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Posted 1/3/10 What’s more frightening than terrorism? Relying on analysts to prevent it.
What we are focused on is making sure that the air environment remains safe, that people are confident when they travel. And one thing I'd like to point out is that the system worked...The passengers and crew of the flight took appropriate action...Within literally an hour to 90 minutes of the incident occurring, all 128 flights in the air had been notified to take some special measures...So the whole process of making sure that we respond properly, correctly and effectively went very smoothly. Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano’s pitiful attempt to deflect blame for letting a bomb-carrying terrorist board a U.S.-bound plane didn’t work. Only a day later, as Al Qaeda openly gloated about an operation that “penetrated all modern and sophisticated technology and devices and security barriers in airports of the world,” the would-be spinmeister was forced to concede that the system had really not worked, at least not in the way that really matters. Unfortunately, it will take a lot more than a Presidential scolding to improve flight security. It seems that the vaunted “system” installed after 9/11 is hopelessly porous, with all measures short of a strip search having proved incapable of stopping determined evildoers. Although Homeland Security insists that every security checkpoint will soon be equipped with machines that can detect liquid explosives, PETN, the substance used in this episode (and earlier, by shoebomber Richard Reid) is a powder. Canines and wildly expensive electronic sniffers that can detect vapors from PETN and other explosives are tied up screening checked baggage. Meanwhile deployment of phenomenally costly full-body scanners is on hold due to privacy concerns. What about intelligence? Weren’t analysts sitting at glowing terminals supposed to be the solution? Indeed, America’s first line of defense, the FBI Terrorist Screening Center, maintains a “Consolidated Terrorist Watchlist” listing 550,000 persons suspected of terrorist ties. Most are foreigners. For reasons of efficiency TSA usually checks passenger lists against two subsets of individuals considered to pose the greatest threat, a “no-fly” list of 4,000 persons who are flat-out prohibited from boarding commercial aircraft, and a larger group of 14,000 “selectees” who must be thoroughly searched. (For the controlling Government regulations click here. Numbers given are the latest reported.) Alas, Umar Abdulmutallab was only on the master list, so when he got to the airport he was treated just like you and me (assuming that you’re not a bad guy, of course.) Why he wasn’t flagged for a more thorough search demonstrates just how fragile a process security screening really is. A Nigerian national from a rich family, Abdulmutallab was enrolled at a prestigious London university between 2005-2008 and presided over the student Islamic society. On graduation he acquired an American multiple-entry visitor’s visa, good for two years, and briefly vacationed in Houston. In January 2009 he attended a college in Australia. In May he tried to renew his British student visa using the name of a bogus college that was known to serve as a front for illegal immigration. That got him permanently barred from Great Britain. No matter – by August he was in Yemen, purportedly to study Arabic. Before dropping from sight he sent his parents text messages mentioning his radical intentions and saying that his family should forget about him. His alarmed father alerted his own government and went to the American embassy, where he met with officers from the State Department and CIA. But the kid remained unmolested. After meeting with an Al Qaeda cell in Yemen, he returned to Nigeria and flew to Amsterdam, where he boarded his final flight to the U.S. As one might expect this episode has provoked a great deal of finger-pointing. Britain never told the U.S. that it placed the youth on a no-entry list. Despite the father’s anguished warning the State Department didn’t revoke the son’s visa. Neither did the CIA tell the FBI that it had opened a file on Abdulmutallab. An NSA alert about an Al Qaeda attack that was to be carried out by an unnamed Nigerian national was filed and forgotten. And so on. Now wait a minute: wasn’t creating a new über-agency, the Department of Homeland Security, intended to correct the lapses in coordination and information sharing that supposedly contributed to 9/11? Sure. But while less-potent bureaucracies such as Customs, Immigration and the Secret Service got yanked from their former homes and placed under a single umbrella, the three national security organizations that really matter – the FBI, CIA and NSA – have way too much political clout and to this day remain virtually independent. Yes, the system is hopelessly fragmented. But should that be blamed for what took place? As we pointed out in Missed Signals, there is simply so much data and so little opportunity to do anything about it that that anything that isn’t an obvious red flag tends to get discounted. Really, the notion that those at the end of the information superhighway can successfully detect fast-moving conspiracies in time to avert a catastrophe is frightfully naive. Warnings that foreigners have it in for America aren’t exactly in short supply. Analysts didn’t know Abdulmutallab and they surely hadn’t spoken to his father. It’s a credit to the FBI that it placed the youth on any list at all. In truth, the best opportunity to detect a threat isn’t at a centralized analytical bureau that might as well be in another Galaxy – it’s in the field. Just how often do wealthy former government ministers walk in to warn foreigners about their own sons? Had officers at the American embassy in Nigeria made a few calls and consulted a few databases they might have easily come up with enough to nix Abdulmutallab’s visa, if not more. But they didn’t. Had airport security officers or airline employees in Nigeria or Amsterdam paid attention to someone who was flying to the U.S. without checked baggage, on an airline ticket paid for in cash, they might have prevented a terrorist’s boarding. But they didn’t. When the everyday pressures of business are overwhelming it’s awfully easy to rationalize things away – in effect, to do nothing. Let’s review the closing paragraph from Missed Signals: Rare events such as mass murder are difficult to predict precisely because they are rare. Our best shot at preventing them lies in avoiding the urge to routinize and in paying close attention to the unusual and offbeat, like naked women falling from the sky and military officers e-mailing with terrorists. We were referring to Cleveland serial killer Phillip Garrido and Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hassan. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab wouldn’t come until later. Did you enjoy this post? Be sure to explore the homepage and topical index! RELATED POSTS Missed Signals Hidden in Plain Sight An Illusion of Control UPDATES 02/01/10 According to the FBI, Umar Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man who tried to blow up a jetliner, wasn’t given his Miranda rights until he had already stopped cooperating. But the question remains: with so much evidence against him available, why read him his rights at all? 01/07/10 Abdulmutallab’s radical inclinations, as related by his father, were discovered by American officials during an in-depth review of the passenger manifest while the plane was enroute. He would have probably been questioned on arrival. 01/05/10 President Obama blames incident on “failure to integrate and understand the intelligence that we already had.” Existing information “was not fully analyzed or fully leveraged.” Home Top Permalink Share this post Posted 10/4/09 More losers get hurled, or hurl themselves, at America. Should we tremble?
