
FBI's “imperfect entrapment” of teen may lead to FAA challenge - BDGC
http://www.buzzfeed.com/nicolasmedinamora/did-the-fbi-transform-this-teenager-into-a-terrorist
======
rtl49
This seems like a tragic situation. There are some strong indications that
personal and social problems are what drove Mohamud to embrace Islam, and that
therefore these are in some sense responsible for making him susceptible to
becoming 'radicalized.'

However, unlike some others in this thread, I don't find myself privately
rejoicing that a legal technicality has now presented him with a chance of
freedom. Whatever the causes of his antipathy toward the United States, and
however you feel about the surveillance state and general disregard among law
enforcement for our constitutional rights, Mohamud demonstrated a very clear
intention to kill many people whom he never met. This cannot be attributed to
entrapment, even if it is ultimately shown that his constitutional rights have
been violated.

I hope Mohamud has overcome whatever psychological state led him into this
situation. If it could be shown that he is truly better, I would have no
objection to his return to society. But there is something absurd about the
possibility that a person with a demonstrated propensity for mass violence
might be returned to society at large without any legal restrictions,
psychological treatment, or period of supervision.

~~~
DennisP
The appeal isn't about entrapment, it's about wholesale warrantless
surveillance of American citizens.

> Mohamud is the very first criminal defendant to challenge the FAA before a
> court of appeals, which opens the door for a hearing before the U.S. Supreme
> Court. The appeal has widespread implications: The controversial law
> provides the legal framework for the mass surveillance programs that Edward
> Snowden revealed in 2013.

> “It’s not an exaggeration,” Patrick Toomey, an American Civil Liberties
> Union attorney, told BuzzFeed News, “to say that the privacy rights of
> millions of Americans potentially hang in the balance of his case.”

~~~
eru
> The appeal isn't about entrapment, it's about wholesale warrantless
> surveillance of American citizens.

Why should they have it any better than the unAmerican citizens of the world?

~~~
jedmeyers
The Constitution of the United States only protects US persons (not citizens)
from unreasonable surveillance. Spying on "unAmerican citizens of the world"
is the direct duty of many of the US spy agencies, of which there are 17.

------
pcl
In this context, FAA is a 2008 amendment to the FISA legislation, not the
Federal Aviation Administration.

~~~
bsimpson
I definitely clicked the link going "WTF does the FAA have to do with FBI
entrapment?" Until I read the article, I had no idea there was a FISA-enabling
law also called the FAA.

------
ameen
As a Muslim, this article is an eye opener as to how individuals become
radicalised. Part of it is due to Terrorist publications, I don't see why
these articles/magazines aren't actively being taken down. Most Daesh foreign
fighters were recruited through such channels as well.

The other part is unfortunately due to radicalisation by the FBI and other
state agencies. Had this teen been made to work for an honest living — as he
was trying to by working on a fishing boat, would he realise the value of
life. And part of his personality seems odd as well, he's hypocritical and
blames his transgressions on western society whereas there are countless cases
of individuals living a productive & a peaceful life.

His parents' approach has been reactive instead of being preemptive. Had they
known of him sneaking around and being with shady characters they should've
had a proper intervention and led him on the right path.

Parenting is hard, and unfortunately this is a case of failed parenting.

~~~
hackaflocka
Why take them down when leaving them up acts as a honey-pot to trap would-be
recruits.

~~~
CydeWeys
Having a honeypot is not helpful. You can never kill all the people who don't
like you. Better to not have them join up with the enemy in the first place.
All the regimes that were historically the most successful at stifling dissent
and opposition knew this and did it.

------
richardwhiuk
Wonderful, it's the FBI and intelligence agencies that are responsible for
radicalising people in order to arrest them later. Presumably some of them
drop through the net after they've been successfully radicalised.

Well, least it's consistent with US policy with the mujahideen from
Afghanistan against the Soviets.

------
ern
_Wahhabism, a traditionalist Sunni practice_

Wahabism (Salafism) is decidedly not traditionalist. At best, it's a form of
degraded literalism that abandons 1400 years of exegesis for an anarchic
reading of Islamic texts. It lends itself easily to terrorism, and, as the
founding doctrine of the Saudi state, it is gaining traction in much of the
world. It seems to have particular appeal for "born again" types like the
subject of this article.

------
Karunamon
_“Do you guys know Pioneer Square?” the teen said. “When they have events,
everybody comes up there. So, on the 26th of November, they have a Christmas
tree lighting and some 25,000 people attend. You know, the streets are packed.
I thought, I thought if you could help me, you know, to have, to have a truck.
… You know, explosives, inshallah.”_

 _“And this is what’s in your heart?” Youssef said. “You know, there’s going
to be a lot of children there.”_

 _“Yeah, I mean, that’s what I’m looking for,” Mohamud said._

Providing this is an accurate recounting of events (this _IS_ the FBI we're
talking about), it was at this point that I stopped caring about the poor
misled / "entrapped" teenager.

He just flat out said he wanted to kill a bunch of people including innocent
children. And was given multiple outs by the so-called entrappers.

Entrapment nothing - this sounds like a legitimate sting operation to me that
got a dangerous killer off the streets.

~~~
DennisP
They're not complaining about the entrapment in the appeal, and it's not just
about that one guy. This is the first criminal case challenging wholesale
warrantless surveillance in court.

