In what has been widely described in the media as the breakup of an “ISIS-inspired” plot, on April 2 the Department of Justice announced that Noelle Velentzas, 28, and Asia Siddiqui, 31, both of New York, had been arrested and charged with conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction. The defendants “plotted to wreak terror by creating explosive devices” for use in New York City and sought “bomb-making instructions and materials” for an attack, the Justice Department statement said.
Like other recent sensational “terror plots,” however, the criminal complaint unsealed yesterday demonstrates the key role of an undercover law enforcement informant in both formulating and facilitating the alleged plot. It doesn’t appear that Velentzas or Siddiqui actually planned or attempted to bomb any target, nor is there any evidence of discussions about how to create a bomb before the introduction of the informant into their lives.
It was only after the informant provided the pair with a copy of The Anarchist Cookbook — a manual with instructions on how to create an explosive device — that their amateurish efforts gained any traction.
According to the complaint, both Velentzas and Siddiqui are alleged to have “espoused jihadist beliefs” for a prolonged period leading up to these allegations. Siddiqui, in particular, is believed to have written letters and poems in support of extremist violence, and may have been under government surveillance as far back as 2006, when she is said to have made contact with the now-deceased former editor of Al Qaeda’s Inspire magazine, Samir Khan. While the exact nature of this contact is not specified, it is alleged that in 2009, Siddiqui had submitted poems online to the predecessor magazine of Inspire, entitled Jihad Recollections.
One of her poems, detailed in the complaint, appears to draw more on contemporary rap music than Islam, reading in part: “Hit cloud nine with the smell of turpentine, nations wiped clean of filthy shrines.”
Years later, in July 2014, FBI agents conducted an interview with Siddiqui when she arrived at LaGuardia Airport in New York, questioning her about her past links to Khan and online jihadist publications. Later that day, after leaving the airport, Siddiqui apparently met with the informant, whom she allegedly told she needed to go online and “delete stuff” from her email accounts.
After that meeting, the informant, Siddiqui and Velentzas began meeting regularly over the course of several months. Those conversations were secretly taped by law enforcement. It is only at this point that any discussion of creating or using a bomb came into existence. In a conversation with the informant on August 6, 2014, the two defendants are alleged to have discussed “science” in the context of making a bomb; Siddiqui asked Velentzas whether she was “good at science,” a question that Velentzas answered in the negative.
Over the coming weeks and months, the defendants and the informant continued to meet, citing the actions of other convicted terrorists approvingly, talking about events in the Middle East, and discussing the rudiments of bomb-making. During one conversation, Velentzas pulled a knife from her bra to demonstrate how to stab someone, saying, “Why can’t we be some real bad bitches?” She suggested that the three should refer to themselves as “citizens of the Islamic State.”
While Velentzas appeared to have latent sympathy with the Islamic State, contrary to sensational media reports she is not alleged in the criminal complaint to have had any contact with the group.
Throughout this time, both Velentzas and Siddiqui are alleged to have studied beginner books on chemistry and electrical wiring as part of an effort to learn bomb-making. A few weeks after making her comments about the Islamic State, while driving with the informant past the window of a hardware store, Velentzas, who claimed to be obsessed with pressure cookers, said: “Why is the hardware store sell [sic] a pressure cooker …. the devil is fucking with me.”
On November 2, 2014, months after their meetings began, the informant met with Velentzas while she was reading a book entitled Chemistry: The Central Science, a generalist academic textbook about the field of chemistry. The informant began providing Velentzas with advice on how she might be able to test explosives without arousing suspicion, and then suggested she read The Anarchist Cookbook as a more useful resource for creating explosive devices.
That same day, the informant went with Velentzas and Siddiqui to a local pharmacy and hardware store to look at materials needed to make an explosive, even helping locate items that might be helpful in such an endeavor. They are not alleged to have actually purchased any of these materials.
Over the following weeks, the informant repeatedly met with both defendants, even watching jihadist recruitment videos with them. On November 23, 2014, the informant brought a printed copy of The Anarchist Cookbook for Velentzas, even bookmarking the page containing bomb-making instructions.
