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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 o

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. Or take the 53,000 to 258,000 people that are estimated to be part of ISIS's military forces and allied groups. Thankfully, most of them are pretty stupid, but there are also plenty of highly educated terrorists and they tend to be engineers. The flaw in the argument is likely GP's inference that "there are some controls there that I'm sure if the wrong person pushes that red button, something will go kaboom." Critical infrastructure tends to be better engineered than that. Cybersecurity threats are newer, less widely understood, and inadequately guarded against, but human error is an age-old problem.

philsnow 11y ago
> 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.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- marcoperaza 11y ago
  In these cases, there's always a clear intention to carry out an attack. Here's one such case: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/01/14/377287190/ohio-man-is-arrested-for-plotting-attack-on-u-s-capitol http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/01/14/377287190/... 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?
  - fapjacks 11y ago
    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.
    - golergka 11y ago
      How do you tell apart encouragement of activity that a person wouldn't otherwise do and getting a person to trust you enough? > Drug "dealers" hassled for months to purchase LSD and repeatedly being told "no", only to finally give in and then get arrested. That sounds exactly like pretty real dealers I know, who don't sell to people until they think they know them.
      - tamana 11y ago
        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.
tamana 11y ago
That's a myth. The FBI radicalizes mentally unstable people (which frankly most people are to some extent) (where radicalize means basically getting to say the kind of shit people spam Facebook and reddit with all the time) and then arrest them. The reality is vanishingly few people are both radical and have any notion of initiative and means to perpetrate an attack.
- marcoperaza 11y ago
  They target people who have said things online or in person, or have met with certain people, indicating their support for terrorism. Voicing support for terrorism is not illegal in this country, so you're totally wrong that that's what they're arresting people for. They then run the sting to see if the person is willing to carry out an attack, and takes concrete action toward that, like acquiring "explosives" or guns. At that point, they're guilty of a conspiracy. How would a real terrorist find recruits inside a Western country? They'd find people that posted something indicating their support, and then they'd try to talk them and coach them into carrying out attack.
  - greggman 11y ago
    People do all kinds of things under peer pressure and coercion they wouldn't do otherwise There's plenty of stories of tptb totally overstepping the bounds of peer pressure and coercion. I'd even argue that most people will choose to follow the crowd to fit in, not rock the boat, rather than go against their peers.
    - marcoperaza 11y ago
      >People do all kinds of things under peer pressure and coercion they wouldn't do otherwise So should we wait for the real terrorists to apply this "peer pressure and coercion" instead? We're talking about mass murder here, not pushing a little dope. Under what possible logic is an FBI agent able to convince someone to kill people, but a real terrorist isn't?
      - 11y ago

philsnow 11y ago

> 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.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
marcoperaza 11y ago
In these cases, there's always a clear intention to carry out an attack. Here's one such case: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/01/14/377287190/ohio-man-is-arrested-for-plotting-attack-on-u-s-capitol http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/01/14/377287190/... 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?
- fapjacks 11y ago
  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.
  - golergka 11y ago
    How do you tell apart encouragement of activity that a person wouldn't otherwise do and getting a person to trust you enough? > Drug "dealers" hassled for months to purchase LSD and repeatedly being told "no", only to finally give in and then get arrested. That sounds exactly like pretty real dealers I know, who don't sell to people until they think they know them.
    - tamana 11y ago
      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.

tamana 11y ago

That's a myth. The FBI radicalizes mentally unstable people (which frankly most people are to some extent) (where radicalize means basically getting to say the kind of shit people spam Facebook and reddit with all the time) and then arrest them. The reality is vanishingly few people are both radical and have any notion of initiative and means to perpetrate an attack.

marcoperaza 11y ago
They target people who have said things online or in person, or have met with certain people, indicating their support for terrorism. Voicing support for terrorism is not illegal in this country, so you're totally wrong that that's what they're arresting people for. They then run the sting to see if the person is willing to carry out an attack, and takes concrete action toward that, like acquiring "explosives" or guns. At that point, they're guilty of a conspiracy. How would a real terrorist find recruits inside a Western country? They'd find people that posted something indicating their support, and then they'd try to talk them and coach them into carrying out attack.
- greggman 11y ago
  People do all kinds of things under peer pressure and coercion they wouldn't do otherwise There's plenty of stories of tptb totally overstepping the bounds of peer pressure and coercion. I'd even argue that most people will choose to follow the crowd to fit in, not rock the boat, rather than go against their peers.
  - marcoperaza 11y ago
    >People do all kinds of things under peer pressure and coercion they wouldn't do otherwise So should we wait for the real terrorists to apply this "peer pressure and coercion" instead? We're talking about mass murder here, not pushing a little dope. Under what possible logic is an FBI agent able to convince someone to kill people, but a real terrorist isn't?
    - 11y ago