>> The public was never in any danger, the source said. The device created by the defendants was deemed inoperable and not a threat to the public.
Yet one of them got 30 years and the other one got off lightly with 8 because he pleaded guilty [1].
That sounds disproportionate to me. Reading a few more news items about the case, it seems the man who got the 30 years was clearly coockoo but despite his occupation ("industrial engineer") didn't have the means to produce a "weapon of mass destruction" (he was convicted under a law targeting "dirty bombs" [2]). I find his lawyer's defense that he (and his co-defendant) was entrapped by the FBI plausible.
In any case, is it really illegal to work out elaborate ways to kill people? Can you go to prison just because you have an overactive imagination? Or because you are really a bit of a cunt and don't care about other peoples' lives, or you hate a particular group of people, even though you've never actually harmed anyone?
Yet one of them got 30 years and the other one got off lightly with 8 because he pleaded guilty [1].
That sounds disproportionate to me. Reading a few more news items about the case, it seems the man who got the 30 years was clearly coockoo but despite his occupation ("industrial engineer") didn't have the means to produce a "weapon of mass destruction" (he was convicted under a law targeting "dirty bombs" [2]). I find his lawyer's defense that he (and his co-defendant) was entrapped by the FBI plausible.
In any case, is it really illegal to work out elaborate ways to kill people? Can you go to prison just because you have an overactive imagination? Or because you are really a bit of a cunt and don't care about other peoples' lives, or you hate a particular group of people, even though you've never actually harmed anyone?
Do we put people in prison just for talking shit?
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[1] https://www.foxnews.com/us/new-york-man-gets-30-years-in-pri...
[2] https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/new-york-man-gets-30-years-in-p...