~~~
Karunamon
Which is fine, and even necessary, but the article and many commenters here go
out of their way to castigate the FBI for "trapping" this kid, which is
plainly not the case.

~~~
dnr
Do you think, if the FBI hadn't gotten involved, that he would have had the
initiative to put this plan, or any similar plan, into action himself?

Based on the article, it seems to me that he almost certainly would not have.
He appears to be naive, gullible, and latching on to one thing or other for
direction. When placed on a perfectly set up stage for doing something
horrible, he did it. But without that perfect stage, what would he have done?
He's clearly not a "good person", and could definitely be described as
"immoral". But it's not clear to me that he's a criminal and deserves jail
time. It seems like he didn't meet the requirements for an entrapment defense,
at least according to the jury. But it still seems very close to entrapment:
he's essentially being punished for a a tendency or a willingness to do
horrible things, even if he would never have done them without specific
encouragement.

~~~
simonh
He was actively looking for ways to carry out an attack. Do you seriously
think if the FBI hadn't got in the way, he would have stopped doing that? He
doesn't seem any less capable or motivated than the Tsarnaev brothers.

------
joshAg
TLDR: don't ever contact the cops because they will fuck shit up even worse
than if you didn't call.

------
tekromancr
It's not hard to take a troubled, isolated young person, isolate them further,
become their primary source of love and support, feed into grandiose fantasies
about how killing is the right thing and turn them into a killer. It is
literally how every military in the world operates. We have seen proven
experimentally otherwise well adjusted (albeit white educated industrialized
rich democratic college students mostly) will do horrible things if a person
of authority simply tells them to. As far as I can tell from this account,
that is more or less what happened here. A high-stakes version of the Milgrim
experiment.

I think we need a new approach. I think in situations where it is applicable,
authorities should attempt to positively intervene in a person's life when,
for example, in this situation where they collect information about a
highschool student who starts interacting with editors of extremist
publications. That sort of things should shoot up red flags that someone needs
help, rather than wait a few years and see if they can get them to try to kill
people.

------
xemoka
This doesn't just happen in the US. Here in Canada a seemingly similar
instance occurred:

[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-
legislatu...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-legislature-
bomb-plotters-entrapment-claims-hard-to-prove-1.3098654)

[http://www.citynews.ca/2015/09/17/lawyers-in-b-c-court-
argue...](http://www.citynews.ca/2015/09/17/lawyers-in-b-c-court-argue-for-
access-to-secret-documents-from-spy-agency/)

------
celticninja
The guy is an idiot. What was his part of the plan? He was there to push the
button only. He deserves to be in prison for sheer stupidity.

------
coldcode
I hope finally we have someone who can challenge the unconstitutional behavior
of our government. Our idiotic judicial rules always seem to rule in favor of
the government and the prosecution when it comes to FISA. Maybe it will
finally be stopped. Or not, the supremes aren't always consistent in their
"interpretation" of the obvious.

~~~
mulmen
Please remember that it falls to us, the voters and citizens to enact the laws
that we see fit. The judicial branch only interprets the law, we still have
the ability to change it if we disagree.

Apathy is the enemy of democracy.

------
powera
"One day, the devil came to God and said let's make a bet between you and me
for the soul of a man. And from on high, they looked down on Job, a devout
man, religious. And the devil said, I can change his mind and make him curse
your name. And God said try him, you will only fail. So the devil begins. He
kills Job's herds and takes his fields. He plagues him with boils and throws
him on the ash heap, but Job's mind remains unchanged. So I ask you son, if
the devil couldn't change Job's mind, how the hell are you going to change
mine?"

... apparently in this case the devil could change Job's mind.

------
dTal
>When the agents learned of Mohamud’s plans to travel to Alaska, they worried
he might try to continue to Pakistan or Yemen. They placed him on the no-fly
list.

 _Really?_

~~~
CydeWeys
It seems like a perfectly valid use of the no-fly list, unlike in the cases of
the majority of people who are put on it.

There are flights (with transfers) you can take from Alaska to Pakistan or
Yemen. It's not unreasonable at all.

~~~
viraptor
Seems like a good reason to at least have an international and local no-fly
list separate. How's access to flights in Alaska different from access to
flights in every other state? Unless there is a difference and I'm missing
something?

------
BeefySwain
I didn't know buzzfeed put out articles of substance.

~~~
dang
Quite a few have hit HN:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=buzzfeed.com%20points%3E10&sor...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=buzzfeed.com%20points%3E10&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story).

Many if not most of the major websites have this dual identity where they put
reams of fluff, then the occasional substantive piece.

~~~
colmvp
The reams of fluff bring in the dollars and views, whereby they can afford to
pay people to write substantive pieces. Furthermore, sometimes the biggest
'cost' is not the piece itself but making sure you have a legal team to defend
against potential SLAPP suits.

~~~
dang
The way you put it almost makes it sound not dysfunctional, i.e. high-quantity
dross subsidizes higher-quality material.

It still seems like there's a need for a different funding model. But it's
interesting that one still hasn't emerged, given that the erosion of the old
one has gone as far as it has.