At this point, according to the complaint, the informant and Velentzas had a discussion about “what they’re trying to achieve” with all the research about bombs. Velentzas then told the informant that she didn’t have any existing plans to do anything, and that “she would never want to hurt anyone.”
Over the next several weeks Velentzas seems to have become concerned about the informant’s background, searching the informant’s name in unnamed databases and browsing Web pages on topics such as “Identifying Informants/Undercover Police” and “Is S/he an Informant.”
Nonetheless, their discussions allegedly progressed, with the informant and Velentzas meeting to talk in greater detail about how to create a bomb, using information gleaned from The Anarchist Cookbook, and discussing whether it would be appropriate to target a gathering of police officers with such a device. At several points in the complaint, Velentzas indicates her reticence about doing anything that might harm “regular people,” even criticizing the Boston Marathon bombers for killing and injuring civilians. During this time, the informant also provided both Velentzas and Siddiqui with printed copies of Inspire, including selected passages about how to create explosives.
Around February 22, after months of discussion and cultivation, the informant and Velentzas went to Siddiqui’s residence, where they saw four propane gas tanks. Siddiqui said, “I got everything up in this joint … once we learn … I got everything up in this joint.”
A month later, Siddiqui is alleged to have said to the informant, “I’m all about jihad, you know what I mean.”
There were no further recorded meetings between members of the group. On April 2, both Siddiqui and Velentzas were arrested and charged with conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, ostensibly utilizing the propane tanks seen in Siddiqui’s apartment in February.
Despite the bravado, it’s unclear whether Siddiqui and Velentzas ever regarded themselves as terrorists. At one point, speaking with the informant, Velentzas is recorded as saying, “I feel that the people that control things are very fucked up people …. if the government, was to put all the information about the three of us together, we legitimately, to these people, could look like a [terrorist] cell.”
Photo: Victor J. Blue/Getty
Any kid that grew up with a modem in the 80’s and 90’s has had a copy of the Anarchist Cookbook sometime.
This is a case of creating terror to justify antiterrorism.
Any kid that had a modem in the 80’s and 90’s has had a copy of the Anarchist’s Cookbook at one time or another.
This is just a case of creating terrorism to justify taking freedoms away to fight terrorism.
You can buy it on Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/Anarchist-Cookbook-William-Powell/dp/0974458902/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1428369100&sr=8-2&keywords=anarchist+handbook
let’s all go do that now lol, we’re all already on lists
Do you want a sickening fact?? I just finished reading the death toll for the “George Bush” WAR ON TERROR is 1.3 million bodies
This jihadi writer thinks he can fool the gullible Americans eh?
“Hit cloud nine with the smell of turpentine, nations wiped clean of filthy shrines.”
according to Mr Hussain – “this appears to draw more on contemporary rap music than Islam”
ahan? really? Turpentine is used in Molotov cocktails and bombs! Shrines are considered ‘haram’ in Islam and what Ms Siddiqui was trying to say is just the opposite what the adherent of religion-of-peace Mr Hussain is telling us. Some islamic jihadi apologist this one!!
The Anarchist Cookbook is a trick used to make normal citizens look like a danger. The FBI could just mail you one to incriminate you and the same with any prohibited terrorist associated drugs or contraband.
that raises the question of exactly who is – the are “you” safer today?? Good Sound-bite
Does setting someone up – – entrapping them – – framing them make someone safer??
Most of the innocent folks who languished in Guantanamo were tourists in Pakistan. In the days after 9/11, it became a very profitable business in Pakistani towns to “catch terrorists” and hand over to “authorities”, who then collected vast sums from us as award. I have one neighbor who emigrated here from Peshawar town, and has bought a sizable house and a couple of SUV’s, thanks to his valiant efforts in “catching terrorists”. Some of his catches may still be in the own houses, albeit smaller and open-type, in the idyllic ambiance of Guantanamo, with free food to boot. The other evening we invited him over for dinner, and after a few drinks he started relating his experiences about how easy it is poaching the most intelligent animal.
Is this “informant” also part of one of the teams providing expert advice to ISIS? Just asking.
This is what happens when you allow government to create terrorists. You end up with terrorists who expect someone else to buy them the books and the basic ingredients. Then they are still too lazy to mix the ingredients together. This is an example of socialism at its worst.
