> Judging by the continuous stream of people convicted for buying what they think are explosives from undercover FBI agents posing as jihadists, there are a lot of people that want to blow things up.
Well. If it were the case that there are lots of people trying to buy explosives from fbi agents posing as jihadists, I would go so far as to conclude that there are a lot of people who want _the ability_ to blow things up.
If there were a lot more office bombings, infrastructure bombings, etc, then I would agree that there appear to be a lot of people who want to actually blow things up.
By running these stings, the FBI has made it very hard for real terrorist plotters to get in contact with real would-be foot-soldiers. If someone agrees to carry out a bombing when a fake terrorist is asking, what makes you think they wouldn't do it when a real terrorist asks?
There's also this: "For months, the FBI used a confidential source to get close to Cornell, who allegedly said he wanted to hatch a plot inside the U.S."
"Get close to" in law enforcement parlance means "encourage criminal activity". If you read the details in these court cases, you repeatedly see an almost universal pattern of activity on the part of law enforcement to egg their targets on towards the criminal act. Drug "dealers" hassled for months to purchase LSD and repeatedly being told "no", only to finally give in and then get arrested. "Terrorists" being repeatedly contacted by informants or agents and plugged pro-terrorist encouragements for months until they agree to a part in some kind of "plot".
You have to remember that the vast majority of people won't take action by themselves. Even the crazy people that want to blow something up won't go out of their way to do it. It's the leaders you should be worried about. People that coordinate or incite others. Part of my career as an infantryman involved "riot police" training. The number one thing for arrest teams to do is to isolate and detain the people inciting the others. And this is why the powers that be are so hungry for mass surveillance: It's actually pretty easy to make giant relationship graphs of these networks to find the leaders. Remember the military talking about dropping five hundred pound bombs on phone numbers? They don't know who the person is, but they know he's a leader. Those people are easy to identify with enough information (and no, they don't need to unlock our iPhones to get at it).
It is in their best interest to keep pushing this idea that any random anti-government person is capable of an Oklahoma City bombing. The fact is, they're not.
OK, does that sound like the FBI's marketed image of a guy hanging around a playground giving out free samples to get kids hooked? They pick people who aren't dealers, and pressure them into dealing.
Exactly! Because that is what our system incentivizes! Those law enforcement and intelligence organizations have grotesquely enormous budgets and let's face it: They are shit-awful at stopping legitimate threats. That means they need to offset that terrible lack of efficiency with some number of "busts", even if they involve people that otherwise wouldn't be "dealers" or "terrorists" without the police egging them on. There is a huge incentive to go out and find dealers and terrorists, even in places where there actually aren't any.
>"Get close to" in law enforcement parlance means "encourage criminal activity". If you read the details in these court cases, you repeatedly see an almost universal pattern of activity on the part of law enforcement to egg their targets on towards the criminal act.
Do you think that real terrorist plotters just ask nicely once and then leave you alone?
Also, we're talking about mass murder here, not selling some acid. Maybe you're right about some of these drug cases crossing over into entrapment. A lot of people feel that drugs "aren't that bad" and if a friend bugged them enough, maybe they would try to find some. I don't know the facts sufficiently to conclude either way. But that's not what we're talking about here.
Right. It's all about people with power targeting people susceptible to those kinds of pressures. We have this habit in the developed world of shunning and shutting out people that are in or have been to prison. But you would do well to talk to those kinds of people. Our justice system takes the word of law enforcement over anyone else. That is a pretty precarious amount of trust in what is nothing more than another human being.
"Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made."
Well. If it were the case that there are lots of people trying to buy explosives from fbi agents posing as jihadists, I would go so far as to conclude that there are a lot of people who want _the ability_ to blow things up.
If there were a lot more office bombings, infrastructure bombings, etc, then I would agree that there appear to be a lot of people who want to actually blow things up.