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Portland Oregon Bombing Plot, Good Police Work or Heavy-Handed Entrapment?
DoctorArch
CurmudgeonRegistered User regular
CurmudgeonRegistered User regular
For those that don't know, last Friday night, on November 26, a man was arrested attempting to blow up a car bomb in downtown Portland at the Christmas Tree lighting ceremony where 10,000 people were in attendance. No one was in any danger at any time, as the bomb was a carefully orchestrated sting operation to capture this man:
Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a 19 year old Somali-born immigrant. The full story can be found here at the New York Times, and here at the Oregonian.
Here's the story from the Oregonian, spoiled for huge:
Good police work, right? Wrong, says Glenn Greenwald over at Salon.com. Linky. Glenn makes the claim that the FBI could be responsible for coercing Mr. Mohamud into participating in the activity. But, as a commenter points out, Glenn ignores or interprets events in a different fashion than reported in the NYTimes:
Does Greenwald have a point, or is he being unnecessarily contrarian?
Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a 19 year old Somali-born immigrant. The full story can be found here at the New York Times, and here at the Oregonian.
Here's the story from the Oregonian, spoiled for huge:
The FBI thwarted an attempted terrorist bombing in Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square before the city's annual tree-lighting Friday night, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Oregon.
A Corvallis man, thinking he was going to ignite a bomb, drove a van to the corner of the square at Southwest Yamhill Street and Sixth Avenue and attempted to detonate it.
However, the supposed explosive was a dummy that FBI operatives supplied to him, according to an affidavit in support of a criminal complaint signed Friday night by U.S. Magistrate Judge John V. Acosta.
Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, a Somali-born U.S. citizen, was arrested at 5:42 p.m., 18 minutes before the tree lighting was to occur, on an accusation of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. The felony charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The arrest was the culmination of a long-term undercover operation, during which Mohamud had been monitored for months as his alleged bomb plot developed.
"The device was in fact inert, and the public was never in danger," according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office.
The investigation involved the FBI, Oregon State Police, Portland Police Bureau, Corvallis Police Department and Lincoln County Sheriff's Office.
"This defendant's chilling determination is a stark reminder that there are people -- even here in Oregon -- who are determined to kill Americans," said Oregon U.S. Attorney Dwight Holton. "The good work of law enforcement protected Oregonians in this case -- and we have no reason to believe there is any continuing threat arising from this case."
According to the FBI affidavit, the case began in August 2009 when Mohamud was in e-mail contact with an unindicted associate overseas who was believed to be involved in terrorist activities. In December 2009, while the unindicted associate was in a frontier province of Pakistan, Mohamud and the associate discussed the possibility of Mohamud traveling to Pakistan to participate in violent jihad.
The associate allegedly referred Mohamud to a second associate overseas and provided him with a name and e-mail address. In the months that followed, Mohamud made several unsuccessful attempts to contact the second associate.
Ultimately, an FBI undercover operative contacted Mohamud in a June 2010 e-mail under the guise of being an associate of the first unindicted associate.
Mohamud and the FBI operative agreed to meet in Portland a month later. Mohamud allegedly told the FBI operative that he had written articles that were published in Jihad Recollections, an online magazine that advocated holy war.
Mohamud also indicated he intended to become "operational," meaning he wanted to put an explosion together but needed help. The two met again in August 2010 in a Portland hotel.
"During this meeting, Mohamud explained how he had been thinking of committing some form of violent jihad since the age of 15," the affidavit says. "Mohamud then told (the FBI operatives) that he had identified a potential target for a bomb: the Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square on Nov. 26, 2010."
The FBI operatives cautioned Mohamud several times about the seriousness of his plan, noting that there would be many people, including children, at the event, and that Mohamud could abandon his plans at any time with no shame.
"You know there's going to be a lot of children there?" an FBI operative asked Mohamud. "You know there are gonna be a lot of children there?"
Mohamud allegedly responded he was looking for a "huge mass that will ... be attacked in their own element with their families celebrating the holidays."
Mohamud dismissed concerns about law enforcement, explaining that, " ... It's in Oregon; and Oregon, like, you know, nobody ever thinks about," according to the affidavit.
"The threat was very real," said Oregon's FBI Special Agent in Charge Arthur Balizan. "Our investigation shows that Mohamud was absolutely committed to carrying out an attack on a very grand scale. At the same time, I want to reassure the people of this community that, every turn, we denied him the ability to actually carry out the attack."
Mohamud maintained his interest in carrying out the attack and spent months working on logistics.
He allegedly identified a location to place the bomb and mailed bomb components to the FBI operatives, who he believed were assembling the device. He also mailed them passport photos so he could sneak out of the country after the attack, according to the affidavit.
