Muslims praying in New York. Yahoo/AFP
A Human Rights watch report accuses the FBI of encouraging and even paying Muslims to plan terrorist attacks. -Yahoo/AFP They looked at 27 cases from arrest to conviction and determined that half were due to sting operations and in 30% of those cases the FBI was directly involved in recruitment and planning. In some of those cases, the targets had no desire to commit terrorism until enticed by FBI undercover agent.
My Comment:
Doesn't the FBI have enough to do without making criminals out of people who otherwise wouldn't be one? I have a real problem with entrapment. Sting operations designed to expose existing criminal conspiracies are just fine. Sting operations that create those criminal conspiracies are not ok on any level. Not only are they a violation of civil rights, they distract from investigations of actual terrorists.
Of course, to be fair to the FBI, Humans Rights Watch is a fairly biased organization. Any group that owes its existence to finding oppression is likely to find it everywhere. I'm not saying they are wrong, just that it is always wise to consider the source before judgement. My guess is that they are right in this case but I'm also waiting for independent confirmation.
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