This sort of thing should be left to private industry, which would stimulate a more entrepreneurial outlook and generate plots which would really scare the general public. The government should issue a contract for this sort of operation to Blackwater or Academi or whatever they currently call themselves. I’m confident they would be able to produce terrorists with at least a modicum of credibility.
Such law enforcement programs encouraging disaffected youth are rarely about percentages, Duce. One or two success stories is all it takes…
Possible Motive?
The Portland Librarians refused to turn over user search data to the NSA per Patriot Act.
The FBI spent 1&1/2 years converting a disenfranchised kid into a bomber. They riled him up, converted him to jihad, gave him money taught him to make a bomb, supplied bomb making parts, etc. When he went to bomb the Portland Library Christmas tree lighting they ‘caught’ him.
Seems like a somewhat obvious retaliation against the library for wanting to remain in a constitutional democracy.
Thanks for the great piece. Jailing these women will be its own act of terror on these women, their families and community. If there is indeed any real cause for concern for malleable types that appear in these various entrapment cases, the civil response should be therapeutic not penal.
this is so sad these two women was lead down a path they knew nothing about even being hand books with marked pages to study I feel very concerned that as an American citizen we can take innocent people and make scape goats out of them- shame on this informant there is a special place for him in Hell
It is very hard to believe anyone anymore about anything. The NYT wants to bomb Iran. 47 peolpe in Congress want to undermine foreign policy, and Wow, are newspapers now allowed to forment war and set foreign policy, —-and why is Free Speech only allowed for some?
I also have no idea who ISIS, ISL or who IS is —-who they really are.Are they spies or actual real groups? Reading the news about them is like seeing Abbott and Costello’s ” Who’s on First?”
I have decided to make the word ISIS go back to its original meaning, a reallly great Egyptian goddess : ) Actually, she’s what we need today! ; ) After Set, Osiris’ evil bother, cut Osiris up and scattered his parts. ISIS tracked down those parts and put her partner back together—oh wait——-he was missing his penis—so creative goddess that she was she made a working one out of wood, and viola—conceived HORUS. We see his EYE today on the U.S. dollar bill. : )
Since I cannot believe what anyone says of all these warring groups, I will return the word ISIS to what it once was. Maybe that would be fun to do to newspapers who lie about so much in war; just school them on the REAL ISIS; MA’AT is more important than propaganda. : )
nicely done, I think you have something there
The “Anarchist Cookbook” has nothing to do with either anarchy, as properly understood (it’s not mere chaos) or cooking.
What I recall reading long ago is that most who tried to follow the bomb making advice in said publication ended up seriously killing or wounding themselves. Evidently the “recipes” were not reliable or safe. Whether or not any of these problems were subsequently corrected in recent editions I can’t say. Probably not, since my suspicious mind tends to think that the copyright, etc. probably now is in the hands of the government.
But no one in their right mind would follow such instructions from that source. Of course the inflammatory title is enough to justify the FBI using it in a sting or entrapment. Average Joe/Jane citizens on juries would recoil in horror at the mere mention of such a publication. No matter that it wasn’t actually used and is likely to kill the readers before anyone else is hurt.
But of course it is easy to pad FBI statistics with rounding up the stupid and naïve wanna-be jihadis then it is to actually find a real one. Either there are and have been no real ones for quite a while or if there are, the FBI isn’t catching them. Meanwhile, prisons are filling up with the stupids.
“I’m all about jihad, you know what I mean.”
Whew! Thanks to Congress for blind-funding the apparatus that caught these evil geniuses in time.
In all these arrests, there is always a “new friend” who appears on the scene to help the aspiring terrorist turn fantasy into a reality. Why any serious terrorist would make a “new friend” during this incubatory period always astonishes me. Why any serious terrorist would go online and express sympathy for ISIS in advance of some plot also astonishes me. So how do these new friends spot you anyway? Since these women did not place any international calls, which we all know are now monitored, they must have had their online communication monitored. Has anyone ever tested this by tweeting something that could attract a new friend? I suggest a journalist do this to see what happens and write a story about it. Of course, your paper would have to promise to foot the bill for all legal fees, but I’d really be interested if it’s possible to make a new friend just be tweeting or emailing, or some combination thereof.
