FBI Nab another nut job wanna be terrorist

@Robert Gentel,

I can see some significant deterence in how the FBI approached it. If you are a discontent proto-terrorist, you really have to wonder who that guy on the other end of the email chain is. Knowing that the Yemeni who just contacted you might be FBI might keep you from taking that last step from discontent to radical.

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@engineer,

A lot of very immoral things can serve as a fantastic deterrent though, so I don't see how deterrence does anything but mitigate the moral issues regarding the degree of complicity by the state with the accused.

In any case, the wannabe terrorist always had to worry that the person on the other end was the FBI, regardless of whether they played fake bomb theater with this guy. They could have charged the guy long before the mock terrorist attack scenario took place.

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here's a thought...

what if they were wrong a little, and the guy was smart enough to have his own back-up device.

and people were killed.

then what...

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I'm not seeing how the government's actions are "immoral." Hawkeye or Robert, can you explain? Are you suggesting that the FBI entrapped Mohamud, or are you saying that the government was obligated to use other means to thwart his desire for jihad or perhaps charge him at some earlier stage of his plan to detonate the explosive device and charge him with a lesser crime?

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@joefromchicago,

I do not think it qualifies as entrapment under American law (or any law that I am familiar with for that matter) but question it's moral legitimacy for the same reasons that laws about entrapment exist. I do not think it was likely that he would have committed the crime they helped him to commit without as much complicity on their part even though he was clearly willing to.

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I'm just not going to be quick to judge the FBI harshly. We really don't know anything about their investigation yet. We don't know why they let it go as far as they did.

I think I heard that Steven Wax was going to represent Mohamud so he's in good hands (Wax was the lawyer who represented Brandon Mayfield when the FBI fingered him in the Madrid bombing).

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@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

I do not think it qualifies as entrapment under American law (or any law that I am familiar with for that matter) but question it's moral legitimacy for the same reasons that laws about entrapment exist. I do not think it was likely that he would have committed the crime they helped him to commit without as much complicity on their part even though he was clearly willing to.

In my opinion, there is too much chance that in the absence of FBI participation,
he 'd have contacted REAL Moslems who'd do as much damage as possible, taking the WTC for their inspiration.

The FBI needed to protect and defend the citizens of Portland, Oregon.

It did so.

David

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

I do not think it qualifies as entrapment under American law (or any law that I am familiar with for that matter) but question it's moral legitimacy for the same reasons that laws about entrapment exist. I do not think it was likely that he would have committed the crime they helped him to commit without as much complicity on their part even though he was clearly willing to.

I'm not sure if the police, upon finding someone who has the desire and willingness, but not, apparently, the smarts, to blow up a lot of people, are morally required to stand back and let him try in the expectation that he'll fail. After all, there was no guarantee that Mohamud, on his own, wouldn't have succeeded in doing something. Total screw-ups have, in the past, been known to commit crimes successfully, despite their total screw-upedness. Are the police required to stand back and wait for someone like Mohamud to become more proficient at killing people before they act?

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@joefromchicago,

How does one become more proficient at killing people before one kills people?

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@joefromchicago,

Quote:

m not sure if the police, upon finding someone who has the desire and willingness, but not, apparently, the smarts, to blow up a lot of people, are morally required to stand back and let him try in the expectation that he'll fail. After all, there was no guarantee that Mohamud, on his own, wouldn't have succeeded in doing something

the state had other options beside either doing nothing and putting on an 18 month charade to see how for this 19 year old would go if he were supplied the means to attack the USA. They could have brought him into the criminal justice system long ago on a lessor charge, and hopefully between putting him in prison for a spell and also getting him psychiatric help thus rendered him not a threat. Once he was under the watch of the agents of the state he was never going to do any harm, this is like a sport where the team that knows they are going to win runs up the score on some schmuck so that they can pretend to the crowd that they are great. This is an abuse of a citizen at the hands of the state, and we should object.

EDIT: What we have here is a pissed off 19 year old who wanted to join a terrorist organization, but he never did and we don't know that he ever would have been able to do so. From the sound if it the one terrorist organization that he tried to hook up with wanted nothing to do with him. So now, thanks to the state, he is a terrorist who tried to use a "weapon of mass destruction" on America?? Please...This is on par with a Kangaroo court....this is Kangaroo "justice".

