19-year-old Jordanian arrested in Dallas bomb plot

Not fully knowing the details of what the FBI agents said to this guy or what he said I'm not completely comfortable with this.

Did this guy put a post on an extremist website saying, "I'm looking to hit America who can help?" or did the FBI put a post saying, "We are looking for people to carry out an attack who wants to sign up?" While yes this person clearly had some pre-existing hatred towards the US I'm not sure that that hatred automatically means he would turn to terrorism if not for the means and methods being given to him. My understanding is that hating the US isn't a crime so I am troubled by the idea if the FBI is essentially trying to bait people into becoming terrorists.

I understand law enforcement uses these type of tactics all the time but I think there is a difference between say setting up a fake drug deal to arrest a known drug dealer versus leading someone who other than a particular viewpoint has had no prior indication that they may become a terrorist.

 

Can we say with any certainty that if this guy had never been contacted by agents posing as Al Qaeda that he ever would've done something like this? Without knowing more about what was said it seems like the FBI found someone who had a hatred of America and encouraged that hatred by offering the means and methods to carry out an attack so he could become a terrorist so they could arrest him. In otherwords they didn't find a known threat but created one.

 

stories like this are hard to comment on, we don't know all the details. And we can all pretend to be law enforcement experts after so many years of Law and Order, The Wire, Homocide Life on the Street, CSI, etc. But I just can't help but think it would have been more useful to track this guy until he got into contact with someone that could really help him pull it off.

 

The guy did go through with it though....so he needs to be locked up.....or shot.

DD

 

Great point and part of why I find this troubling.

 

I think that it could be an effective deterrent. The bad guys are already as far underground as they can go. This puts the idea in their heads that maybe they do not know who they are dealing with as well as they think they might.

Pretty effective psychological attack on sleeper cells I would think.

 

that's nice but you didn't address my post. Or is this a strawman? Perhaps you misread it?

 

This is standard law enforcement practice. Just like criminals who are deluded thinking that they can force a cop to admit his identity by asking "are you a cop?" because of entrapment laws, a lot of people confuse the basic premise of a sting with entrapment. It is only entrapment if the cops/FBI convinced him to perform the criminal act when he didn't have the intent to do so otherwise. Entrapment law says the cops can't hold a gun to your wife's forehead and then threaten to kill her unless you rob a bank, but it does not in any way preclude posing as accessories to someone who clearly had the intent to do bad things to begin with.

 

FTFA:

There's your answer.