Report Documents Fake Terror Threats Concocted by FBI and NYPD

Shahawar Matin Siraj immigrated to Queens, N.Y., from Pakistan with his family when he was 16. Siraj began working at his uncle’s Islamic bookshop in Queens where, soon after 9/11, an undercover police officer began coming around and engaging Siraj in conversations about politics and religion. Whatever Siraj said to the officer in those conversations, it was enough for NYPD to soon assign another undercover officer to befriend the young man as well.

That second officer showed Siraj images of victims of American wars in the Middle East and of Guantanamo Bay, and began making up stories about secret terrorist organizations inside the U.S. Over the next year, the undercover agent prodded Siraj to devise a plan to detonate a bomb in New York City, as a means of responding to the U.S. government’s violence. Siraj first agreed but eventually refused to actively participate in the plot, saying, “No, I don’t want to do it.” But after more repeated prodding of the young man, Siraj finally agreed to act as a lookout for others.

A week later, Siraj was called by the NYPD to a police station to deal with an outstanding misdemeanor charge. Upon arrival, he was arrested and charged with conspiracy. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison. The next day, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested and detained Siraj’s mother, sister and father. His mother and sister spent 11 days and his father six months in a New Jersey detention center.

A new report, released last week by New York University’s Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, documents Siraj’s case alongside two others in which law enforcement has used of legally suspect policing practices that conjure imaginary terrorism plots, which are used to target and entrap Muslims living in the U.S. In each of the three cases the report explores in depth, the defendants were sentenced to 25 years to life for planning terrorist plots that didn’t exist prior to the police or FBI goading them into existence. The FBI and NYPD designed the plots, pushed them on vulnerable young men who had not been involved terrorist organizations and, once the previously law-abiding young men were hooked, triumphantly foiled the supposed danger.

http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/05/manufactured_threats_of_homegrown_terrorism.html

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The agency is corrupt, just like the rest of the DOJ. Holder sucks! He's a fascist asshole.

We don't have to agree on everything -- but, hey, this a political board. What a boring place it would be without controversy.

What happened to your icon - the guy with the white beard? Has he been banned? G-d, I hope not. Now, that would rather limit the range of political and economic discussion . . . ;-) :hi:

If the threat is not sufficient enough, you have to create the evidence.

true?

Did you bother to fact-check this at all? I'm betting that you didn't.

You are essentially demanding that I prove a negative.

I did not make the claim. The OP did. I am asking him if he bothered to fact-check it. What is so hard about that?

But you seem to like defending the status quo.

facts and evidence despite your smear.

I didn't "defend" anything. I simply asked whether the OP bothered to fact-check this.

We don't need proof to talk shit on the Internet. Given that this is the MO of the FBI, it is quite likely the truth.

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Thanks for putting your finger on the problem.

This certainly is of a piece with the sort of shenanigans briefly exposed by the Church Committee in the late 1970s, which led very briefly to reforms in our nation's law enforcement and intelligence communities. Those days have long passed, and certainly there have been many instances in which triumphant news of spectacular arrests have given over (a discreet period of time later) to convictions for decidedly less serious crimes, if not outright release of the accused.

Whether that's the case yet again in this particular instance, any thinking American with a halfway decent memory for events of the last 90 years should greet the FBI's pronouncements with a certain amount of skepticism, if not cynicism. Because it seems that those who are blowing the trumpets about foiling another terrorist plot are nowhere to be found when the plot doesn't quite pan out as advertised in the previews of coming attractions.

However, there has never been a shortage of folks impressed by the pageantry and spectacle of sensational arrests, and the FBI depends heavily on their good will and short memory.

has fact-checked the story and claim. What is so hard about that?

And concluded that it worked best with a certain segment of the population that is easily impressed by the spectacle of sensational arrests. What is so hard about that?

factual basis of the OP and whether anyone bothered to check it.

No, I didn't. In the OP I posted a link to a web posting at colorlines.com which linked to and referenced as its own source a report entitled Targeted and Entrapped, Manufacturing the "Homegrown Threat" in the United States from the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice of NYU School of Law, an organization I thought would probably not likely to be blowing smoke out its ass at us. I venture to guess that it is on a similar basis that most stories get linked to on DU.

From page 1 of the CHR&GJ report:

You didn't bother to fact-check or corroborate it in any way.

If you feel the need for corroboration (and if the subject is interesting enough to you), perhaps you should do the journalistic legwork yourself. There is a lot of information in the 92 page pdf report.

I should prove the OP's claim?

LOL!

The OP is under no obligation to prove or disprove the contents of articles that the OP finds interesting.

The OP may have never even taken the time to read the 92 page investigation. So what? If you are interested in the subject in order to advance an intelligent conversation, you might want to take the time to research the materials available to you, and if those materials are inadequate, there is a world wide web available to look into the subject deeper.

You seem to want others to do all of your research for you and wrap it up in a bow so you can swallow it whole or reject it outright with zero effort on your part.

are they just an innocent bystander?

I think I'll just start randomly posting provocative articles, then, when challenged on them, I will respond, "Who, me? I am just the OP! It is the reader's responsibilty to corroboate or disprove my OP."

An OP is under no obligation to do so. This is a political discussion board and it is up to the reader to advance that discussion, to challenge or corroborate if she/he is interested.

corroborate someone's OP?

an OP it is up to you to do the research.

By the way, have you read the report?

I did.

Nevermind.

Que?

this is, quite frankly, pointless.

It all starts with a few people reading a report, or dancing where the government doesn't want you to dance, or... ?

I certainly hope they read this part of the article.




What do you think that says? That defense attorneys in 194 cases were asleep and just let their clients get convicted when they had actually been entrapped? Did 194 juries just summarily reject entrapment defenses?

What percentage of terrorists do you think claim they were "entrapped"? What percentage of defense attorneys do you think routinely invoke "entrapment" defenses?

My issue with the OP is that it is terribly one-sided. It may or may not be true. That's why I asked the OP if he had bothered to fact-check the OP.

Of course, that hardly mattered to those who immediately assumed the FBI to be guilty.

collaboration for a post made at DU. If you want to debate the findings of that study, fine, or point out how the article may be at variance with other facts that you may be aware of. But, don't accuse the OP of posting a story that fails to corroborate the points made. Unless you raise some specific fact, your objections are simply disruptive. Again, here's the link to the report on federal entrapment in terrorist conspiracy cases: http://www.chrgj.org/projects/docs/targetedandentrapped.pdf

You're being disruptive on this thread. You also appear to be dead wrong in your assertion.

An then you usually say: "Did you EVEN read the article?"

And then you refuse to discuss it.

Thanks for the laugh.

example, dude?

be a little more specific.

On second thought, don't. I'm going back to not responding to your silliness and accusations, dude.

Ha, that took a long time. Sorry you couldn't get my above comment deleted.

I'm so sick and tired of this shit! :grr:

It helps justify the War on Terror and brings in the Homeland Security Monies

... is just the boogeyman that had to be created to fill the failed USSR's shoes - an excuse to spend trillions on a pointless military and "homeland security" apparatus.