Obligatory Mohamed Mohamud thread...

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**Frazzled**

SilverMK2 wrote:Just as an aside my wife and I were sat within 5 metres of the Lord Mayor of Stafford (and his wife) at a concert on Satruday.

Have no idea what his name is though.

On Saturday I had a weiner dog who took it as a personal offense if I tried to get him off my lap.

**SilverMK2**

filbert wrote:
SilverMK2 wrote:Just as an aside my wife and I were sat within 5 metres of the Lord Mayor of Stafford (and his wife) at a concert on Satruday.

Have no idea what his name is though.

Keith

Malcolm apparently.

**Monster Rain**

sebster wrote:
Monster Rain wrote:If Timothy McVeigh or Mohammed Atta had been taken out of circulation I think things might have turned out differently, yes. These people have to start somewhere.

Well, yeah, but do you think targetting every person who's expressed violent desires for a sting, is going to pick up enough people to be likely to stop the one Mohammed Atta* who actually goes through with it?

If they go this far:

OP's News Story wrote:The FBI monitored Mohamud's e-mail and found he was in contact with people overseas, asking how he could travel to Pakistan and join the fight for jihad, according to an FBI affidavit.

Then I think that they are a perfectly valid target for a sting.

**SilverMK2**

You'd think that if they were monitoring his email, they would keep on watching it to see what arrangements were being made for this guy to go overseas, who was doing it and how, etc. Surely that insight into the bad guy network would have been far more valuable than just nabbing him.

Hell, let him go but bug the crap out of all his stuff so you can track him to whatever camp they are taking him to. Then arrange some kind of "natural disaster" or something in the area...

**Frazzled**

SilverMK2 wrote:You'd think that if they were monitoring his email, they would keep on watching it to see what arrangements were being made for this guy to go overseas, who was doing it and how, etc. Surely that insight into the bad guy network would have been far more valuable than just nabbing him.

Hell, let him go but bug the crap out of all his stuff so you can track him to whatever camp they are taking him to. Then arrange some kind of "natural disaster" or something in the area...

Wait, there's an argument that these resources could have been better spent elsewehere but the alternative is to bug and tail him constantly? You do realize the expense and manhours involved right? Plus those talking about his emails-again he doesn't have to leave the country. He only has to get in his car and driver it into a crowd of Christmas revellers.

In addition to currrent charges they should charge him under any state law hate crimes if that state has them.

Now his defense team are bringing up the entrapment issue. He's a dead man walking if thats the case (means they have no defense). Good.

**Monster Rain**

Doesn't the fact that they know that he was in contact with people overseas indicate that the FBI is already onto them?

**SilverMK2**

Frazzled wrote:Wait, there's an argument that these resources could have been better spent elsewehere but the alternative is to bug and tail him constantly? You do realize the expense and manhours involved right? Plus those talking about his emails-again he doesn't have to leave the country. He only has to get in his car and driver it into a crowd of Christmas revellers.

I would say that the man hours spent setting up a scheme to get him to think he is going to blow people up is probably about the same as looking at his emails, sending a couple of guys to plant some trackers in his clothes/etc and looking at a big map with a blip on it (yes, I know that it will be more complex than that, possibly with people taking pictures of him and anyone he contacts to arrange flights/transport, etc).

I would also argue that the prize of information on the wider network (or networks) would be greater than bagging some z-list proto-terrorist.

**Monster Rain**

SilverMK2 wrote:
Frazzled wrote:Wait, there's an argument that these resources could have been better spent elsewehere but the alternative is to bug and tail him constantly? You do realize the expense and manhours involved right? Plus those talking about his emails-again he doesn't have to leave the country. He only has to get in his car and driver it into a crowd of Christmas revellers.

I would say that the man hours spent setting up a scheme to get him to think he is going to blow people up is probably about the same as looking at his emails, sending a couple of guys to plant some trackers in his clothes/etc and looking at a big map with a blip on it (yes, I know that it will be more complex than that, possibly with people taking pictures of him and anyone he contacts to arrange flights/transport, etc).

I would also argue that the prize of information on the wider network (or networks) would be greater than bagging some z-list proto-terrorist.

