Remember the alleged planned terrorist attempt on the Sears Tower? Known as the Liberty City Seven, a group of misfits operating out of a warehouse in Miami attempted to purchase of weapons from FBI agents posing as representatives of al-Qaeda.
Indicted in federal court, three trials of the Liberty City Seven defendants took place. One defendant was acquitted in the first trial, but the jury deadlocked on the other six defendants and a mistrial occurred. The second trial also resulted in a deadlocked jury and a mistrial. On the third trial of the remaining six defendants, five were convicted on some of the counts, including the group’s ringleader, Narseal Batiste, the only defendant to be convicted on all four charges. Two more defendants were acquitted of all charges.
Glenn Greenwald questions the handling of the Portland Christmas tree lighting bombing effort by a nineteen year old teen rapper.
It may very well be that the FBI successfully and within legal limits arrested a dangerous criminal intent on carrying out a serious Terrorist plot that would have killed many innocent people, in which case they deserve praise. Court-approved surveillance and use of undercover agents to infiltrate terrorist plots are legitimate tactics when used in accordance with the law.
But it may also just as easily be the case that the FBI — as they’ve done many times in the past — found some very young, impressionable, disaffected, hapless, aimless, inept loner; created a plot it then persuaded/manipulated/entrapped him to join, essentially turning him into a Terrorist; and then patted itself on the back once it arrested him for having thwarted a “Terrorist plot” which, from start to finish, was entirely the FBI’s own concoction. Having stopped a plot which it itself manufactured, the FBI then publicly touts — and an uncritical media amplifies — its “success” to the world, thus proving both that domestic Terrorism from Muslims is a serious threat and the Government’s vast surveillance powers — current and future new ones — are necessary.
Entrapment may seem justified in order to enter a ‘broader web’ of terrorist leadership but if public safety is really the aim, maybe these strategies should be rethought.