Since 9/11 the FBI has to all appearances enjoyed a remarkable string of victories against terrorism. From the Fort Dix Six and the Liberty City/Sears Tower Seven, to the Rumble in the Bronx, the Feds have served up case after neatly-wrapped case of would-be bombers whose inner sanctums had been infiltrated by the Government from the very start. Planting informers in lead roles, then getting targets to say and do enough to satisfy the elements of a crime has become the favorite way to proceed. Agents keep watch so that no one gets hurt, and dangerous stuff like explosives (duds, of course) is only furnished at the last, carefully choreographed moment. That’s when the authorities swoop in, arrest everyone and take back their pretend bombs. Case closed. Next! But this time it was different. According to the New York Times, Najibullah Zazi, 24, first came to the attention of FBI analysts in late summer 2009. A native of Pakistan, Zazi emigrated to New York City in the 90’s. By 2005 he had dropped out of high school and was working a coffee cart owned by his father. In 2007 Zazi was regularly visiting Pakistan, where he entered into an arranged marriage and had two children. According to the FBI he would later admit that on his last trip, between August 2008 and January 2009, he took explosives training at an Al Qaida camp. By then Zazi was in serious financial trouble, having so overspent his credit cards that he was forced into bankruptcy. In January 2009 he moved to Colorado and got a job driving shuttles at the Denver airport. His parents joined him in July. Thanks to store security cameras and after-the-fact interviews it’s known that in August he and possibly as many as three associates ran around Aurora beauty supply stores buying products whose ingredients were in a bomb-making recipe that FBI agents later found in Zazi’s laptop. When Zazi suddenly packed up a rental car on September 9, 2009 the FBI didn’t know of these purchases, nor that Zazi had unsuccessfully tried to refine his concoctions in an Aurora motel room. Still, agents must have been aware of his overseas trips. And if Zazi’s e-mail and cell phone were already being monitored, as documents filed in the case suggest, they would have also known that he had been in touch with an unidentified person to determine the “correct mixtures of ingredients to make explosives.” FBI agents tailed Zazi to New York City, where he arrived on September 10. As they still lacked an insider, information was frustratingly sketchy. Fearing the worst, NYPD anti-terror detectives working with the FBI apparently took it on themselves to ask an Imam who knew Zazi to help. Police also stopped and searched Zazi’s car as he entered New York. To help FBI agents execute a “sneak and peek” search warrant they later towed the vehicle under pretext. Inside was a laptop that contained detailed bomb-making instructions and a browsing history suggesting that Zazi was looking to buy more chemicals. Zazi was decidedly no genius. Still, when the Imam tipped him off that police were asking questions he flew back to Denver and stripped the laptop of its hard drive. Realizing that the jig was up, the FBI emerged from the shadows. Agents interviewed Zazi for two days. Although Zazi insisted that the reason for the trip was to meet with the person who was operating his father’s coffee cart, he supposedly admitted training at an Al Qaida camp. Zazi stopped cooperating on the third day, leading the FBI to arrest him, his father and the Imam for lying to federal agents. Zazi was later indicted for conspiring to set off weapons of mass destruction. As of this writing none of his supposed helpers, an essential part of a conspiracy case, have been named. In a New York Times analysis entitled “Terror Case is Called the Most Serious in Years,” Karen J. Greenberg, executive director of NYU’s Center on Law and Security trumpeted the Zazi case as being “real scary...the case the government kept claiming it had but never did.” Other skeptics of past FBI counter-terrorism investigations agree. To be sure, this wasn’t the usual FBI rope-a-dope. There was no informer or undercover agent calling the shots. But neither is it comparable to 9/11, the Madrid Bombings or the more recent event in Bombay, which involved cadres of well-trained, highly disciplined terrorists. Poorly educated, bankrupt and holding down a menial job, Zazi was so marginal a figure that even he must have known it. Of course even hopeless bumblers must be stopped. Zazi likely had associates; according to MSNBC, three New York City men who reportedly helped him buy chemicals in Aurora are under watch. Had the FBI been able to keep the investigation under wraps Zazi and his friends, if any, might have eventually succeeded in mixing a lethal cocktail. They could have also blown themselves up or hurt others while trying. Still, we should be wary of elevating hopeless bumblers to the top of the threat pyramid simply because the Government didn’t induce them to act. If this ring of incompetents exists, calling it a major threat is a stretch. Even if an Al Qaida connection holds, it’s likely just another attempt to hurl as many losers at America as possible, hoping that one will succeed. In any event, the Zazi episode amply demonstrates the difficulty of building a traditional criminal case against terrorists while maintaining a reasonable assurance that things won’t literally blow up in one’s face. It’s far, far more challenging than roping in dopes. Not incidentally, it also promises to produce far fewer “successes.” As for major plots, we hope that the FBI’s on them, too. But what happened last week isn’t particularly reassuring. In two unrelated terrorist stings, FBI agents arrested Hosam Smadi, 19 and Michael Finton, 