You go first and let us know how it turns out. I’ll help you write your story if new friends turn up and try to persuade you to engage in violence.
Noelle Velentzas Husband interviewed:
http://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2015/04/3/ny1-exclusive–husband-of-woman-accused-in-terror-plot-talks-about-their-life-together.html
FBI plans more bomb attacks on the US than Bin Laden ever dreamed of.
Why are our tax dollars wasted on the FBI?
it’s a goddamn propaganda machine that works by creating and enabling plots, then “exposing” them and pretending they were real. and the mainstream propaganda machine gobbles it all up, hook line and sinker.
Very glad to see you covering this. To its credit, the NYT seems to have noticed that this was a set-up: “During the inquiry, investigators deployed an undercover officer, who appeared to play a significant role in helping the women with the plan”.
Got to love the photo. It should be captioned “Man with Gun Penis.”
JFC, I used to have a copy of the Anarchist Cookbook. But, Facebook, Google, NSA, FBI, CIA, anyone else auto word sorting through this post, I lost it a long time ago in a move and would have no idea how to make a bomb if I were so inclined. And I’m not.
lol you sound afraid. grow some balls. it’s time to stand up and say what we mean to our government. do not censor yourself just because they are fascist assholes. if we are murdered by the fascist feds, the people will not forget.
Plotting or threatening an attack that will terrorize people should indeed be a crime. Only stupid or mentally ill people will agree to it, which shows that much of the American government and media and populace are stupid or mentally ill.
This includes Obama and Kerry, whose latest theatrical ‘war-averting diplomacy’ was entirely unnecessary since Iran is no threat to the US (and Israel is quite capable of taking care of itself).
“Israel is quite capable of taking care of itself”
if so, then please explain the billions of dollars in aid the US provides every year…
Zionism. The Jewish Lobby. Certainly Israel doesn’t need the money.
All due respect, Cindy — and I have a goodly amount of it for you — but agreeing and doing are two VERY different things. Human nature generally embraces coming as close to the edge to something as one can and NOT going through with it. It is perhaps a perverse but true aspect of our species and its almost entirely unique ability to fantasise and imagine alternate realities.
While most of these cases are entrapment… this isn’t just entrapment but probably not even a crime at all. Unless buying condoms when you’re married makes you guilty of adultery… or buying a pack of cigarettes makes you a smoker… or being GIVEN a pack of cigarettes or pack of condoms makes you either.
The fundamental actus reus is NOT buying a pressure cooker, so to speak — and it is certainly not flippantly saying something about it as you drive by one, probably to impress a new ‘friend’. Sounds to me like she was taking it further to satisfy her suspicions as much as anything else. And THAT is also very very human.
sup fbi
I happened to be in New York that day and get a chance to listen to this thing as it happened over the local Fascist control radio station. They interviews two people in the neighbourhood who were shaken, disgusted and some where crying. One of them said “I don’t understand these people. We let you come here so you could have a better life and you wanna do this us. Go back to your own country and do it there.”. Another ignorant said “I had doubt about this lady because last year i saw her fully covered running around on the street saying strange words”. One of them was also suspicious because of the way one of the lady dressed. Fascist’s on the radio station keep repeating that those women wanted to do a Boston style Terrorist attack in NY. They did reminded us that “Public was never in any kind of danger”. I was in NY for next 10 hours driving and i kept the radio on. Because of the nature of the channel they keep repeating stuff every 10-15 minutes. To me it sounded like Fund Drive. Like weapon manufactures were doing a Fund Drive.
I do not know when Americans are going to wake up and reclamation their country from the fascist who are running this country for last 70 years. Who have us in state of war since the 40s. That day is not very far when we will becomes useless of them and i fear that day.
“Like weapon manufactures were doing a Fund Drive.”
