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Both organizations have had reputations for being honeypots as early as 2016. There have been a number of instances of federal agents becoming embedded in the o
by lurk2 2y ago
Both organizations have had reputations for being honeypots as early as 2016. There have been a number of instances of federal agents becoming embedded in the organizational structures of groups like this (see e.g. the Malheur Wildlife Standoff and the plot to assassinate Gretchen Whitmer). Groups of this scale tend to fall into one of three categories: 1) They are honeypots set up by policing and / or intelligence agencies, 2) they start off as legitimate (though potentially not-yet radicalized) organizations that are compromised by a member turning informant when the radicalization begins to alarm them, or 3) they start off as radical organizations and are compromised after a federal agency threatens the leadership with jail time or influences them into becoming informants. It's quite common for the FBI to frame this as "helping to keep people safe"; leaders in groups like this are frequently easy to manipulate with flattery.
- noneeeed 2y agoI've been struck by how often it is really quite senior people within criminal/terrorist organisations are the ones that get turned by the various agencies. In the UK, there was an informant for MI5 in the IRA for years codenamed Steaknife. It turned out he was the head of IRA internal security, it was his job to hunt moles. He was the perfect agent. I seem to remember a story of a mafia don who turned out to be an informant, which seems wild to me.
- boomboomsubban 2y ago> I seem to remember a story of a mafia don who turned out to be an informant, which seems wild to me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitey_Bulger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitey_Bulger
- noneeeed 2y agoAha, thank you.
- rufus_foreman 2y agoThe Scorsese movie "The Departed" is both a remake of a film made in Hong Kong ("Infernal Affairs") and a semi-realistic depiction of the Boston Winter Hill Gang led by Bulger.
- red-iron-pine 2y agohe was informant to cover his ass, and run to attempts to play all sides. slip the feds a little juice tidbit here or there and he gets to run his empire a few months longer. repeat over and over until the feds get smart.
- reverendsteveii 2y ago>he was informant to cover his ass, and run to attempts to play all sides. I mean, it's not as though other mafiosi turn informant because they yearn for justice...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- boomboomsubban 2y agoThis makes it sound like the FBI was unaware they were dealing with a mafia don. They knew and didn't care, it benefit them.
- pjc50 2y agoBob Lambert https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Lambert_(undercover_police_officer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Lambert_(undercover_police... was one of the people responsible for the 'McLibel' leaflet that turned into the UK's longest running libel case. These days it looks to me like Extinction Rebellion (XR) are being run by spies, since all their activities are so counter-productive in terms of making people hate environmentalism.
- noneeeed 2y agoI am convinced Just Stop Oil are. Everything they do simply makes people angry at the environmental movement. XR seem to be trying to distance themselves, but it's too late, I don't think most people distinguish between them.
- lurk2 2y agoThe Lambert case is wild. I genuinely didn't believe it when I first read about it just because it was so bizarre.
- ashoeafoot 2y agoRight, like putting out beavers in villages and towns. The beavers dig up dams, floiding the town, town which loved green and quiet hates environmentals forever. I would donate to that sort of self defeat initiative a million every day if i were exxon mobile. Anything to antagonize working class people.
- cess11 2y agoThe older you get, the more you've got to lose, and a lot of people become less radical with age. At the same time you also tend to be a higher value target for external actors compared to young, new, members of an organisation. So in the young end of it you'd prefer infiltration to recruiting informants, in part because young informants also tend to be less reliable than old, for the reasons above. If it's your agent loyalty isn't as brittle as when you've convinced someone to become a traitor. When news of government or other external actors having gained access breaks, you typically don't want your infiltrators to become known if you can avoid it. It's different in some settings, antifascists commonly do the opposite and try to protect their informants so they can keep working if they move on to another far right group, while their infiltrators sometimes go public with what they've done.
- AnimalMuppet 2y agoIf you get enough on them that you could probably prosecute them successfully, then you have enough on them to try to turn them. And if they're the only one at that level that you have enough on, rather than make one prosecution, it may be better to turn them.