29 when they parked vehicles supposedly containing bombs, Smadi in the underground garage of a Dallas (Tx.) office tower, and Finton across from a Springfield (Ill.) Federal courthouse, and then tried to remotely activate the devices. Smadi was first contacted by an undercover agent trolling extremist chatrooms, while Finton was lured in by an informer. And, yes, the vehicles and bombs had been furnished by the Government. Did you enjoy this post? Be sure to explore the homepage and topical index! RELATED POSTS Rope-a-Dope Damned if They Do, Even if They Could Making Terrorists Making Terrorists II UPDATES 02/26/10 Federal authorities charged Adis Medunjanin and Zarein Ahmedzay with plotting to help would-be terrorist Najibullah Zazi detonate liquid explosives on NYC subways during rush hour. According to the Government the three were trained by Al Qaeda during a 2008 trip to Pakistan. 02/22/10 Najibullah Zazi pled guilty in Federal court to conspiring to set off devices in the subway to mark the 9/11 attack. 01/12/10 Analyzing ten terror plots against the U.S. in 2009, the New York Times called them either “amateurish” or the handiwork of FBI informants. 01/08/10 FBI arrests Zazi friends Ahmedzay and Medunjanin, the latter after he got into an automobile accident while being surveilled by the terrorist task force. Agents also went to his family’s residence where they served a search warrant and seized his passport. 12/07/09 Homeland Security reports increasing radicalization of U.S. Muslims. Meanwhile plans to combat the threat through education and outreach lag. 10/21/09 NYT columnist highlights rift between FBI and NYPD in Zazi case 10/12/09 Smadi, the Texas suspect, came to the U.S. in 2007 on a tourist visa and overstayed. He got a California ID card, secured employment, was briefly married and bought a 9 mm. pistol. 10/12/09 Zazi went to Pakistan with two friends, Zarein Ahmedzay and Adis Medunjanin. Both have been interviewed by the FBI, which is keeping them under surveillance. 10/8/09 FBI is watching Zazi friend Naiz Khan around-the-clock. It seems that the backpacks found in his apartment were part of a wholesaler’s overstock and were given away as gifts. Home Top Permalink Share this post Posted 6/14/09 Holocaust Museum shooter part of an extensive, loosely-federated hate movement
It was only a matter of time until a new wacko joined Timothy McVeigh, Richard Butler, Matthew Hale and William Pierce in the racist hall of fame. On June 10, 2009 James W. von Brunn, 88, approached the main entrance of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns, 39, helpfully opened the glass door. Von Brunn stepped inside, pulled a .22 rifle from his coat and fired. Although von Brunn isn’t a household name in extremist circles he is known to Federal law enforcement. In 1981 he burst into the Federal Reserve packing a revolver and sawed-off shotgun inside a trench coat. Intending to “arrest” the Fed’s members for violating the Constitution, America’s self-anointed savior was captured without incident in the room next to where the Board was meeting. He served six and one-half years in Federal prison. (To read his grandiose account of what happened click here.) Von Brunn’s homepage and biography (links are to archived versions) describe him as a decorated WW-II Navy man. There’s a letter of reference from the late Rear Admiral John G. Crommelin, another far-right zealot, who fawned that von Brunn “deserves the gratitude and assistance of every White Christian citizen of these United States.” While imprisoned von Brunn wrote a plea to the Secretary of the Navy in which he accused the Fed of furthering a Marxist/Jewish conspiracy to subjugate the chosen race. He never got a response. Von Brunn’s inspiration is a white supremacist ideology that dates back to the founding of the Ku Klux Klan. At its core is the conviction that by natural law European Christians are the master race, but that our government has been co-opted by rich Jews, blacks, immigrants and mongrels to whose whims everyone else must cater. In effect, von Brunn and his ilk aren’t bigots: they’re victims. Adherents of this hateful philosophy have taken different paths to resistance. Some, including the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations, Waco’s messianic Branch Davidians and the similarly oriented Covenant, Sword and Arm of the Lord (CSA) built compounds where members and their families lived apart from conventional society. Inevitably, their activities brought them into conflict with authorities. In the early 1980’s members of an Aryan Nations splinter group known as “The Order” staged a series of bank robberies, culminating in a wild shootout with the FBI. In 1998 Aryan Nations security guard Buford Furrow went on a spree, wounding several persons at a Jewish center and killing an Asian letter carrier. A racial harassment lawsuit ultimately led to the organization’s bankruptcy and the sale of their property. During the 1980’s the Branch Davidians, in Texas, and the CSA, in Arkansas, acquired large quantities of illegal weapons and waited for the apocalypse. Federal agents neutralized the CSA in a 1985 raid that passed without major incident. However, a 1993 attempt to replicate that success with the Branch Davidians led to the shooting death of four ATF agents. Eighty-two members of the sect, including twenty children, later died in a fire that the Feds insist was purposely set by the sect. After that tragedy authorities took a more measured approach. Three years later, in perhaps the last standoff of any size, twenty members of a tax-resistance group called the “Montana Freemen” holed up in their compound for nearly three months while dodging Federal tax and fraud warrants. Instead of sending in SWAT