If the FBI is aware someone is mentally unstable enough to want blow up innocent people then they should be making sure that person is forced into counseling to divert and alter the mind set that is making the person in question want to pursue the violence. To string that individual along, supplying them with methods and materials that enhance and feed into the violent fantasy in order to arrest and eventually imprison that person, is nothing but entrapment at its worst. Its a lazy and ineffective short term manner of dealing with the larger problem of how someone comes to hold such violent thoughts.And like most police thinking, Its also reactive rather than proactive.
Holder Tells Muslim Group Stings Are 'Essential'
By Charlie Savage
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is defending the use of sting operations orchestrated by government informants, telling advocates for Muslim-American civil rights that the tactic is an "essential law enforcement tool in uncovering and preventing terror attacks."
In remarks prepared for delivery late Friday in a suburb of San Francisco at the annual dinner of Muslim Advocates, a national legal advocacy and civil-rights organization, Mr. Holder rejected criticism by such groups that sting operations amount to improper "entrapment."
About 300 Muslim community leaders from around the United States were expected to attend the dinner near San Francisco. Having a United States attorney general speak at such an event was unprecedented, the group's president, Farhana Khera, said in an interview earlier on Friday.
Ms. Khera said the group had invited Mr. Holder several months ago. She portrayed the Muslim-American community as torn by a mistrust of law enforcement because of what it sees as intrusive surveillance and harassment -- like sending informants into mosques -- and by its concerns about anti-Muslim hate crimes.
In his remarks, Mr. Holder said the cooperation of Muslim-Americans had been essential in preventing terrorist attacks. He said that the Justice Department was focusing on "violence, threats, vandalism and arson against Muslims and Arab-Americans," and that in the last fiscal year federal prosecutors won convictions of more hate-crime defendants than any year but 2000.
"I believe that law enforcement has an obligation to ensure that members of every religious community enjoy the ability to worship and to practice their faith in peace, free from intimidation, violence or suspicion," Mr. Holder said.
But he also rejected criticism of some counterterrorism techniques used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, including sending informants into mosques in search of would-be terrorists and creating elaborate sting operations enabling them to carry out fake attacks using dummy bombs.
Ms. Khera emphasized that Muslim Advocates recognized that "there are actual threats that do exist and as Americans who care about the country, we want law enforcement to be effective."
But the complex "entrapment operations," she contended, may be getting people involved in terrorism who otherwise would not have done anything. She also argued that the operations divert investigators from "actual threats" and stoke "anti-Muslim sentiment."
But Mr. Holder said that stings had been used for decades against many types of crimes. And he defended a sting investigation last month in Portland, Ore., in which a young Somali-American man, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, was arrested after law enforcement agents said he tried to trigger what he thought was a car bomb at a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony.
"I make no apologies for the how the F.B.I. agents handled their work in executing the operation that led to Mr. Mohamud's arrest," Mr. Holder said. "Their efforts helped to identify a person who repeatedly expressed his desire and intention to kill innocent Americans."
He added: "But you also have my word that the Justice Department will -- just as vigorously -- continue to pursue anyone who would target Muslims, or their houses of worship."
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