Quote of the century.
you understand it wrong. it’s Not really control. it’s not even mind control. it’s a persuasion machine that works incrementally. people who have never had a good reason to reallly think critically, creatively, outside of the box, and rationally examine the evidence and the implications of that evidence– they are EXTREMELY vulnerable to persuasion. this is a fact not of human nature, but of our “education” System, which teaches you not ‘how to think’ or ‘why to think’ but rather ‘what to think’, And simply, ‘not to think’. the mass media is Essentially hypnotizing people by framing everything in An increasingly authoritarian way.
we need to figure out – not how To stop the mass media machine – but how to alert All the brainwashed citizens to the fact that they are goosestepping in lockstep with the increasingly Fascist government. and we can’t sound like alex jones or tea party nutters or sovereign citizens or commies or socialists or crazies like those people who warn of an impending apocalypse and are all like “wake up sheeple!!!!”. maybe we need to study techniques that psychologists use to try to help people who have stockholm syndrome after being in captivity for a long time. and we need to make the moral concerns and concerns about civil liberties outweigh the convenience and low cost of submission to the corporate-fascist machine. finally, we need to Know what’s going on, which means somehow creating more snowdens.
let’s get people to snap out of this fascist nonsense, so then we’ll have the numbers and power to deny our consent to the rogue governing beast that Is turning into a fascist pseudo-democracy. what we need is people who understand what is really going on in this country, that it is Not republicans vs democrats vs pseudo-libertarians that matter, but the rich vs we the poor and barely-surviving middle class, the powerful vs we the oppressed, and the fascists vs we the anti-fascists. Get a grep on reality.
ISIS CIA DOD NSA IS THE GAY SKINHEADS OF AMURIKA LOL
once people are convinced, then we could switch to a Direct democracy. a properly educated, not starving, not penniless populace could create a direct democracy where the rich, the powerful, the fascists, and the corporate capitalists (also fascists) can never win. If we could Convince 1 or 2 or 3 out of every 10 of ameriKans to wage a sit-down strike until the government Is fundamentally reformed, the gov’t would either have to resort to extreme, violent tactics that would alienate everyone else, who would then Change their minds, or they could make increasingly large concessions until our goals were reached. while a sit down strike is an extreme example that could lead to starvation and civil war, there are other nonviolent approaches involving the destruction of the fascist, corporate, monied ideology that could be planned.
the us of a was founded on some really goddamn important principles. but now we’ve taken a massive dump all over the constitution, only to wipe with the bill of rights. it’s time we realize the fundamental importance to the continued existence of a free society in the future of sticking to our ideals, no matter the personal cost. speak out, or work silently. apply whatever skills you have, or acquire new skills and apply them. make us of a citizens understand the problem. devise new strategies and solutions and share them. or else, the result could be that we are totally screwed. the us of a could one-up nazi germany as an even more powerful fascist empire. with nukaluur kapability, that would be the end of the globular fruit earth as we knowit
Until federal judges start dismissing these cases for entrapment, don’t expect the FBI to change their tactics.
We must now endeavor to root out all copies of this dangerous “Anarchist’s Cookbook” book(redundancy intended), and once we have selected a suitable location, throw these treasonous materials into the purifying bonfire of righteousness. Of course that would include all computers, since it’s available online, and of course anyone who’s read this material will have to burn, which would include the intelligence community, perhaps even the Congress and any White House personnel who committed the sin of reading it. Taking the absurd a little further, anyone that has an interest in nuclear physics, or looks up gunpowder on the internet(both things I’ve done), would be considered a potential terrorist. Think back on all the internet searches you’ve made and ask yourself if the government could make a case against you for simply being curious or having a thirst for knowledge. Now, if you’re Middle Eastern, that puts you a couple rungs higher on their ladder of lunacy. It’s a sad commentary that the thing we must fear most is our own government. Turn key tyranny? The key is turning. Speak up people, even if that might make you a subsersive, correction, BECAUSE it might make you a subversive.