teams the FBI quietly waited them out, and in the end all peacefully surrendered. Supremacist groups have remained mostly quiet during the past decade. That’s not to say that everything’s been rosy. Since Timothy McVeigh’s murderous 1995 attack on the Oklahoma City Federal Building, which cost 168 innocent lives, deranged, gun-wielding loners with a victimhood complex have staged a number of mini-massacres at malls, universities and other public places. Most recently, three Pittsburgh (Penn.) police officers were killed and a fourth was wounded by a fanatic who complained about “the Obama gun ban that's on the way.” With the election of a black liberal as President, observers from the left and, surprisingly, a famous TV news anchor from the right have expressed concern that overheated conservative rhetoric has legitimized hate, energized the radical fringe and set the stage for even more mayhem.
Coming on the heels of the murder of a physician at a Kansas abortion clinic, von Brunn’s murderous act is raising new fears that a resurgence of extremist violence is in the works. We’ll soon know whether that’s true. Did you enjoy this post? Be sure to explore the homepage and topical index! RELATED POSTS Don’t Blame the NRA Disturbed Person Looking Beyond the Gun Barrel UPDATES 7/09 Guns and Hate, a Brady Center monograph on domestic hate movements Home Top Permalink Share this post Posted 5/24/09 Now that five “Liberty City” plotters stand convicted, should we feel safer?
“This wasn't so much a case of the FBI interrupting an ongoing terror plot, but of the agency providing a blueprint for it.” So said the editorial board of the Miami Herald. “We identified and disrupted a terrorist threat, and as a result our community and nation are a much safer place.” So said Jonathan Solomon, special agent in charge of the FBI office in Miami. Which account is the more accurate? Two weeks after five Liberty City (Miami) residents were convicted of plotting to bomb the Miami FBI office and the Chicago Sears Tower, the truth remains elusive. With trials in November 2007 and April 2008 ending in hung juries (one defendant was acquitted at the end of the first trial, another at the most recent) things seem a lot less certain than three years ago, when Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced the dismantling of a home-grown terrorist cell that intended to wage a “full ground war against the United States.” It all began when a snitch told the FBI that the head of a tiny Muslim sect in the impoverished “Liberty City” area of Miami was ranting against the Government. During the next few months the original stoolie and a second informer posing as an Al Qaeda representative encouraged Narseal Batiste and his followers to talk trash about the U.S. As the indictment attests, Batiste, who once lived in Chicago, was recorded saying that he wanted to blow up the city’s famed landmark, the 108-floor Sears Tower. In another taped event an informer led Batiste and his motley crew (the indictment referred to them as “soldiers”) in pledging allegiance to Al Qaeda, a ritual that was offered to jurors as proof positive of the cabal’s dastardly intentions. Prompted for a wish list, Batiste requested radios, guns, boots, weapons, a camera and $50,000 cash (he got boots and the camera.) He and an underling then drove around Miami in a van rented by the FBI and photographed Federal offices they supposedly intended to bomb. Batiste would later testify that he only cased the buildings to collect the 50 G’s. Whatever his intentions, taking the pictures was the overt act that agents and prosecutors had been waiting for. On June 22, 2006 Batiste and six followers (the indictment ominously called them “soldiers”) were arrested for conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and to destroy buildings with explosives, charges that could bring terms of as much as fifty years. That’s when a funny thing happened. During a press conference Assistant FBI Director John Pistole let slip that the plot was “more aspirational than operational.” His candid comment, which probably caused much heartburn at the Hoover building, reflected the undeniable fact that the case against the men was awfully thin. No evidence of any kind -- neither weapons, terrorist plans nor bomb manuals -- was recovered from the forlorn warehouse that served as the alleged terrorist lair. What there was lots and lots of chatter, much of it prompted by informers who were reportedly paid more than $100,000 to help bring the motley group within reach of the law. MSNBC Video Report on Arrests
Considering all that it’s no surprise that juries revolted twice. Jeffrey Agron, a lawyer and foreman at the first trial said that jurors felt the first informant lacked credibility, and that the second led the defendants on. “It's a case where a government informant got a bunch of guys together to swear a loyalty oath to Al Qaeda,” he said. “It's a B movie really, more than a criminal case.” Yet like everyone in Hollywood knows, given a large enough ad budget even a lousy movie can succeed. After taking “three bites of the apple” and spending millions the Feds finally managed to tailor a case that stuck. Or mostly stuck. A third mistrial was avoided when the judge expelled a juror whom the others accused of refusing to deliberate. Whether she was uncooperative or a victim of bullying will surely come up on appeal. Domestic Jihad, virtually unknown before 9/11, has become a growth industry. Fortunately, our homegrown terrorists seem to lack the leadership skills, ideas and physical and material means to act on their own. With always an informer to track the shenanigans, remarkably not a single plot has slipped through to completion. In the most recent example, which