Where do you get the idea that both things can't happen at the same time?

**SilverMK2**

Monster Rain wrote:Doesn't the fact that they know that he was in contact with people overseas indicate that the FBI is already onto them?

You're currently talking to me, and I'm overseas. Doesn't mean you know who I am, what I look like, what I do, etc. Or indeed who I work with or how my network is run (yes, I'm a terrorist for this post).

The point is that by following someone as they pass through the system, you get to map it out, see how it works, the people involved, etc.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Monster Rain wrote:Where do you get the idea that both things can't happen at the same time?

Well, the fact that this guy is sitting in jail after being given some play-doh and a mobile phone rather than sitting on a plane to the Middle East with enough electonics up his butt to light up a Christmas tree and a couple of agents waiting for him at the other end?

I'm not trying to say that it doesn't happen, or even that it was appropriate in this particular case (as I've said before, no one here knows everything involved in this case or the status of the FBI/other agencies in knowing the terrorist agents and networks), but that, to me, it would make more sense to try and get as many people through the system as possible to enable you to build up a good enough picture of it that you can take it down in one go.

As I mentioned before, perhaps this guy was so crap at pointing out that he wanted to be a terrorist that any real terrorist would know he would be watched and so would not go near him, yet unstable/whatever enough that there was a real chance that he would go and do something anyway that the FBI decided to trap him rather than leave him free to do whatever he wants, in which case such a tactic would be appropriate.

**Frazzled**

SilverMK2 wrote:
Frazzled wrote:Wait, there's an argument that these resources could have been better spent elsewehere but the alternative is to bug and tail him constantly? You do realize the expense and manhours involved right? Plus those talking about his emails-again he doesn't have to leave the country. He only has to get in his car and driver it into a crowd of Christmas revellers.

I would say that the man hours spent setting up a scheme to get him to think he is going to blow people up is probably about the same as looking at his emails, sending a couple of guys to plant some trackers in his clothes/etc and looking at a big map with a blip on it (yes, I know that it will be more complex than that, possibly with people taking pictures of him and anyone he contacts to arrange flights/transport, etc).

I would also argue that the prize of information on the wider network (or networks) would be greater than bagging some z-list proto-terrorist.

Er, you can't just "plant trackers," and such. The FBI is not the CIA both technically and legally. They are bound by strict rules of evidence and judicial oversight.

Again, you people keep thinking you have to fly to the Middle East and get training/equipment to be a terrorist. Thats absolute nonsense. At any point Bob the Terrorist can just go berserk and kill a bunch of people and your devious surveillance methods wouldn't stop him in time. The FBI can't take that risk.

**SilverMK2**

Frazzled wrote:Er, you can't just "plant trackers," and such. The FBI is not the CIA both technically and legally. They are bound by strict rules of evidence and judicial oversight.

Since when has that ever stopped America from doing something it wanted to do?

**Frazzled**

SilverMK2 wrote:
Frazzled wrote:Er, you can't just "plant trackers," and such. The FBI is not the CIA both technically and legally. They are bound by strict rules of evidence and judicial oversight.

Since when has that ever stopped America from doing something it wanted to do?

Since forever. I don't care what they do in a foreign country ("I'm pleased to announce I've given orders for the B-52s to launch and they should be in Soviet airspace by breakfast"), but in the US the FBI has to follow the law.

**SilverMK2**

Frazzled wrote:Since forever. I don't care what they do in a foreign country ("I'm pleased to announce I've given orders for the B-52s to launch and they should be in Soviet airspace by breakfast"), but in the US the FBI has to follow the law.

Perhaps you should announce (very quietly so they don't find out) their house as not being part of the US?

Edit: Then you can have the fun of invading it later on as well!

**ShumaGorath**

Melissia wrote:lol, U.S. high schools. Such a great example of how NOT to make an education system.

Technically the highschools generally bring the education of the student back into parity with other countries. Middleschool is where a significant amount is lost statistically.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Frazzled wrote:
SilverMK2 wrote:
Frazzled wrote:Er, you can't just "plant trackers," and such. The FBI is not the CIA both technically and legally. They are bound by strict rules of evidence and judicial oversight.