- lurk2 2y agoThey are the highest value targets who coordinate the group's activities. Most will have done something at some point that could land them in prison for a long time; this is how they are typically turned. The ones that haven't done anything the feds can feasibly threaten them with often get bribed, which is where things can get really messy because you end up with policing organizations essentially permitting organized crime under a series of conditions (e.g. keep things quiet and we won't bother you). There are many documented instances of this happening on the street level, and some evidence to suggest it is occurring at the national level and the international level. It can be counter-intuitive to think of these organizations being so easily compromised, but a good rule of thumb is that no organization dedicated to criminal or subversive activity is going to evade the attention of the feds, and once that attention is there, they will almost never be able to outspend them. It's comparable to a small business trying to harden their systems against a state actor.
- asa400 2y agoI would go so far as to say it quite literally is a small business trying to harden their systems against a state actor, only the systems here are organizational systems.
- Baljhin 2y ago> I seem to remember a story of a mafia don who turned out to be an informant, which seems wild to me. There's also "Jimmy the Weasel" Fratianno who turned FBI informant. In Ovid Demaris' book "The Last Mafioso: The Treacherous World of Jimmy Fratianno", he quotes Jimmy even laughs about being one, taking money from FBI and still running his rackets for a time.
- potato3732842 2y agoThe characterization of "informants" as being literal on the payroll feds is usually incorrect. They're usually genuine group members who are being manipulated by literal on the payroll feds. And you're missing a key feedback loop. The feds typically "create" an informant by digging up dirt on someone and blackmailing them into ratting on their buddies in exchange for non-prosecution. This informant then has a huge f-ing reason to radicalize the group and see to it that they do or attempt to do something worthy of prosecution so that they can make good on their promise to the feds. So otherwise potentially benign groups wind up getting turned into hotbeds of extremism basically because the feds demand extremists to prosecute. This is a workflow that dates back at least as far as the war on drugs where you'd have small time traffickers would get turned into informants and then work tirelessly to push their boss's or suppliers business to the next level while collecting evidince for their handlers. It was used on racist and religious extremist groups in the 80s and 90s and then on muslim religious groups in the 00s and now you're seeing it again with right wing groups.
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- dingnuts 2y agohence my confusion at the sudden "left" outcry over the attacks on the FBI and CIA, two organizations they have been bemoaning for my entire life, and with good reason! Those organizations are responsible for some of the absolute worst behavior associated with American history, the most shameful of shameful episodes throughout the Americas were started by the CIA and FBI. I think the outcry is actually mostly media-oriented, because the media for the last generation has been filled with ex-Agents and funded by the Fed. The media is sad to see these organizations attacked, because the media is run by people with emotional bonds to those agencies. Good riddance to all of them!
- potato3732842 2y ago>hence my confusion at the sudden "left" outcry over the attacks on the FBI and CIA, two organizations they have been bemoaning for my entire life I have been saying it for over a decade, the western world is having a crisis of principals, not a crisis of policy. The inability to implement good policy (both public and private) is a symptom.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- gadders 2y agoIt is quite funny on 4chan and similar places watching everyone accuse everyone else that protests in some way of being a fed. Which I guess is job done for the security services.
- lupusreal 2y agoSince Chanology, it has been known by anybody paying attention and keeping score that taking 4chan into the real world is extremely cringe and must always be criticized. Whether it's organizing political protests on 4chan or anything else even remotely like that, its cringe and anybody suggesting it deserves to be flamed.
- amy214 2y agoA telling example where such a ploy failed to play out and got exposed was Ruby Ridge. An independently minded off-grid man with his family, some loose social contacts with a nearby neo-nazi group. Randomly gets paid to turn a 16 inch shotgun into a 15 inch shotgun, which is a felony crime, now they blackmail him to hook up with the neo nazis and inform or take those sawing off of a shotgun type charges. Ended up with a standoff outside their house when a dog barking at agents snooping around became a gunfight, lost his wife and newborn kid to an overly exuberant DEA sniper
- mnky9800n 2y agoAnd this led eventually to the Oklahoma City bombing as Timothy mcveigh said he was motivated by this and Waco.