occurred only days ago in the Bronx, four ex-cons got caught planting what they thought were real bombs at two synagogues. They reportedly got the devices (and one supposes, the notion) from Shahed Hussain, an experienced FBI informer. Until the rumble in the Bronx the smooth-talking ex-con’s claim to fame was the Albany, New York “pizza shop” sting of 2004, where he got two Muslim men targeted by the FBI to help him in a bizarre, wholly made-up money laundering scheme that defense lawyers fruitlessly challenged as an outrageous example of entrapment. It’s hard to feel sorry for those who harbor radical fantasies. Still, as the writer well knows, there’s a big difference between infiltrating an active criminal organization and trolling for naive opportunists. Many believe that the collapse of the Twin Towers led to a like collapse in the values and precepts that make the American system of justice special. Of course, we should worry when the government acts as a provocateur. And it’s not only a moral concern. As we’ve pointed out in earlier posts manipulating dopes and staging show trials promotes an illusion of safety while distracting agencies from doing the hard work that’s necessary to uncover real threats. Where the Feds once led the charge for higher standards, it seems that they’re now leading the race to the cellar. It’s not the terrorists’ character that we ought to be worrying about. Did you enjoy this post? Be sure to explore the homepage and topical index! RELATED POSTS If You Can’t Find a Terrorist, Make One! Damned if They Do, Even if They Could UPDATES 01/19/10 FBI criticized for sending informants into mosques to “provoke” terrorist plots 01/12/10 Analyzing ten terror plots against the U.S. in 2009, the New York Times called them either “amateurish” or the handiwork of FBI informants. 10/29/09 FBI guidelines allow agents to “proactively” investigate potential security threats without specific information. Ethnicity and religion can be a factor. Agents are prohibited from leading groups “into criminal activity that otherwise probably would not have occurred.” FBI manual 09/26/09 In two unrelated terrorist stings, FBI agents arrested a Texas man and an Illinois man for planting vehicles they thought contained bombs in an office tower and near a Federal courthouse. 07/13/09 Feature article claims that Bronx plot was FBI informer’s doing Home Top Permalink Share this post Posted 5/3/09 The real dilemma’s not about using torture -- it’s about authorizing it Where did “enhanced interrogation” techniques come from? No, they’re not an outgrowth of the 3D experiments (“debility-dependence-dread state”) that the C.I.A. commissioned during the Cold War. Neither did they originate with SERE, the program that prepares special ops troops for those nasty “we have ways to make you talk” methods that made North Korean interrogators famous. Nope, for the real scoop we must turn to...Hollywood!
A vicious criminal buried a comely teen alive and abandoned her to suffocate. After the requisite number of chases and shootouts Inspector Callahan caught up with the kidnapper. There was no time to argue. Where is she? While “Dirty Harry” has its comic-strip moments much of it rings true. Its depiction of the kidnapping seems nearly prophetic. In 2002 real German police arrested the abductor of an 11-year old boy when he tried to pick up the ransom. But the man stubbornly refused to help officers find the child. After hours of fruitless questioning Frankfurt’s deputy police chief bluntly warned him that if he didn’t cooperate a “specialist” would be summoned to inflict unbearable pain. Although the ruse worked, it failed to save the victim: his body was found in a lake, swathed in plastic. Scorpio’s victim also turned up dead. But unlike the German cop, who was relieved of duty and investigated for merely threatening torture, Inspector Callahan, who really did it (on screen) got off scot-free. Well, there were sequels to be filmed! Dirty Harry’s actions stirred spirited debate in the halls of academe. In his classic essay “The Dirty Harry Problem,” criminologist Carl Klockars used what the Inspector did to explore the means-end dilemmas that real cops encounter. But long before the movie hit theaters a string of Supreme Court decisions had already made it clear that anything remotely smacking of torture would make whatever the police got inadmissible in court:
Next thing we knew there was Abu Ghraib. Shocked by disclosures that “unlawful combatants” were being starved, deprived of sleep, forced to stand in stress positions for hours, and so forth, attorney Alan Dershowitz wrote that it was time to give the whole matter of torture a proper airing. A year later Dershowitz wrote a follow-up article suggesting that requiring interrogators to justify the necessity for “rough interrogation” techniques by securing special warrants could help assure that unsavory methods were used only when really, really necessary. As Dershowitz is a well-known civil libertarian, his piece set off a ruckus. In “Torture: the Case for Dirty Harry and Against Alan Dershowitz” philosopher Uwe Steinhoff lauded Inspector Callahan’s instincts: The Dirty Harry case, it seems to me, is a case of morally justified torture. But isn’t Steinhoff nonetheless warned against officially endorsing torture, reasoning that giving it legitimacy would amplify its use and coarsen the system. Agreeing with Klockars, he suggested that the best way to keep repugnant yet potentially lifesaving practices within bounds was to place would-be torturers on notice that they could be prosecuted. His moral calculus brings to mind a 1999 ruling by the Israeli Supreme Court (cited by Dershowitz) that outlawed all forms of torture but left it up to judges to