Since when has that ever stopped America from doing something it wanted to do?

Since forever. I don't care what they do in a foreign country ("I'm pleased to announce I've given orders for the B-52s to launch and they should be in Soviet airspace by breakfast"), but in the US the FBI has to follow the law.

I'll remember that next time you're defending unconstitutional and illegal rendition or coercion by the FBI and CIA.

**Frazzled**

SilverMK2 wrote:
Frazzled wrote:Since forever. I don't care what they do in a foreign country ("I'm pleased to announce I've given orders for the B-52s to launch and they should be in Soviet airspace by breakfast"), but in the US the FBI has to follow the law.

Perhaps you should announce (very quietly so they don't find out) their house as not being part of the US?

Edit: Then you can have the fun of invading it later on as well!

I like yer thinkin!

Automatically Appended Next Post:

ShumaGorath wrote:
Melissia wrote:lol, U.S. high schools. Such a great example of how NOT to make an education system.

Technically the highschools generally bring the education of the student back into parity with other countries. Middleschool is where a significant amount is lost statistically.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Frazzled wrote:
SilverMK2 wrote:
Frazzled wrote:Er, you can't just "plant trackers," and such. The FBI is not the CIA both technically and legally. They are bound by strict rules of evidence and judicial oversight.

Since when has that ever stopped America from doing something it wanted to do?

Since forever. I don't care what they do in a foreign country ("I'm pleased to announce I've given orders for the B-52s to launch and they should be in Soviet airspace by breakfast"), but in the US the FBI has to follow the law.

I'll remember that next time you're defending unconstitutional and illegal rendition or coercion by the FBI and CIA.

Thats great. Note your own statement. Here I'll be helpful and requote it for you:

unconstitutional and illegal

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Woops looks like he actually was in contact with Al Qaeda. Can we safely say the FBI used its resources wisely now?

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/christmas-tree-bomber-mohamud-touch-al-qaeda-mouthpiece/story?id=12270610

Nov. 30, 2010

Mohamed Osman Mohamud, the Somali-American
college student charged with plotting an attack on a
Christmas lighting event in Portland, Oregon, was in
contact with, and wrote articles for, another
prominent American al Qaeda propagandist for nearly
two years, authorities say.

Mohamud, who was arrested in an FBI sting, is
accused of attempting to detonate what he believed to
be a car bomb in Portland's Pioneer Courthouse
Square via cellphone during the annual lighting of
the Christmas tree last Friday, which had drawn a
crowd of thousands. The supposed explosive device
was non-functional . Mohamud, 19, pled not guilty in
federal court Monday to one count of an attempted
use of a weapon of mass destruction.

The FBI affidavit alleges that Mohamud stated to
undercover agents that he had wanted to take part in
violent jihad since he was 15, and that he told FBI
agents that he had written four articles since 2009 for
two different on-line jihadist magazines edited and
distributed by Samir Khan.

Khan, 24, is the Saudi-born, New York-raised editor
behind Inspire magazine, the English language online
publication of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or
AQAP. Khan, who has said he is currently hiding in
Yemen, has become a rising figure in jihadist
propaganda and an "aspiring" Anwar Awlaqi,
according to U.S. intelligence officials.

Under the pen name "Ibn al-Mubarak," alleges the FBI,
Mohamud wrote three articles "discussing violent
jihad" that appeared in 2009 in Jihad Recollections,
the web magazine edited that Khan edited from his
parents' North Carolina basement before relocating to
Yemen.

One of the articles published under the name Ibn al-
Mubarak was titled, "Getting in shape without
weights," which appeared in the first issue of Jihad
Recollections, urged aspiring jihadists to stay fit for
God.

American forces, said the article, "cannot go to any
battlefront without carrying along with them their
bench, squat sets and sometimes even their
machines," proof that jihadists should avoid costly
devices to get strong.

In a 2009 article that praised al Qaeda's media wing,
As-Sahab, Ibn al-Mubarak wrote that the organization
has a "great influence on the hearts and minds of
many Muslims because they help everyone realize the
reality of the situation and not losing focus of the real
issues at hand."

