David K. Shipler, former NY Times reporter and author of Rights at Risk: The Limits of Liberty in Modern America, discusses his article “Terrorist Plots, Hatched by the F.B.I.;” the convicted felons used as FBI informants to ensnare the lowest-hanging fruit among potential terrorists; why an “entrapment” legal defense hardly ever works; the media’s failure to attribute domestic terrorism arrests to government sting operations; how the FBI could “entrap” terrorism suspects into working in an Islamic soup kitchen instead of pretending to blow up a bridge; the massive imbalance between surveillance data and the human analysts and investigators tasked with reading it all; and the strange story of “underbomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.
Update: Your host was wrong. The Detroit News took Kennedy out of context. The video makes it clear he was speaking generally, not specifically about the Underbomber.
MP3 here. (30:06)
David K. Shipler is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former foreign correspondent of The New York Times. He is the author of The Working Poor: Invisible in America and Rights at Risk: The Limits of Liberty in Modern America.
Scott
I´m confused, you Scott with your normally superior memory, in the interview when the "underware bomber" came up did not once mentioned Kurt Haskell, whom you more then once interviwed on this very show?
(Sorry if any spelling mistakes)
Long time listener
Johan
Sweden
he's in there. just not specifically by name. the 'well dressed man' and all that.
In Bu$hBlierBander ZoO all r died…In Umar Empire All r alive.
Terrorists are of the educated middle-class — Stop entrapping us laboring men
Let me guess, all five of those terrorists arrested in Cleveland Sunday, they are laboring-class, namely live in a slum or laboring-class neighborhood, have no education but some high school and earn minimum wage.
Come on FBI, your not fooling anyone, for your terrorist entrapment program only young, innocent and ignorant men so void of real knowledge that it is virtually impossible for them to do anyone real harm, as never in their short and ignorant life have they owned anything that resembles a real weapon.
The press (like National Propaganda (or is it Pentagon) Radio has been instructed not to mention that FBI can't solve any real crimes, only fake sting ops.
We laboring men — 95% more criminal between age 12 and 35?
All of law enforcement is of the educated middle-class, they spend 95% of their time policing fighting age laboring men, and such a police state causes 95% of prisoners in our jails and prisons to be young men with no education but some high school.
We have over a forth of all the prisoners on earth in our privatized prison system. Which means that most criminals are employed by government — and most prisoners are innocent laboring men turned into slaves by government.
End deceit, entrapment and terrorism in law enforcement
NEW LAW
(1) Everyone employed in law enforcement must wear a clearly visible uniform, from the Director of the FBI on down.
(2) No speed traps and any vehicle driven by law enforcement shall have a big red light on top.
(3) No entrapment by law enforcement, and anyone in government caught lying to the public shall receive a minimum of two years incarnation at hard labor.
(4) All killing machines employed by law enforcement, including Tasers, shall be kept under lock and key until after deadly force is encountered.
(5) Any government employee who straps a killing machine to his body, it shall be assumed that he has a god-ego and his employment terminated immediately.
What about the "Underwear Bomber?" The US government has admitted to putting him on the plane. Or what the 1993 WTC bombing? That was an FBI sting operation where the bomb was definitely not inert. And of course, there is the OKC bombing which there is a mounain of evidence suggesting that it was an FBI sting operation "gone bad."
There has long been a symbionic relationship between Western intelligence agencies and terrorist organizations. And if the public at large ever caught on to the level of cooperation, both sides would lose credibility. The same can said of the Drug War. That sordid business could never be as big as it is without government collusion. The hundreds of billions of dollars churned up dealing illicit drugs benefits the banking cartels and the drug cartels as well as governments that use pretext of drug prohibition to expand their powers.
Mainstream psychopaths — Bless their darling hearts
A psychopath is one who enriches himself upon the misery of another, but you will never find that definition in any dictionary. For it is described as “antisocial behavior,” for the dominant paradigm in Empire USA is to give the mainstream madding crowd a fast-track to enrich themselves upon the misery of anyone less educated.
The logic fails me
Our military by brutal imperialism and wars of aggression causes vengeance, which in turn causes terrorism. So, in response the FBI instills in five citizens extra vengeance, which in turn causes our overloaded Federal court system to have extra terrorism to prosecute.
Après avoir lancé deux parfums succès – Uni et à la reine – il s’est aventuré dans l’industrie du sport, en collaboration avec la marque Puma internationale pour libérer sa propre ligne de formateurs en 2005. Deux ans plus tard, il a fait sa marque dans l’industrie de maquillage, trop – de créer sa propre collection Cléopatre sur le thème des fards à paupières, rouges à lèvres, gloss et poudre avec le géant des cosmétiques MAC.