forgive interrogators who thought they had no option. In a rejoinder Dershowitz pointed out that Bill Clinton had supported using Presidential findings to authorize torture should extreme situations warrant. What neither the lawyer nor the ex-President knew was that Justice Department attorneys crafted secret guidelines so permissive that two Al Qaeda suspects wound up getting waterboarded a total of 266 times. Just as Klockars and Steinhoff feared, trying to regulate “enhanced interrogation techniques” only managed to grease an already slippery moral slope. History tells us that crusades (think War on Terror) have led otherwise good people to endorse and engage in the most brutal and despicable behavior. Remember the Milgram experiment? It’s not surprising that when our new President realized what was happening under the Stars and Stripes he would adopt the Klockars/Steinhoff approach and ban torture altogether. It may not be a perfect solution. But in this world it’s as close to perfection as we’re likely to get. Did you enjoy this post? Be sure to explore the homepage and topical index! Stanford student grills Condoleezza Rice about torture (April 2009)
UPDATES 8/26/09 Supposedly to avoid “torturing” and comply with the law, CIA directives specified detainee treatment down to the hours that they could be kept in a box and exactly how far to go when waterboarding. Now DOJ must decide whether to prosecute agents who stepped over these lines. 8/24/09 DOJ to investigate whether CIA interrogations broke the law. Many had been reported by the CIA but were deemed unprosecutable by the Bush administration. CIA report 5/3/09 Bush officials “battled” about interrogation methods Home Top Permalink Share this post Posted 5/31/08 DAMNED IF THEY DO, EVEN IF THEY COULD Pressures to make arrests distract FBI agents from pursuing worthwhile targets How many terrorist attacks have we had in the U.S. since September 11, 2001? None, of course. How many attempts? Hint: You can count them on the fingers of one hand, even if you bite four digits off. That’s right, one. It was Richard Reid, aka Abdul Raheem, a British-born Jihadist who tried to blow himself up aboard an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami in December 2001. Reid, who’s now safely tucked away in a Super-Max room-and-board, was part of a three-man European cell that intended to down airliners with shoe bombs. Fortunately, an alert flight attendant smelled smoke from Reid’s matches (fuses aren’t supposed to be lit that way, but that’s another story). So be nice to flight attendants, and be sure to flip Reid a hearty salute every time you stick your shoes in an airport tray. According to the good folks at FOX News there have been fourteen terrorist plots aimed at America or Americans since 9/11. Of these, only Reid’s went operational, the others being mostly comprised of wannabees who had to be talked into everything by informers. For example, in the Sears Tower plot, six Muslim men were enticed by a paid snitch to help him blow up a skyscraper and bomb FBI offices. At their second trial (the first ended in a hung jury) one defendant was acquitted outright, while jurors deadlocked on the rest. (A third trial is pending.) Then there’s the case of the Fort Dix Six, where the FBI paid another informer to convince six Muslims to agree to assault a military base. Set for trial later this year, the case drove Time magazine to strongly criticize the FBI’s habit of proceeding “almost entirely on the work of a paid informant with a criminal record.” Essentially the problem boils down to this. At heart the FBI is a law enforcement organization. Under heavy pressure to nab terrorists, but lacking actionable intelligence and the know-how to collect and analyze it, the Bureau turned to what it knew: making criminal cases. Unable to infiltrate real terror cells with undercover agents, the FBI used informers to cajole and manipulate targets of opportunity until they did or said enough to be arrested on conspiracy charges. If it sounds like the FBI’s been making a bunch of bad “B” movies on the taxpayers’ dime you wouldn’t be far off. Clearly not all FBI agents are happy about this. In recent testimony before the House Judiciary Committee one of the Bureau’s few native Arabic speakers criticized his agency for focusing on minor cases, thus “diverting resources from investigating more substantial threats.” Meanwhile the Senate Intelligence Committee took its own swing, accusing the Bureau’s antiterrorism program of being helplessly stuck in law-enforcement mode. Finding little progress since 2005, when the 9/11 Commission gave the FBI a “C” report card, Senators criticized it for everything from inept intelligence analysis to using specialized anti-terror groups for unrelated law enforcement tasks. Reading between the lines it seems that Congress wants FBI terrorism investigators to stop playing policeman so they can root out terrorist threats before more buildings come tumbling down and more aircraft fall from the sky. That’s a tall order for agents who signed up to make cases, not sit in vans and listening posts for hours on end, and a nearly impossible one for an agency whose success has always been measured by numbers of arrests. When it comes down to it, everyone wants tangible results. Hands at the Los Angeles Times are wringing over the fact that while the number of electronic surveillance warrants steeply increased, the number of terrorism cases referred for prosecution steeply decreased. According to statistics collected by TRAC, a nonprofit group at Syracuse University, the Justice Department initiated fifty percent fewer national security prosecutions in 2007 than 2002 (actual drop, from fifty cases to twenty-five). Meanwhile, refusals