(NaturalNews) Dave Williams might have made some bad choices in his life
that ultimately led to some jail time. But his greatest "crime," seems
to have been manufactured by an overzealous federal agency looking to
make some sort of "progress" in the war on terror.
Williams, who
grew up poor in the small, gritty New York town of Newburgh, had already
served time on a drug rap when he and three other local men were arrested in May 2009 on charges they plotted to blow up Jewish synagogues and purchase anti-aircraft missiles to shoot down military planes.
Oddly
enough, however, the weapons didn't come from some deep, dark terrorist
organization. No, they were provided by none other than the F.B.I. who,
through a paid informant, set up a so-called "terror" plot they
themselves were then able to take down - and take credit for busting up.
Lawyers
for Williams and his three "co-conspirators" agree that, were it not
for the F.B.I. creating this so-called plot out of thin air, none of the
men would be in jail and, in fact, there would have been no plot at all.
It
seems, on the surface at least, to be a classic case of entrapment, and
some of the legal experts who have examined the facts of the case are
shaking their heads. "The target, the motive, the ideology and the plot
were all led by the FBI," Karen Greenberg, a law professor at Fordham
University in New York, who specializes in studying the new FBI tactics, told the London Guardian newspaper.
"We
have as close to a legal entrapment case as I have ever seen," adds
Susanne Brody, who is representing another Newburgh defendant, Onta
Williams.
The sting of the "Newburgh Four" is not unique. Instead of responding to, or attempting to thwart, actual
terrorist plots, the F.B.I. seems to be manufacturing cases. The agency
is busy sending informants into Muslim communities to talk of radical
Islam and to see who bites on the bait. Even the judge in this case,
Colleen McMahon, said when the men were finally sentenced that "there would never have been any case of the government had not made one up."
A
similar circumstance involves five men accused of plotting to attack
U.S. soldiers outside Fort Dix, N.J. "That case too involved dubious use
of paid informants, an apparent over-reach of evidence and a plot that
seemed suggested by the government," said the Guardian.
But the F.B.I scheming hasn't ended with the Newburgh Four. Now, new charges have surfaced that the agency is using is outreach programs
to "secretly collect and store information about activities protected
by the First Amendment for intelligence purposes," the A.C.L.U. alleges.
Among
the activities the A.C.L.U. found in documents released by the F.B.I.
under the Freedom of Information Act. Agents who attended Ramadan Iftar
dinners under the guise of the FBI's mosque outreach program in San
Francisco in 2007 and 2008 documented "participant names, conversations
and presentations."
In 2009, agents participating in a career day
sponsored by an Assyrian community organization in San Jose, Calif.,
"detailed conversations with three community leaders and members about
their opinions, backgrounds and charitable activities."
Also in
San Jose in 2007, agents identified each person by name and organization
and "demographics" at a mosque outreach meeting attended by 50 people
representing 27 Muslim community and religious organizations. These
cases beg the question: Doesn't the F.B.I. have enough to do chasing
down and preventing legitimate terrorism cases without manufacturing
them?
Sources:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/16/fbi-entrapment-fake-terro...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jun/30/fbi-te...
http://www.aclu.org/national-security/foia-documents-show-fbi-illegal...
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