Its been around since the 1970s or maybe even the 1960s I got mine on campus in the mid 1980s I think,. Read it and tossed it. It was scanned and put out on Bit Torrent and other file sharing sites since before 2001, along with other stuff like “How to make your own LSD by Uncle Festus”
If she really wanted to know this stuff she should have joined the military or hooked up with someone like Timothy McVeigh, like Sarah Connor in Terminator 2.
oh, yeah, timmy mcveigh, a real supersoldier badass, right? yeah, they really played up his “military background”
as though he had been a secret covert special ops ninja assassin. check out his MOS (military occupational speciality).
him was a 71L. what’s that you say? sniper, demolitions, ranger? nah….think radar o’reilly. yep, ole timmy was a
records clerk.
now consider that he had been trying to join militia groups for several years, and was denied membership in all, as
most figured him for a nutjob. why the head of MOM (militia of montana) even contacted the fbi with information on
mr. mcveigh. so mcveigh comes to the attention of……..”the gub’mint.”
i think we can connect the dots….how did a screw-loose file clerk manage to build a rather advanced shaped-charge
explosive? certainly not without help………………
Anarchist’s Cookbook is for sale on Amazon with prime shipping. And when you search for it, there are many other books suggested to fill out the practical person’s library.
Speaking of that jgreen7801…
Have you seen this?
“Senator Feinstein calls for internet ban of Anarchist Cookbook and Inspire magazine”
http://rt.com/usa/246701-feinstein-internet-book-ban/
A clear misuse of power.
WOW. The FBI hands out the Anarchist Cookbook and then uses that as evidence it’s being used by Islamic radicals and needs to be banned! And there good old Feinstein is right in the middle of it, trying (as usual) to get everybody thrown in prison for reading. I cannot tell you how much I wish that she and Harvey Milk had been standing in opposite places the day Dan White came calling!
If the U.S. is bound and determined to abandon freedom of expression, then at least do it right. Get behind China’s Great Firewall so that the bad, nasty things in life just disappear without comment, and occasionally some wacky individualist gets taken down to the police station for a beating, but don’t pluck random people off the street and put them in prison for long terms by surprise, it’s not economically efficient. Imagine how much simpler it would make politics… instead of throwing a whole dorm full of students out in the street because a couple sang a couple lines of a naughty tune, you could just shut up the troublemaker who posted the footage and not have an argument. Such a U.S. could abandon its terrorist founder figures who nobody believes in anyway, carve the features of the exalted Chairman Mao into that seated statue in Washington, and see a huge enforcement savings by outsourcing the internet surveillance to eager Chinese technical recruits. And we cannot even imagine how much we could save by firing all the Washington politicians and replacing them with appointees from Beijing – I wonder if the populace would even complain about that.
If I thought that voting in any rigged national election would be of benefit to the people; I would vote for Putin in 2016.
All three branches of government need a thorough hose job of corrupt politicians without cards to get out of jail free.
Move the capital of Washington DC to a city that is part of the United States of America.
Jail all of the Central Bankers and reverse the 1913 Federal Reserve Act (Shut Down the Federal Reserve) and start printing money from the U.S. National Treasury like the collapsing European Union States are planning to do (both Greece and Italy). Iceland did it in 2008 and they are surviving just fine.
Those things are critical to the United States to help avert the effects of the impending economic crash. Hell…the economy crashed in 2008 when the United States Federal Government decided to bail out the “Too Big To Fail” Central Bankers on the backs of American Taxpayers. People in other countries call the loss of homes, poverty, loss of jobs, dissolution of middle class, rise in totalitarianism, separation of government from the governed, and general chaos that is resulting from those things—– “austerity”. But in the United States, the American citizens are so blind-sided by media promoted propaganda, commercialism and technological gadgets which all contribute to general moral and spiritual degradation; that they seem to have sunk into a stupor in which they can’t see the forest for the trees.
Well…here comes Brics and AIIB to give some competition to the International Central Banking Cartel (Fed, IMF, World Bank, BIS) and save their respective member nations. But…here we sit in the United States of America stuck in the fowl intestines with an impacted load of shit.
I’m sick of talking. I nominate Putin for President in 2016.
Something is very wrong when a book that can be obtained at online bookstores and public libraries are included as evidence of terrorism by the FBI.
It sounds like this time you have a case. Now I was not buying any of the arguments in https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/16/howthefbicreatedaterrorist/ (see comments), so I should explain why I call this one the other way
When an FBI agent gives someone a fake bomb and the accused plants it under a car, that’s one thing. Whether the FBI provides the materials, or even pays the person to do it, what is demonstrated in the end is a genuine intent to do something horrible – something that no law-abiding person would do.
