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 d-usa wrote:
In one conversation, he said he believed in the “Three Percenter” ideology — a form of anti-government activism that pledges resistance against the government on the belief that it has infringed on the Constitution, according to court papers. Those who subscribe to the ideology incorrectly believe that only 3 percent of the colonial population participated in the American Revolution, and they see themselves as their heirs.

Oh that's what the 3% is. Well there you go.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Prestor Jon wrote:
My focus is that I'm tired of FBI bullgak. It wasn't cool when they did it to the Fort Dix Five and it's not cool with this fethwit either. The FBI should focus on getting dangerous criminals off the streets not stringing criminals along to get better headlines and PR. If you're conspiring to commit terrorism and murder by detonating a bomb you should be arrested and charged ASAP, not given a fake bomb to play with so the FBI can make front page news for saving America.

But there a legal problems with cases just built around people saying what they'd like to do. Convictions aren't certain, and charges could be reduced to something fairly meaningless. Nor can you just wait until they have capacity, there aren't the police resources to maintain stings for potentially years, and that's a dangerous game where a misstep could see them actually get a real bomb before police act.

So there is a logic to providing them with a fake bomb to prove intent. There are risks, we don't want police encouraging people to commit crimes to get their arrests, but that's why there are entrapment laws.

If I understand it correctly, Three Percenters believe they have the right to ignore the government because they are the lineal descendants of the people who set it up in the first place?

It seems a pretty way-out line of thought, but this guy also thinks he can conduct a bombing campaign using 1,000 bombs with health and safety as a primary concern, so clearly he has a special way of making things make sense to him.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
If I understand it correctly, Three Percenters believe they have the right to ignore the government because they are the lineal descendants of the people who set it up in the first place?

It seems a pretty way-out line of thought, but this guy also thinks he can conduct a bombing campaign using 1,000 bombs with health and safety as a primary concern, so clearly he has a special way of making things make sense to him.

Sounds like the German Reichburgers.

Last year one of them killed a cop when police went to confiscate his extensive gun collection after refusing to renew his permits.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/germany-police-shooting-officer-dies-killed-by-far-right-anti-government-reichsbuerger-a7371726.html

jouso wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
If I understand it correctly, Three Percenters believe they have the right to ignore the government because they are the lineal descendants of the people who set it up in the first place?

It seems a pretty way-out line of thought, but this guy also thinks he can conduct a bombing campaign using 1,000 bombs with health and safety as a primary concern, so clearly he has a special way of making things make sense to him.

Sounds like the German Reichburgers.

Last year one of them killed a cop when police went to confiscate his extensive gun collection after refusing to renew his permits.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/germany-police-shooting-officer-dies-killed-by-far-right-anti-government-reichsbuerger-a7371726.html

I was going to say, this theme of "Our government is not REALLY our government because we hail back to the ORIGINAL people and the ORIGINAL country and all this you see today is fake/sham/a conspiracy" is very much in line with the Reichsbürger "movement". It seems to be a special kind of extremism with a fetish for loopholes in law, nitpicking at historical details and dissecting definitions. Maybe that's why this guy actually didn't go for the worst case of terror attack and actually seemed like he'd like to avoid maximum casualties.

I'm glad the Freemen on the land are our equivalent and they just mess around with refusing to pay council tax, scrawling on court documents and the odd bit of quackery.

 Steve steveson wrote:
I'm glad the Freemen on the land are our equivalent and they just mess around with refusing to pay council tax, scrawling on court documents and the odd bit of quackery.

That's mostly true for Reichsbürgers, too; they're infamous for swamping government institutions with nonsensical paperwork and celebrating when they manage to make the government pay for their post stamps and such stuff. It's only recently that a few whackjobs got a bit more militant and seemed to start thinking about more aggressive plans.

Not to derail the thread any further with equivalents from Europe, though. For what it's worth, I can understand that the FBI wants the highest level of evidence (pushing a trigger) before capturing guys like this - it seems much better than a long, drawn-out court argument about whether he was really a threat, if he would've really gone through with it, if there might be further psychiatric issues or whatnot.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Agree with d-usa that this is a seriously concerning story. Sure, this isn't the same thing as racist or religious terrorism in that the guy (at least in his own warped mind) was not aiming to kill as many innocent people as possible. But he was still radicalized to the point of undertaking violent, terrorist action and, at least as he told it, put his own safety (and obviously also that of others) below his extremist ideological convictions.

