
Most people prosecuted for terrorism since 2001 haven’t committed a violent act - Argentum01
https://trial-and-terror.theintercept.com/
======
djsumdog
It'd be interesting to see breakdowns by race/religion (Muslims in mosques vs
NRA gun collectors who are in local militias).

There have been cases where mosques have contacted the FBI to inform them of
people they found disturbing (trying to recruit people) only to discover later
those people were FBI agents sent to root out extremists.

[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/fbi-
plant-b...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/fbi-plant-banned-
by-mosque-ndash-because-he-was-too-extreme-2153057.html)

If one of these people, released from prison in exchange for this work, feels
pressured to convert/indoctrinate a person who would normally not give a damn
about any type of revolution, how is that not entrapment?

Other disturbing trends: some people are arrested for giving money to a mosque
in some far of region they grew up in. If you gave money to a church or a
lobby origination that ends up doing highly illegal stuff, are you now liable?

The greater speech issue: if Americans start to gather and think America
should be split or states should succeed (won't happen today; there's less
then 3% support even in places like Texas/Cascades--but in the future?), even
if they work on peaceful means, could this be marked at terrorism? What if
peaceful organizations for revolution have a few violent members? Will the
leaders of peaceful originations be arrested for giving monetary support to
members of a militia who do something violent?

~~~
drspacemonkey
>There have been cases where mosques have contacted the FBI to inform them of
people they found disturbing (trying to recruit people) only to discover later
those people were FBI agents sent to root out extremists.

Just to add to what you said - that's not at all exclusive to the FBI or the
USA. Up here in Canada, the RCMP spent huge amounts of money trying to catch
two "terrorists" that they basically created. These two people lacked the
means and motive to carry out any kind of attack, but our federal police
service wasn't deterred. A team of 240 officers worked to groom them and
provide them with fake explosives. They found two naive, isolated drug
addicts, then isolated them even further and tried to plant extremist ideology
into their heads. Even then, at several points, they asked their undercover
handler for any kind of moral justification for why they SHOULD NOT go through
with the attack, and the undercover officer did the exact opposite. In the
end, they _still_ wanted to back out but were afraid that the undercover
officer would kill them in retaliation.

Their case was so egregious that our Supreme Court overturned the conviction
on the grounds that if the RCMP had done nothing, the two wouldn't have done
anything worthy of criminal charges. To make matters even worse, the RCMP
billed for almost a million dollars worth of overtime alone manufacturing a
fake terrorist plot.

[http://www.ctvnews.ca/w5/terror-plotters-claim-they-were-
gro...](http://www.ctvnews.ca/w5/terror-plotters-claim-they-were-groomed-by-
mounties-and-were-relieved-bombs-were-fake-exclusive-w5-interview-1.3279805)

------
dforrestwilson1
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fxx1KdGXti0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fxx1KdGXti0)

^ I was listening to this earlier and I can't help but point out the creeping
government overreach in all aspects of our lives. We drop bombs at the drop of
a hat, and send people to prison for thought crimes.

I really hope everyone can see that we must roll back the powers of the
federal government, or it is going to roll over us.

~~~
okreallywtf
My problem with this is that people get a perception that just rolling back
the powers of the federal government is good in general and also that it would
be easy. This is not necessarily the case, but it allows groups that would
benefit from a weaker federal government to prosper (sometimes at the expense
of the people) because one part of the federal government is getting to
powerful or is not transparent enough. This allows for a divide and conquer
approach in areas like the environment, discrimination, labor rights etc.

The federal government isn't simply going to give up authority, and if it does
it will likely be to the economic benefit of the organizations that lobbied
for it in the first place (EPA cuts for example). If you want change, simply
grumbling about the federal government is not going to help. It will take
concerted effort to push candidates in one of the parties to take these issues
seriously and to get elected on them.

------
pbreit
I didn't read the article yet but I would think "conspiring" to commit
terrorism would be much more common than carrying it out.

~~~
seiferteric
Not only that but it seems like most of those who successfully carry out an
act of terrorism end up dead anyway, either self inflicted or by LEO so
obviously they wont be convicted.

~~~
jobigoud
Survivorship bias at its finest.

------
Argentum01
OP here. For those interested, the journalists who compiled all this data also
wrote extensively about their findings:
[https://theintercept.com/series/trial-and-
terror/](https://theintercept.com/series/trial-and-terror/)

------
golergka
Good prevention work then. If a person is already in a state where undercover
FBI agents are able to set him up with a sting operation, then he could've
just as easily been involved in the real thing if they didn't do their job.

------
dsfyu404ed
This is a specific case of a general problem with how violations of law are
investigated and prosecuted in this country that happens to be made worse by
the fact that in this case it involves federal officers and many people who
are not native to the US (and aren't as familiar with their rights).

How "terrorism" cases are prosecuted is not the problem here. How cases in
general are prosecuted is the problem.