But when all the FBI has is some conversations about material they provided, and the only material follow-through is that someone has propane tanks that might have some perfectly legitimate person, I’m not seeing that level of proof. I’m not ready to take an informant’s word for it that honest, she was gonna do it. I need to see that somehow. For someone to preach a radical view at you and you play along … that’s not a genuine plot, but mere politeness. I imagine in several Islamic countries it is quite an important life skill for those who happen to be female! I have no idea what their motivation really was.
Plus, there is the disquieting aspect that unlike in the former investigation, where only fake materials were provided, in this case the informant finds himself providing real technical instruction. How many cases have there been with no charges filed because the suspects became suspicious, and instead of running a few web searches the suspects simply cut off all contact? How many have taken the technical knowledge and ideological cheerleading they received at the informant’s hands and moved on to do their own thing?
I’ll call it when the FBI does it right, and I’ll call it when they do it wrong – and so far, it sounds like they probably got this one wrong.
I have extremely strong reason to suspect that due to illegal logging of my online browsing (I like to read/watch whatever the hell I want, and some of the time that may include topics that I am simply curious about but which may still be picked up by the feds as “national-security-sensitive topics” or as “problematic”), the FBI incorrectly surmised that I was some sort of threat (concocted a poorly-supported, cherry-picked, factually inaccurate narrative in order to obtain warrants and to internally justify conducting other actions that are clearly illegal and unconstitutional) and thus decided to send one or more informants and/or agents after me. The informant I am nearly positive they sent after me started to talk to me one day, completely out of the blue, about conducting terrorist activities. Specifically, this person asked me if I’d have the balls to go on a killing spree. I was not fucking amused by the disturbing remarks that this person made and I reported this apparently mentally sick individual to the local authorities right away, and only later did I realize what I had likely just experienced. The audacity of this blatant attack on me is absolutely outrageous and unacceptable. I have been ill with stress because of it and I can no longer fully trust anyone. I believe that this FBI method is horribly unethical, illegal (entrapment), and unlikely to work on anyone other than the mentally ill or the dumbest of dumb. If anyone with an IQ above 3.50 is out there somewhere conducting terrorist activities, the feds are wasting their time and taxpayer dollars.
(“I was not fucking amused by the disturbing remarks that this person made and I reported this apparently mentally sick individual to the local authorities right away, and only later did I realize what I had likely just experienced”)
I have often wondered if this is the proper response in actual cases of such overreach. It seems so damned if you do, damned if you don’t. We live in a pretty f’ed up world when it is difficult to differentiate someone being lured ‘legitimately’ by one’s own government becomes indifferentiable from paranoid schizophrenia in presentation. All the reality checking in the world cannot change this.
bad grammar. bad phone. Strike the ‘becomes indifferentiable’.
i don’t even have to read the article to realize that the whole affair has the smell of entrapment and setup surrounding it. it proves to me that our real threat is to ourselves and that we are getting very little intervention or intelligence of dubious value for the huge cost of chasing it. i agree to the person i heard say that these women belong in a jail for the criminally stupid.
You are psychic? Or you make up your mind before you learn too much about an issue?
ANY law enforcement creating work for themselves to prevent future budget cuts already betrayed the public’s trust and is by default just a protection racket.
And here’s how the MSM spins the story with Commandant, sorry Senator, Feinstein weighing in on “First Amendment Rights”:
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/sen-feinstein-anarchist-cookbook-not-protected-first-amendment
“”[O]nline bombmaking guides like the Anarchist Cookbook and Inspire Magazine…are not, in my view, protected by the First Amendment and should be removed from the Internet,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said in a statement released on Thursday.”
Apparently that’s because a cookbook or magazine can act of its own free will. Or something. Di Fi is hopeless.
Since she’s not a jurist, her view is just her own personal opinion.
her own retarded, fascist opinion. she should be voted out. and let’s impeach samuel alito too, that fascist motherfucker.
“We must remain vigilant against certain books and those who read them without the authority of the State, whether in electronic or print format, lest the reading of these books become so commonplace that it can no longer be used to entrap people with charges of fomenting revolution or terror.”
“At one point, speaking with the informant, Velentzas is recorded as saying, “I feel that the people that control things are very fucked up people ….”