Indeed. He literally pushed the button to kill a whole bunch of people and was too stupid to realize it was fake. Good job FBI. It would only have been better if the button he pushed blew his own ass up instead.

I'm sick of these feths. Time to expunge them from our nation.

No, if the top of the truck popped open and a flag came out reading *BOOM!* - spraying confetti while a hidden MP3 player pumped out the Sad Trombone.

The Auld Grump - better to ridicule than create a martyr.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
No, if the top of the truck popped open and a flag came out reading *BOOM!* - spraying confetti while a hidden MP3 player pumped out the Sad Trombone.

Man, now I want one of those.

Good one, FBI! Keep on keepin' on.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Agree with d-usa that this is a seriously concerning story. Sure, this isn't the same thing as racist or religious terrorism in that the guy (at least in his own warped mind) was not aiming to kill as many innocent people as possible. But he was still radicalized to the point of undertaking violent, terrorist action and, at least as he told it, put his own safety (and obviously also that of others) below his extremist ideological convictions.

Indeed. He literally pushed the button to kill a whole bunch of people and was too stupid to realize it was fake. Good job FBI. It would only have been better if the button he pushed blew his own ass up instead.

I'm sick of these feths. Time to expunge them from our nation.

No, if the top of the truck popped open and a flag came out reading *BOOM!* - spraying confetti while a hidden MP3 player pumped out the Sad Trombone.

The Auld Grump - better to ridicule than create a martyr.

Touche.

Alternately, when the guy makes the call on the burner cell to "detonate" the device, Chris Hansen answers.

"Hi, I'm Chris Hansen. Why don't you have a seat over there. I see you brought a device with you..."

 Frazzled wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Agree with d-usa that this is a seriously concerning story. Sure, this isn't the same thing as racist or religious terrorism in that the guy (at least in his own warped mind) was not aiming to kill as many innocent people as possible. But he was still radicalized to the point of undertaking violent, terrorist action and, at least as he told it, put his own safety (and obviously also that of others) below his extremist ideological convictions.

Indeed. He literally pushed the button to kill a whole bunch of people and was too stupid to realize it was fake. Good job FBI. It would only have been better if the button he pushed blew his own ass up instead.

I'm sick of these feths. Time to expunge them from our nation.

No, if the top of the truck popped open and a flag came out reading *BOOM!* - spraying confetti while a hidden MP3 player pumped out the Sad Trombone.

The Auld Grump - better to ridicule than create a martyr.

Touche.

LMAO. Even better if that actress from Under Siege came out of the bomb too and started dancing after the button was pushed.

 Popsghostly wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Agree with d-usa that this is a seriously concerning story. Sure, this isn't the same thing as racist or religious terrorism in that the guy (at least in his own warped mind) was not aiming to kill as many innocent people as possible. But he was still radicalized to the point of undertaking violent, terrorist action and, at least as he told it, put his own safety (and obviously also that of others) below his extremist ideological convictions.

Indeed. He literally pushed the button to kill a whole bunch of people and was too stupid to realize it was fake. Good job FBI. It would only have been better if the button he pushed blew his own ass up instead.

I'm sick of these feths. Time to expunge them from our nation.

No, if the top of the truck popped open and a flag came out reading *BOOM!* - spraying confetti while a hidden MP3 player pumped out the Sad Trombone.

The Auld Grump - better to ridicule than create a martyr.

Touche.

LMAO. Even better if that actress from Under Siege came out of the bomb too and started dancing after the button was pushed.

LOL. All you need is add a good voice over by morgan freeman.

The take away from this is to build your own bombs alone and in complete secrecy.

 d-usa wrote:
But let's ignore the patriot wanting to blow up the bomb and focus on the cops.

Please stop calling him a "patriot". He tried to commit an act of terror, so please call him out for what he is: a terrorist.