to prosecute have climbed from about thirty percent to more than eighty percent of referrals. Now, some might say that this is good news, reflecting a greater depth of casework and perhaps higher prosecutorial standards. But the Times isn’t sure. “Although legal experts say they would not necessarily expect the number of prosecutions to rise along with the stepped-up surveillance, there are few other good ways to measure how well the government is progressing in keeping the country safe.” That in a nutshell is the FBI’s dilemma. Experts inside and outside the Bureau agree that to protect the country it needs to place more emphasis on collecting intelligence and less on roping in dopes and staging show trials. But taking the high road might lead to even fewer arrests, leading politicians and the public to conclude that the Feds aren’t doing their job. One person got it right. Thomas Newcomb, a former national security staff member, told Congress that military action and diplomacy are more suited for defeating terrorism than going to court. “The fact that the prosecutions are down doesn't mean that the utility of these investigations is down. It suggests that these investigations may be leading to other forms of prevention and protection.” Unfortunately, prevention isn’t readily measurable while making arrests is, so that’s what the FBI feels it must keep doing even if everyone agrees it’s the wrong approach. Incidentally, that’s precisely the reason why intelligence work should be done by a specialized agency, not by a law enforcement organization. For more on this see the postings below. Did you enjoy this post? Be sure to explore the homepage and topical index! UPDATES 10/27/09 DOJ I.G.: FBI lacks sufficient interpreters to adequately screen terrorism intelligence 8/19/09 FBI terror “threat squads” chase many leads with miniscule results 3/26/09 Dept. of Justice, FBI say their first priority is (and will be) terrorism 1/27/09 Six alleged Sears Tower plotters go on trial for the third time 12/22/08 Five members of Fort Dix Six convicted of conspiracy 7/11/08 FBI shifting emphasis from prosecutions to intelligence (NPR) 2/7/08 Is the FBI manufacturing terrorism cases? (Rolling Stone) Home Top Permalink Share this post Posted 12/15/07 MAKING TERRORISTS (PART II) -- CHANGE THE LAW! Relaxing the standards for electronic interceptions can be a good idea The word on the Sears Tower “terrorist conspiracy” is in, and it’s not good for the Government. One defendant was acquitted outright and the jury hung on the others (reportedly an even split). As many predicted, the FBI’s active promotion of the crime left a few fact-finders cold. If an informer has to intercede that forcefully to get someone to step over the line, where was the threat in the first place? That’s what we questioned when the trial began. That the FBI persists in making questionable cases like the Sears Tower plot isn’t surprising. As a law enforcement agency they are driven by arrests and convictions. If making quality cases is tough, what gets done is numbers. That’s one reason why ferreting out terrorists should be left to intelligence agencies, who are held to completely different standards. But we digress. Regardless of who does what, evidence must come from somewhere. Police are normally mobilized by victims, witnesses and physical evidence. In consensual crimes such as vice and narcotics victims and witnesses are unavailable, so we turn to informers, surveillance and undercover work. Police can participate in illegal transactions and collect evidence until they have a strong enough case to satisfy even the pickiest prosecutor. Terrorism presents special challenges. Obviously, we must intercede before the crime is completed. But “real” terrorists are far less vulnerable to undercover infiltration than ordinary criminals. How else can we mobilize? One approach is to intercept wire and wireless communications. However, unlike informers, who require no judicial blessing, tapping requires that police convince a judge there is probable cause a serious crime is being planned or committed. “Probable cause” means more likely than not, a standard that’s tough to meet when bad guys are so secretive that conventional methods don’t work. What’s the fix? Lower the standard. Yes, there is precedent. Consider the Supreme Court’s Terry doctrine, which allows police to temporarily detain persons for investigation when there is “reasonable suspicion” that a crime is being planned or has occurred. Police use this authority frequently; for example, to detain someone in the vicinity of a crime who resembles the suspect’s description. It could be possible to adopt a like standard, allowing police to intercept and “detain” communications given reasonable suspicion that at least one of the parties is promoting terrorism, under court supervision and within set time limits. If probable cause is reached then cases could proceed along a conventional track. (Incidentally, the “investigating magistrate” model is how some European countries inject the judicial system at the early stage of the evidence-gathering process.) If we’re happy to live under the illusion that our criminal justice system is doing just fine, and we’re comfortable with staging show trials and using informers as agents provocateurs, then no change is necessary. Any approach, no matter how flawed, is certain of success until we’re hit again. Did you enjoy this post? Be sure to explore the homepage and topical index! Home Top Permalink Share this post IF YOU CAN’T FIND A TERRORIST, MAKE ONE! Encouraging Jihadist wannabees is the wrong approach One would think that the least likely person to downplay a terrorist threat would be an FBI executive. But that is exactly what Assistant FBI Director