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@hawkeye10,

It may be kind of a side issue, but I question the application of the term "weapon of mass destruction". It was a handy expression when it meant chemical, biological, and radiological weapons. If it now includes homemade bombs, tomorrow it will probably become any firearm other than a single shot rifle, and finally, anything that can be used as an instrument of murder. Jeez, if you murder someone, it's murder.

Kind of like enhancing a crime by calling it a 'hate crime'. Just charge the crime at the proper level and apply the appropriate punishment.

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@InfraBlue,

InfraBlue wrote:

How does one become more proficient at killing people before one kills people?

Learning how to build bombs that actually go "boom" would be one way.

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@roger,

Quote:

It may be kind of a side issue

Another side issue is the speculation that this young man's family is responsible for the FBI having him on their radar. If this turns out to be true it is not in the states interest to abuse him, because the message sent is dont ever tell the state if you suspect someone in your family is a terrorist. If the family turns in one of their own for the good of the state then the state has an obligation to show consideration...running up the charges as has been done here is not that.

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

the state had other options beside either doing nothing and putting on an 18 month charade to see how for this 19 year old would go if he were supplied the means to attack the USA.

No doubt the state had plenty of other options. The question, though, is whether it was morally obligated to pick one of those other options. You've already decided that Mohamud was psychologically disturbed, and that he would have benefitted from psychiatric intervention (what your professional qualifications are or on what basis you made that diagnosis I don't know). That may be true, but then why is the state obligated to make the decision to charge him at an earlier stage of his plan and then send him to prison, where he may or may not get that psychiatric help?

hawkeye10 wrote:

Once he was under the watch of the agents of the state he was never going to do any harm, this is like a sport where the team that knows they are going to win runs up the score on some schmuck so that they can pretend to the crowd that they are great.

Well, if he was no threat at all once he came under the observation of the state, then I suppose the state should have just kept observing him. That way nobody goes to prison and nobody gets killed. Your option -- charging Mohamud with some lesser offense and packing him off to jail -- sounds positively punitive in comparison.

hawkeye10 wrote:

What we have here is a pissed off 19 year old who wanted to join a terrorist organization, but he never did and we don't know that he ever would have been able to do so.

Yeah, a guy who can't tell the difference between a e-mail address and a password isn't the brightest bulb in the marquee, but like I said before, plenty of screw-ups have, nevertheless, gone on to commit crimes. At what point does the harmless screw-up become the dangerous screw-up?

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@engineer,

Quote:

Knowing that the Yemeni who just contacted you might be FBI might keep you from taking that last step from discontent to radical.

It is just as likely that is will cause you to be a lone wolf and therefore be a hundred time harder to find ahead of the act.

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@OmSigDAVID,

Quote:

In my opinion, there is too much chance that in the absence of FBI participation,
he 'd have contacted REAL Moslems who'd do as much damage as possible, taking the WTC for their inspiration.

As they knew of him keeping a light eye on him and allowing him to keep trying to contact real terrorists and terrorists cells seem to be the way to go.

Then you might get some real bad actors in the net instead of just a 19 year old fool.

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@BillRM,

Quote:

As they knew of him keeping a light eye on him and allowing him to keep trying to contact real terrorists and terrorists cells seem to be the way to go.

Logic suggests that this is the way they would have gone had they had any confidence that real terrorists would take him.....

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@hawkeye10,

Quote:

Logic suggests that this is the way they would have gone had they had any confidence that real terrorists would take him.....

AGREE as they did not do so seem to imply that this was view as a PR matter not as any kind of a real threat.

They could had save one hell of a lot of resources and taxpayer funds if they had simply charge him at the start with trying to contact terrorists.

One can only wonder if they let holes in our security by having agents manpower playing games with this kid or not.

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@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

Are the police required to stand back and wait for someone like Mohamud to become more proficient at killing people before they act?

Why are you asking me this? I made very clear that I think the police should have acted sooner, rather than later and you are construing my position as if I call for them to "stand back" for some reason (probably because it's an easier position to argue against).

I think they should have charged him with the weaker charges that being a wannabe terrorist soliciting help to commit murder allowed them. This would have allowed them to prevent future attacks without being so complicit in the logistics of the fake attack.

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@roger,

My understanding is that in military vernacular it pretty much just means any weapon meant to kill multiple people at one time.

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FBI Nab another nut job wanna be terrorist

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