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Monday, July 31, 2023

FBI Has a Hard Job

7/28/23 NBC News:
"A federal judge ordered three of the four men convicted of plotting to carry out acts of terrorism in New York to be released from prison. The judge called the men's convictions an "FBI orchestrated conspiracy." NBC News’ Ellison Barber shares the latest."

Now, it is entirely possible that the FBI entrapped some terrorist-wannabes, but as with the Gov. Whitmer kidnapping plot, the FBI might have created something out of nothing.  During the antiwar movement of the 1960s, there were always questions about how much the FBI was catching and how much they were creating.  As a friend active at the time put it: "You could always tell who the FBI agent was.  He was the guy that thought burning down the ROTC building was a really cool idea."

This problem of agent-provocateurs is not new.  Joseph Conrad's Secret Agent (1907) explores this longstanding technique of intelligence services.  It appears that attempts to defeat the Chartist movement in Britain in the 1830s involved such agents working for the British government.

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