John Pistole did last year when he said that a plot to blow up Chicago’s Sears Tower offices was “more aspirational than operational.” Be that as it may, seven members of a bizarre Miami religious sect are finally getting their day in court, charged with conspiring to wage holy war against the U.S. The terrifying scheme did not come to light from an independent investigation but through a tip from a man whom the FBI later enlisted as an informer. For getting the motley crew to talk up a storm, drive around in a car (rented by the FBI) and take pictures (with a camera supplied by the FBI), thus fulfilling the “overt act” requirements for a conspiracy, he and another paid source reportedly walked away with more than $100,000. Does that sound familiar? Perhaps you’re thinking of this May’s arrest of six Muslims from New Jersey and Philadelphia for allegedly conspiring to assault -- yes, Fort Dix! Again, the driving force was an FBI informer who spent months prodding the group to do something, anything besides talk about Jihad. When the dupes finally agreed to his offer to supply free machineguns (rocket-propelled grenades scared them) the FBI must have breathed a sigh of relief. Conspiracy to acquire illegal weapons -- finally, a violation! Lock ‘em up! And let’s not forget that sting in Lodi where the FBI paid an informer more than a quarter million dollars to do everything short of driving a hapless young Muslim man to a terrorist training camp. One must wonder...are these guys all there is? Before international terrorism was the number one concern there was the domestic kind. During the days of the Montana Freemen and Timothy McVeigh, an undercover agent with enough weapons could have traveled the Coast-to-Coast right-wing circuit, stopping for coffee-and-ammo breaks at gun shows along the way, and made enough “conspiracy to acquire machinegun” cases to justify the salaries of every ATF agent for the next fifty years. Twenty-plus years of Federal law enforcement taught me that this great land of ours has enough disaffected bozos, and groups of bozos, to fill every prison many times over. All one needs do is get them worked up over the gripe du jour (taxes, immigration, gun control, white angst, or what-have-you), give them an opportunity and, snap! Another notch for the monthly statistical report. We could do just that. If we’re careful to cross the t’s and dot the i’s, we might even get convictions. But as I like to ask my criminal justice students: Is this what we ought to be doing? Considering how many angry, armed men there are (and a few women, I suppose) it seems a miracle that our country isn’t a smoldering wreck. Fortunately, that very same aspect of human nature that occasionally kills us even more frequently saves the day. It’s easy to blow one’s stack, but committing mass murder is something else again. Incidents like the Oklahoma City bombing and the Virginia Tech massacre don’t take place very often, and not because of law enforcement. These horrifying events are rare because those so inclined get distracted. Some get sane. Others lose courage, fall in love, fall out of hate, wind up in a mental hospital, get run over by a truck, take up jogging. Even the simplest barriers -- a gun purchase records check -- can be enough to discourage or frighten into sanity all but the extraordinarily committed. And for those there is always SWAT. But wait a minute -- normal people don’t talk about waging terrorism, not even when prodded. Can we afford to ignore anyone who might even remotely pose a threat? A better question is: given the menace, can we afford to expend valuable resources on risks so tenuous that one must push targets over the line? There are likely hundreds of serious home-grown plots brewing every day. We don’t know about them because most terrorists are presumably smart enough to avoid being talked into accepting boots from strangers (like the Sears Tower Six) or having Circuit City transfer terrorist training videos to DVD (like the Fort Dix Six.) What should be done? First, use common sense. Even if we can ultimately secure convictions, encouraging crime gobbles up scarce resources, distracting us from the real task at hand and creating a dangerous illusion of effectiveness. Second, apply existing sanctions. Three of the Fort Dix Six are reportedly illegal aliens. Unless there are truly compelling reasons to do otherwise, I suggest that when the FBI runs across deportable persons with favorable attitudes about terrorism they kick them out of the country. Finally, look for system-wide solutions. Unlike other advanced nations, the U.S. insists on commingling criminal investigation and counter-terrorism, forcing the FBI to wear two hats. Rewards usually flow from producing measurable outcomes such as arrests and convictions. But serious intelligence work cannot be evaluated with numbers; indeed, such pressures can easily distort what actually takes place. We desperately need a separate intelligence agency that offers a distinct career track for counter-terrorism professionals. Unfortunately, the FBI, backed by its many friends in Congress, steadfastly refuses to yield any jurisdiction, offering feeble justifications for what is fundamentally a reluctance to lose a chunk of its empire. That too needs to change. Did you enjoy this post? Be sure to explore the homepage and topical index! UPDATES 01/19/10 FBI criticized for sending informants into mosques to “provoke” terrorist plots |
Johns, a six-year veteran, fell mortally wounded. His colleagues instantly reacted, the explosive sounds of their return fire ricocheting inside the cavernous building and sending visitors scurrying for cover. Von Brunn was struck in the head and at this writing remains in critical condition.