He provided the FBI operatives with a thumbdrive that contained detailed directions to the bomb location and operational instructions for the attack.
On Nov. 4, Mohamud and the FBI operatives traveled to a remote spot in Lincoln County, where they detonated a bomb concealed in a backpack as a trial run for the upcoming attack.
On the drive back to Corvalis, FBI operatives quizzed Mohamud about whether he was capable of looking at the bodies of those who would be killed in his planned Portland attack.
"I want whoever is attending that event to leave, to leave either dead or injured," Mohamud reportedly told the FBI operatives, the affidavit says.
Later that day, Mohamud recorded a video of himself with the FBI operatives in which he read a written statement offering his reasons for the planned Portland bombing.
On Nov. 18, FBI operatives picked up Mohamud to travel to Portland, where they would finalize details of the attack.
David S. Kris, assistant U.S. attorney general for national security, said, "The complaint alleges that Mohamud attempted to detonate what he believes to be a vehicle bomb at a crowded holiday event in downtown Portland, but a coordinated undercover law enforcement action was able to thwart his efforts and ensure no one was harmed. "
Good police work, right? Wrong, says Glenn Greenwald over at Salon.com. Linky. Glenn makes the claim that the FBI could be responsible for coercing Mr. Mohamud into participating in the activity. But, as a commenter points out, Glenn ignores or interprets events in a different fashion than reported in the NYTimes:
" First, the FBI was monitoring the email communications of this American citizen on U.S. soil for months (at least) with what appears to be the flimsiest basis: namely, that he was in email communication with someone in Northwest Pakistan, "an area known to harbor terrorists" (para. 5 of the FBI Affidavit).
The New York Times describes this part much differently.
"The F.B.I.’s surveillance started in August 2009 after agents intercepted his e-mails with a man he had met in Oregon who had returned to the Middle East, according to a law enforcement official who described the man as a recruiter for terrorism. According to the affidavit, the man had moved to Yemen and then northwest Pakistan, a center of terrorism activity."
Again GG
" that he was in email communication with someone in Northwest Pakistan, "an area known to harbor terrorists"
The New York Times
"with a man he had met in Oregon who had returned to the Middle East, according to a law enforcement official who described the man as a recruiter for terrorism."
GG
" Is that enough to obtain court approval to eavesdrop on someone's calls and emails?"
Yep. What more would you want?
Does Greenwald have a point, or is he being unnecessarily contrarian?
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So this kid... emails some guy who may or may not have been a terrorist, who forwards him onto a second guy, who gives no response. And instead of continuing to monitor his communication--in case he actually got in touch with some terrorists--they set up an elaborte scheme to entice him into committing a crime?
This is disgusting. And they've accomplished nothing!
God damn I hate living in the US sometimes.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Guy apparently wants to be a terrorist or commit a crime. But nothing happens in the way of planning, like at all.
... So the FBI then creates a plan to bring this guy into a dramatic arrest. Rather than continue to monitor him for an actual plot or information-gathering on actual terrorist communication.
Publicity stunt is go.
Actually, as far as I can tell, they've removed someone willing to set off a car bomb in a crowded area out of society.
Now, this does not mean such a method can not be abused. But that is why we have trials. If the defense can demonstrate entrapment then by all means let them.
Is he doing the pouty-facebook-lips thing for his mugshot?
I want to slap that expression off the face of anyone who uses it. So much.
Yeah but, did he have the means to do it? Because by the look of things, he didn't have the means. His supposed terrorist pals left him hanging.
I mean, yeah, arrest him and all, but did they really need the theatrics?
In previous similar cases, defense lawyers have argued up and down that, "He was angry, but never intended to commit any crime," and honestly, as far as reasonable doubt goes, that is a powerful defense.
Whereas now the FBI has him dead to rights because he clicked a button to murder hundreds of people and there's no good defense against that.
I'd far rather them give him a fake bomb and secure a conviction now than not do so and risk losing a conviction and have him still out there and dangerous.
I guess the thought was "arrest him on what?" While he may have never had the means, he apparently (which Greenwald takes exception to) had the intent. The FBI needed to establish that he still had the intent after acquiring the means, hence the need for the theatrics, otherwise there was no case.
He actually clicked the button twice after it didn't work the first time.
I'm not defending the guy, here's my position:
If he had terrorist ties, they could've kept an eye on him and follow that communication route, for info or to capture others.
And again, the theatrics make it seem like an anti-terrorism publicity stunt. Like, "Hey see we are doing our jobs!" even though everything was setup by them; otherwise it'd be a boring trial of "So here's the e-mails of you wanting to kill people."