Yep. She’s got that right.
FightGangStalking dot com
Believe it. It’s true.
Ignore or mock it, at the expense of many.
Perhaps it should be, “Ignore or mock it, at the expense of all.” Because in the end, these things impact all of us.
Cointelpro agents are indeed very fucked up people, and not all of the FBI’s tactics are stupid or plain as day. You can bet that agents have more tactics in their arsenal than what’s been widely reported. So if entrapment doesn’t work, then something else might, and the FBI will likely use several dirty tricks in an attempt to neutralize a target. I can’t help but wonder about what would have happened to these girls had they not got caught up in the informant’s incessant bomb conversations. I really doubt that the FBI would have just left them alone had they refused any future contact with the provocateur.
TI and its readers should really check out the website that you mentioned. It’s the most thorough site I’ve found on the subject of domestic counterintelligence activities. And you’re right – while it’s easier to mock people who cry out about what’s happening than it is to connect the dots, ignoring what’s going on hurts everybody. Does anyone here want to live in a country where innocent people are on secret watchlists and are subjected to more than just entrapment schemes?
Alternately by visiting such sites you wind up on some pretty gnarly lists you would not want to be on (whether you believe, take it with a grain of salt, are skeptical, are a ‘target’ or are schizophrenic). If you ARE a target believe me — they will use your interest in such things to manipulate you too.
Speaking of fucked up Cointelpro agents…
I blogged this on another site . . SET-UP. / ENTRAPMENT….
be afraid – be very afraid…. NYPD anti-terrorism unit carries automatic weapons
that will end up killing innocent bystanders…….
BE AFRAID – – BE VERY AFRAID
Excellent work Mr. Hussain.
After reading the Criminal Complaint it is quite clear that the FBI New York Joint Terrorism Task Force used an informant to conduct a sting operation on the defendants.
I do hope that the observations you have made in your article regarding the questionable evidence of guilt by the prosecution are duly evaluated in considering the merits of the case.
This type of “witch hunt” is being conducted on the backs of American Tax Payers.
Please keep us informed with further developments in this case.
Creating threats to make themselves appear useful.
This sort of thing provides, I’m sure, hours of amusement for those LEOs participating in the charades. Never mind that what they’re actually doing is ruining people’s lives all for their own self-aggrandizement. Sociopathic assholes.
I have been wondering a lot what percentage os sociopathic in the clinical sense and what percentage is falling into a cycle of cognitive dissonance… in which case most people with no strong core sense of self (which is to say most people and certainly most (but not all) Americans) will tend to double down in order to live with what they are doing, ideologically. Never underestimate the human mind. I know it is cliche to mention Nazis or Stasi but there is a strong psychic link between these sorts of thought processes and behaviours and that of a sizeable portion of SS officers in the height of WW2, especially those who worked in the concentration camps. There is the element of us vs them… the Arendt-described banality of evil… and the general tendencies of human psychology among other things. Being in an environment that strongly espouses any cause is a cult-like environment in itself. That goes for police states too. Mirror neurons contribute. People adapt to the group. The group rarely adapts to people. Those who cannot exhibit this ability to conform do not last… so things never change for the better, they get worse. Entropy is a bitch.
Wow, a terrorist plot that the FBI was not in charge of. It is refreshing to have the NYPD take the credit for one. Maybe someday the NSA will be able host one, in cooperations with other agencies, of course, in order to show how much surveillance matters.
Gotta give them credit where its due
I hope they also expand the scope of the people they turn into criminals–just Muslims all the time is getting boring. I suggest bingo parlors, bake sales, cosplay events and comics conventions, burn wards, My Little Pony enthusiasts. Come on, mix it up a little. Get creative.
I am all but certain that the Grumpy Cat crowd is harboring some wannabe bombers.
I love this comment. It is horribly sad and brutally true. Have you heard about the raw milk and artisinal cheese brouhaha? Feds like bingo for RICO if they cannot get what they really want. They do send people to comics conventions. So on.
NYPD/DHS fusion center/dual task force. Do not let yourself believe the FBI did not have a hand in this. Diffusion aids and abets the sense that the terrorists are everywhere, too.