enforcement and federal agencies. The most common form of it is one everyone should recognize. I pretty sure everyone have seen "the stupidest criminal" videos that are out there everywhere. Ever see the ones where they (police/undercover vice) bust "johns" looking for prostitutes who are actually undercover cops? Pretty much the same thing happened to this guy only the tact was refitted to fit a different situation.

 

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHA LMAO!!

 

I give them credit for catching this guy but if this is representative of the terrorist threat in this country then the whole threat is overstated. We've been given this picture of terrorists as super committed, well funded, and well trained people who wait for years as sleeper cells doing extensive surveillance on possible targets and then get triggered to act by some chain of command or some overseas communication. This was just some idiot teen apparently.

 

his initiative. they just supplied the parts (that didn't work). nowhere near the pre-crime concept.

he tried to blow up a building. he collected the parts. he drove to the building. he sought to detonate it.

 

It sounds like this was done very much to scare off potential terrorists. I mean think about it, the FBI breaks the news that they effectively can pose as terrorists and they won't be any the wiser until the bomb fails to detonate and a dozen FBI agents surround you. It's bound to make terrorists organisations nervous.

 

I disagree, it makes stupid teens with bad connections nervous. The real terrorists, the Al-Qaeda league guys have no reason to be worried. They are well connected, well trained, full of resources and plans.

In fact, I would argue that this may have just been a way for the govt. to reassure us that they are getting the job done better than ever before. People feed on results and faces and names, not empty promises.

 

Yeah, let's run down and belittle the apprehension of possible terrorists. The less we appreciate FBI agents and others working to protect the nation, the better it is.

This arrest didn't mean JACK!

 

this is thing about texxx starting this thread, there actually was a major terrorist bust this week. I'm surprised no one started a thread on it.

 

I don't really get why this was put in the D&D honestly.

Seems more like news, rather than some kind of giant powder keg of controversy.

 

In my opinion this is a waste of time and ressources. The purpose of our anti-terrorism capaign is to catch terrorist with the MEANS to deliver not to entice noob terrorist into commiting make belief acts of terror. I agree completely that its a good thing we got the guy in jail but that is not the greater purpose of our cause. We are after the trained, organized, secretive cells that could strike at a moments notice. These homebrew junior terrorist without any means to actually deliver an attack should be lower on the priority list.

Look the reality is that today within the US, we have hondreds of foreign national nutjobs living amongst us. Yes there are many who would like to inflict casuality on Americans. These people are living, breathing and walking right past us. My point is that this is no different than the white supremacists who gather throughout the country and often commit violent hate crimes and murders. However you don't see FBI sting operations trying to get KKK members to commit violent acts against minorities. This kind of operation is useless when it leads to no major breakthrough other than take one more lunatic off the street.

Something people often forget is that one of the main reason for creating the Patriot Act was to surveillance tag these kinds low level threats and keep on a eye on the suspect until he comes in contact with the bigger fish or acquires the means to carryout the attack.

This failed strategy used in this operation is the same one used by narc agents in the war against drugs. Keep going after the dealer without breaking up the distribution system of the suppliers. There will always be people willing to sell drugs or commit terrorism. The FBI's job is to go after organized activity and not just make small arrest.

Bottom line is the Patriot Acts gives the FBI so much power that there is no real purpose to carry out sting operations when you can watch these guys 24/7, get their emails, phone calls, bank record etc... Any successful intelligence program is based on gathering intel on all suspects big and small while leaving low level threats inside a surveillance bubble. This the whole purpose of the covert aspect of surveillance, you only make you presence known once you have a valuable taget in your sights. This is the new frontier in the war against terrorism. Permanant surveillance of all known threats because arresting those without acquired means to deliever is useless based on the broad numbers of possible would be terrorists. Our surveillance program after 9/11 was designed to provide stealth recon without resorting to making large number of arrests based on suspicion alone. There are too many "potential terrorist" that it requires a program to monitor them indefinitely at a large scale.

That was the dillema faced by our leaders back in the day. We needed a program to get intel on anyone at a moment's notice. Going through legal procedures would mean limiting the scope of our surveillance activities and only be able to go after high level targets where hard evidence can be acquired. There was genuine need for a program that would just watch forever the dormant threats until they became active. This surveillance bubble is what is keeping us from having to make wide scale arrests based on suspicion.

 

The question is - did this guy commit a crime or not?

It's not entrapment unless he was manipulated into doing it. If the FBI persuaded him to do it and put pressure on him to do it, then it's not a crime...or at least, if it is a crime, then the FBI should be considered an accomplice and be prosecuted as well.

If this guy was simply a willing person whom the FBI offered a bomb to - gave him a fake one and he did everything else on his own - yes, I think it's safe to say he's a criminal and needs to be locked up.

 

NICE!!!

Way to go twist what I said.

 

hmmm..i'm thinking it's one less guy willing to park a car underneath a building and believe himself to be about to blow the whole thing up with a cell phone and explosives. but that's just me.

 

No, it's not just you.