Intent is the magic word.
-- (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett)
Again, as long as they didn't incite him to do it, but instead simply provided the means, it is not entrapment.
Much like a guy who tries to hire a hitman to kill his wife. He might not even KNOW anyone who will really do it but I'd rather the police set up a situation to catch him trying to than just 'watch' and hope he doesn't someday get the chance or by some means does it on his own, that's putting the wife's life in danger unnecessarily.
In this case the wife is civilians though.
I can see the papers years later: "the FBI knew this guy wanted to commit mass murder, but lacked the ability. So one day he drops off the planet and blows something up while the FBI tries to find him again. What the shit FBI, you should have arrested him when you had the chance!"
Basically: we're really fickle about our law enforcement knowing something is a problem prior to a horrible event and not doing things about it. We're also fickle about them doing something about it.
In this case, the entire thing comes down to what the FBI did/said to get him to the point of trying to detonate a bomb. If they just said "sure, we can provide you with that explosive device", then it's a sting plain and simple (and yes, a huge PR stunt). If they said "oh, you're only a little upset at western culture? Well have you considered blowing up a crowd of people over it? Because we have this bomb here...", then it's entrapment.
As you pointed out, he doesn't have the actual contacts. Which means the authorities need to either now constantly monitor someone with murderous intentions with the hope that some day he might be able to get in touch with actual terrorists or just go ahead and take him in now before he does something on his own or disappears.
Frankly I'd consider it far more irresponsible/wasteful to let someone willing to commit murder to just sit and stew.
Rigorous Scholarship
they snagged an idiot after baiting into being a bigger idiot
arresting him fine but let's not pretend we made a real blow to terrorism here
Oh god no, we didn't strike a blow to shit. We just took an dangerous twit off the streets who wanted to be a mass murdering waterfowl. But I highly doubt any actual terrorist group is going "OH GOD THEY GOT ONE OF US!"
edit: basically, I find this far better police work than the hilarious miami seven or whatever, who were obviously just trying to con the sting agents out of money and had no serious desire to blow shit up.
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It doesn't really seem like it from what I'm reading.
I don't really see an entrapment issue here. A bit of a bait and switch and misinformation, yes. But that kind of stuff happens all the time in police work (cop pretending to be a drug dealer/buyer) and no one bats an eye.
Seems to me like they got a guy off the streets who doesn't need to be there. I'm totally fine with this.
I doubt that was their plan. I think they just wanted to make sure to remove someone willing to potentially commit homicide from society before they moved on to someone else.
There is not in all America a more dangerous trait than the deification of mere smartness unaccompanied by any sense of moral responsibility. - President Theodore Roosevelt
I really hope that's a joke. Otherwise, you are quite the silly goose.
No, that's pretty much the opposite of true.
You can't have a truly free society unless you value the rights of the criminal as much as the rights of anyone else.
this is probably the dumbest post ever
thank you
Rigorous Scholarship
Seems like pretty good work.
He'll get his day in court and the FBI seemingly did its job and he'll go to prison.
It also seems to me that to publicize this one so much might indicate that there just isn't that much going on terror-wise in the U.S. Either that, or since this guy was not of some greater network, you don't risk any ongoing investigations by publicizing the shit out of it.
You've managed to unite the conservative and liberal posters on this board: Man, WHAT? Like, that shit was pounded into the founding of this country, by your logic it's been all downhill since the boston tea party around here. And, you know, in every other country when they decided that randomly arresting/detaining people was a bad way to go about things.
The same thing happened in Dallas and the way the headlines reported it freaked me out. The shock headlines are definitely annoying.
As a citizen, good thing they got that guy.
As a tax-payer, couldn't we have done it a bit quicker?
Yes, exactly.
It's pretty hard to call this entrapment. It's possible, I suppose, that he was incited to violence by FBI contact, but the following passage from the OP makes that unlikely:
Whether or not it is entrapment is going to depend a lot on the content of the recorded conversations between Mohamud, the unnamed Pakistani, and the FBI... but it's gonna be a really hard sell if this passage is even remotely accurate.
Also, I could definitely see somebody like this becoming the next John Allen Muhammad or Lee Malvo in the absence of law enforcement intervention.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Only at the risk of it actually becoming entrapment I would imagine.
You don't want to rush law enforcement. The FBI took its time and built up what seems to be a pretty solid case against the guy. If the evidence is as good as it seems, then any decent defense attorney will try and plea if at all possible. This will, in the end, save tax-payer money compared to just arresting people willy-nilly.