FBI informants originate the terror plots they then expose and prosecute

Evidence

The US government’s increased use of agents provocateurs has resulted in numerous cases of entrapment, where individuals have been enticed to participate in what they think are terror plots but are in fact plots the government has invented. Since 9/11, informants in mosques and in Muslim communities have led to the prosecution of hundreds. As of 2008, the FBI had a roster of 15,000 paid informants, and it had 10,000 counterterrorism intelligence analysts as of 2013.74 The Center for Human Rights and Global Justice report Targeted and Entrapped outlines various problems with the use of such informers, not the least of which is that they are recruited through threats, as mentioned above in the case of the Iranian imam, as well as bribes—such as reduced criminal charges or a change in immigration status, creating what the report calls “a dangerous incentive structure.” Its authors found that in the cases they studied, the “government’s informants introduced and aggressively pushed ideas about violent jihad and moreover, actually encouraged the defendants to believe that it was their duty to take action against the United States” [emphasis in original]. The informants also goaded the defendants to acquire violent videos and weapons which were later used to convict them and even went so far as to pick the locations that were to be attacked. In short, without the active leadership of the agents provocateurs, the “foiled terror plots” would not have existed. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 598

Categorization

• XREF: Directly evidences the reader’s claim that under Material support laws the FBI manufactures its own targets — connects to the manufactured-threat mechanism threading through the book’s case for why representation-based fixes fail. — connects to: Government informants originated the terrorist plans used to convict defendants — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 586; The FBI manufactured terror plots to justify its counterterrorism spending — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 586; Government informants originated the violent plots used to convict defendants (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• FBI informants actively instigate the terror plots they are paid to foil #corroborates (0.95)
• Undercover informants generate the very terrorism cases they then help solve. #corroborates (0.95) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 47
• FBI informants manufactured terror plots that would not otherwise have occurred #corroborates (0.92) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 473
• Informant enrollment manufactures the very terror cases the state claims to solve #corroborates (0.92) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 47
• FBI informants fabricated and drove the entire Newburgh terror plot #exemplifies (0.90)
• FBI manufactured flimsy terrorist plots to parade as investigative successes #corroborates (0.90)
• FBI informants manufactured terror plots targeting marginalized Muslim converts #expands (0.80)
• FBI informants recruit vulnerable poor men into terror plots with money and fake weapons. #expands (0.78) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 569
• FBI informants exploit poverty and grief to entrap vulnerable men into fake plots #expands (0.75)