FBI: Mohamud Exchanged Email With Jihadist In
Pakistan

Mohamud allegedly told agents that he had written
another article for Khan's new, Yemen-based web
magazine, Inspire, but that it had not yet been
published.

In its affidavit, the FBI says it became aware of
Mohamud after he exchanged emails with a jihadist
in Pakistan in 2009. Mohamud was attempting to
travel to Pakistan for weapons and explosives
training, but failed to follow the instructions of his
contact to reach someone who could facilitate his
travel.

**Monster Rain**

SilverMK2 wrote:
Monster Rain wrote:Doesn't the fact that they know that he was in contact with people overseas indicate that the FBI is already onto them?

You're currently talking to me, and I'm overseas. Doesn't mean you know who I am, what I look like, what I do, etc. Or indeed who I work with or how my network is run (yes, I'm a terrorist for this post).

The fact that the nature of our communication doesn't make them want to investigate me for terrorism is the main point here.

**Kilkrazy**

Doesn't freedom of speech mean he is allowed to write articles for jihadist websites?

**Frazzled**

Kilkrazy wrote:Doesn't freedom of speech mean he is allowed to write articles for Al Qaeda websites?

Corrected your typo.

By the way, they used to call that Treason.

**Kilkrazy**

Yes, or no?

**Monster Rain**

Kilkrazy wrote:Doesn't freedom of speech mean he is allowed to write articles for jihadist websites?

Sure it does.

He wasn't arrested for writing, he was arrested for "pressing the button" as it were.

**Kilkrazy**

According to Frazzled, it is a good thing that the FBI got on his case because he was writing articles for Al Quaeda web sites.

**Frazzled**

Kilkrazy wrote:According to Frazzled, it is a good thing that the FBI got on his case because he was writing articles for Al Quaeda web sites.

Working...with the enemy...links to AlQaeda...good use of FBI resources yes or no?

Time to use time honored British tradition for deal with our little Tokyo Rose. Anyone have four horses we can borrow?

**SilverMK2**

Monster Rain wrote:The fact that the nature of our communication doesn't make them want to investigate me for terrorism is the main point here.

No, the main point here is that you need a way in to the network in order to identify its members and how they work. Simply having a couple of emails doesn't really help with that.

**ShumaGorath**

Frazzled wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:Doesn't freedom of speech mean he is allowed to write articles for Al Qaeda websites?

Corrected your typo.

By the way, they used to call that Treason.

I think they still do, though the number of times I've seen you advocate the killing of millions makes me think that you're probably not a good bellwether on the issues of free speech.

**Monster Rain**

SilverMK2 wrote:
Monster Rain wrote:The fact that the nature of our communication doesn't make them want to investigate me for terrorism is the main point here.

No, the main point here is that you need a way in to the network in order to identify its members and how they work. Simply having a couple of emails doesn't really help with that.

And you assume they don't already have both, why?

**SilverMK2**

Monster Rain wrote:And you assume they don't already have both, why?

*points to what he has said over and over again re the limited information we all have on what the FBI/etc do and do not know, and what they are doing about it*

**Frazzled**

ShumaGorath wrote:
I think they still do, though the number of times I've seen you advocate the killing of millions makes me think that you're probably not a good bellwether on the issues of free speech.

I'm hurt, I'm wounded, oh you got me!

**dogma**

I don't think he was attempting to insult so much as indicate his doubt with respect to the merit of your opinion.

Well founded doubt in my experience.

**Frazzled**

dogma wrote:I don't think he was attempting to insult so much as indicate his doubt with respect to the merit of your opinion.

Well founded doubt in my experience.

Ditto baby ditto

Here's the part I really like:

**Monster Rain**

SilverMK2 wrote:
Monster Rain wrote:And you assume they don't already have both, why?

*points to what he has said over and over again re the limited information we all have on what the FBI/etc do and do not know, and what they are doing about it*

So you aren't actually saying anything. That's what I thought.

We can safely assume that the FBI is investigating terrorism at more than the foolish internet ballbag level that this story happens to discuss. To claim otherwise is, if you'll forgive me for saying so, blithering idiocy.