If that guy was even remotely linked to Islam, all hell would break loose. But being a white "patriot"... nah.

I will call him a terrorist.

 Darnok wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
But let's ignore the patriot wanting to blow up the bomb and focus on the cops.

Please stop calling him a "patriot". He tried to commit an act of terror, so please call him out for what he is: a terrorist.

If that guy was even remotely linked to Islam, all hell would break loose. But being a white "patriot"... nah.

D is being sarcastic.

His lawyer has requested a mental competency hearing due to his schizophrenia. Appears he has been declared incompetent previously and the courts appointed his parents as guardians. Which seems like something the FBI should have been able to figure out easily.

 d-usa wrote:
His lawyer has requested a mental competency hearing due to his schizophrenia. Appears he has been declared incompetent previously and the courts appointed his parents as guardians. Which seems like something the FBI should have been able to figure out easily.

They probably knew, but skipped ahead to the transcripts and reports with keywords 'Bomb' and 'Blow gak up'

Given the (maybe unsurprising) revelation that he is mentally ill, I do somewhat wonder if he was really much of a danger, or if the FBI agents may have nudged him to go further than he otherwise might have. But I suppose there will be records of the conversations and I'm sure it will come out at the trial.

He may still be a danger, but one might think that it may have been possible to use this to force him into better treatment rather than making it a self congratulatory catch.

 d-usa wrote:
He may still be a danger, but one might think that it may have been possible to use this to force him into better treatment rather than making it a self congratulatory catch.

Wouldn't pleading mental incompetence for a charge this serious result in him being committed to a high security mental institution?

I'm all for the FBI monitoring threats like this. It is entrapment what they did though. Reminds me of minority report a little bit.

 Xenomancers wrote:
I'm all for the FBI monitoring threats like this. It is entrapment what they did though. Reminds me of minority report a little bit.

Isn't it only entrapment if they actually encourage him or otherwise persuade him to carry out the action?

Like an undercover policeman doing a buy and bust. They approach the drug dealer, buy the drugs and then arrest them for distribution. What they cannot do is persuade someone to sell drugs who was not doing so and then arrest them for it.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
He may still be a danger, but one might think that it may have been possible to use this to force him into better treatment rather than making it a self congratulatory catch.

Wouldn't pleading mental incompetence for a charge this serious result in him being committed to a high security mental institution?

Very likely. For life probably.

If you are going for jail conviction, you would want as much evidence as possible, and the fact that he dialed M for Murder would be good evidence for that.

If the goal is to get him forced help, which it should have been, it seems like you could do that with less evidence.

 d-usa wrote:
If you are going for jail conviction, you would want as much evidence as possible, and the fact that he dialed M for Murder would be good evidence for that.

If the goal is to get him forced help, which it should have been, it seems like you could do that with less evidence.

Either way they go there case is pretty water tight.

 d-usa wrote:
I
If the goal is to get him forced help, which it should have been, it seems like you could do that with less evidence.

Maybe, but having him actually attempt to detonate the fake device probably makes it easier to now argue that his schiziphrenic episodes can result in violence. That would probably make more of a case for him needing to be incarcerated whilst he is treated.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
I
If the goal is to get him forced help, which it should have been, it seems like you could do that with less evidence.

Maybe, but having him actually attempt to detonate the fake device probably makes it easier to now argue that his schiziphrenic episodes can result in violence. That would probably make more of a case for him needing to be incarcerated whilst he is treated.

They now got direct evidence as to the fact he is a danger.

 jhe90 wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
I
If the goal is to get him forced help, which it should have been, it seems like you could do that with less evidence.

Maybe, but having him actually attempt to detonate the fake device probably makes it easier to now argue that his schiziphrenic episodes can result in violence. That would probably make more of a case for him needing to be incarcerated whilst he is treated.

They now got direct evidence as to the fact he is a danger.

Likely a mental health professional could have asked relevant questions about this gentleman's state of mind without the FBI opening a major investigation and operation in order to stop a 'terrorist incident'.

Of course, that is determined by level of care and awareness of those involved in the well being of this individual.