FBI Foils Another "Terrorist", Or Not?

I've posted about this before. I've shown in a few threads how the FBI is known for setting up terrorist suspects, paying for their equipment, showing them HOW to go about building bombs and creating plans, even going as far as instructing people to sell them guns, only to have them arrested afterwards.

Claiming of course, that they 'foiled a huge plot'. When in reality, they simply encouraged one to unfold so they could save the day.

Perceptions are everything.

Here we have Christopher Cornell:


Black Listed News

Arrested by the FBI after purchasing two high-powered assault rifles and ammunition at a local gunstore near Cincinnati, various news outlets have reported the case of Cornwell as a typical in terms of its relation to other so-called examples of "home-grown terrorism." The Christian Science Monitor reported some of the specifics of the case as follows:

Gun store employees had been instructed by FBI agents to sell Mr. Cornell the guns and ammo. The young man, who paid $1,900 in cash, was described by employees as shy but talkative. As soon as Cornell walked to the parking lot, agents tackled and arrested him. Included as part of the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) making the arrest were state and local law enforcement agencies as well as US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and the US Secret Service.

Cornell became known to the FBI last summer when he began voicing support for the Islamic State (also known as ISIS and ISIL) in the form of statements, videos, and other content posted to his Twitter accounts. “Defendant Christopher Cornell also voiced his support for violent jihad, as well as support for violent attacks committed by others in North America and elsewhere,” according to the criminal complaint filed Wednesday with US Magistrate Judge Stephanie Bowman.

The FBI soon enlisted an undercover informant in return for what the complaint says was "favorable treatment with respect to his criminal exposure on an unrelated case." The informant made contact with Cornell via Twitter, then the two began communicating through another instant messaging service.

So the FBI, orchestrate this man's descent into extremism, even go as far as creating a little play mate for him ( this informant), tell the gun shop owners to sell him the guns and arrest him.

Brilliant plan.

A little bit more from that article:

According to a report released last summer by Human Rights Watch and Columbia Law School's Human Rights Institute, an examination of numerous so-called "foiled" terror plots in the U.S. showed that government agents used entrapment strategies to create "illusionary" threats by people who vulnerable to manipulation.

The study, entitled Illusion of Justice: Human Rights Abuses in U.S. Terrorism Prosecutions, examined 27 federal terrorism cases (of more than 500 since September 11, 2001) from initiation of the investigations to sentencing and post-conviction conditions of confinement. It found serious infractions by government operatives at every turn.

As Andrea Prascow of Human Rights Watch and one of the authors of the report said at the time: "Americans have been told that their government is keeping them safe by preventing and prosecuting terrorism inside the US. But take a closer look and you realize that many of these people would never have committed a crime if not for law enforcement encouraging, pressuring, and sometimes paying them to commit terrorist acts."

Let's see if the FBI is guilty of having done this before..

NY Times

When an Oregon college student, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, thought of using a car bomb to attack a festive Christmas-tree lighting ceremony in Portland, the F.B.I. provided a van loaded with six 55-gallon drums of “inert material,” harmless blasting caps, a detonator cord and a gallon of diesel fuel to make the van smell flammable. An undercover F.B.I. agent even did the driving, with Mr. Mohamud in the passenger seat. To trigger the bomb the student punched a number into a cellphone and got no boom, only a bust.

That seems a bit much no?

Another

Another from 2011

So, as we can see, the FBI, is pretty much actively invested, in creating terror plots, just so they can save Americans, from the FBI it seems.

Isn't high time we have a discussion about the post 911 world in America and reign in these security agencies, who apparently have nothing better else to do but encourage terrorist activities, on American soil.

~Tenth

LOlz talk about pathetic, they are making criminals to arrest so it seems like they are doing something. . . .

I would say the guy showed more than enough willingness and desire to plan an attack....the FBI simply caught onto it before he could acquire all the materials by himself without anyone knowing and actually carry out an attack....it was simply a matter of time. Pretty happy they got this piece of crap off the street and likely averted another attack in the name of Islam and IS.

I have no problem with the tactics used in this case. The guy was ready to kill.

a reply to: Vasa Croe

Do you have any thoughts on the other links in the thread?

Personally, I think half of all these plots, never would have left the page, without the FBI's direct involvement.

~Tenth

Standard procedure .. create patsies to keep the fear levels up and pass more draconian laws to strip awy the rights of citizens .. repeat as needed ..

Rather suspect they will be stirring up the "homegrown extremist" pot as well as the usual fearmongering ..

originally posted by: tothetenthpower
a reply to: Vasa Croe

Do you have any thoughts on the other links in the thread?

Personally, I think half of all these plots, never would have left the page, without the FBI's direct involvement.

~Tenth

Sure....each one contains a few stories about similar events. The people involved already either had violent pasts or were involved with crime in some way. They got involved with someone posing as a terrorist and decided to be part of the plot. Trouble will all of the links is that they are all very one-sided with family members of the arrested and accused being the only ones quoted or spoken with and an obvious slant to the stories by the author/reporter.

I would much rather a pro-active FBI target certain people and get them off the street than an actual terrorist organization getting to them first and allowing them the ability to carry out a real attack. Much like the FBI, terror organizations target the same type of individuals....probably where the FBI got the profile from.

I know there is not a right answer here, as I am sure some of these cases could be argued that they would not have done it had they not been given the opportunity, but the facts are that they were given the opportunity and did try to carry it out....that speaks volumes as to their character and mindset.

a reply to: Vasa Croe

I would agree, but even the Harvard Law study published along side HRW, showed massive issues in how the FBI were handling these cases.

There's being proactive, and then there's being stupid. I would imagine if they are wasting time with the kind of 'terrorists' that would not carry out plots, less the FBI was involved, they will miss the real terrorists.

~Tenth

It would be easier to just script the entire episode with willing players (agents and contracted) on both sides.

The desired outcome is always obtained.

Setting up the victim is harder.

I also don't understand the mentality of those that would oppose something like this. I mean on one hand, sooooooo many people are outraged at LEO and alphabet agencies when an attack happens and was not thwarted, then you have the ones that complain that the agencies were the ones who perpetrated the attacks via the same means this story portrays, then there are the ones that get upset that the agencies are pro-active in a sense and doing stuff like the OP states.

They can't really win can they...damned if you do, damned if you don't.

In cases like this it`s always sad to see how deluded the parents are by thinking that their little boy is a good boy and would never do anything like this.perhaps having deluded parents is part of the reason he decided to go down this road of terrorism?

“He told me he had went to a mosque and now I know, in hindsight I know, he was meeting with an FBI agent,” the father told ABC News. “And they were taking him somewhere, and they were filling his head with a lot of this garbage.”

no dad,before the FBI even got involved in the case your sweet little boy`s head was already full of garbage and he had:

began voicing support for the Islamic State (also known as ISIS and ISIL) in the form of statements, videos, and other content posted to his Twitter accounts. “Defendant Christopher Cornell also voiced his support for violent jihad, as well as support for violent attacks committed by others in North America and elsewhere,”

Let`s see what else dear ole dad has to say:

"These guns cost almost $2,000. Where did that money come from? Well, it came from the FBI," he said. "They set him up."

Dad seems to think that individual terrorist fund their weapons and bombs, etc out of their own pockets therefore his son can`t possibly be a terrorist. using dad`s logic it`s impossible for poor people to be terrorists.

It seems that Junior inherited dad`s lack of critical thinking skills and that played a big part in how he got caught in an FBI sting.
It`s good that the FBI got to him before real terrorist did and started giving him real bombs and real plans to commit a terrorist act.