That's to be expected. They have no jurisdiction there.
Edit: There's been numerous news reports all over the world about FBI/CIA agents doing police-work without reporting to local authorities in countries which are not the US, where they have no rights and no jurisdiction, as if it was their own turf.
CIA operatives have been charged in numerous European countries for kidnapping and abducting people not guilty on anything by local laws. Because the US wanted them silenced, because of "terror" or whatever.
I'm going to pressume this is what happened here as well.
I can assure you that if anyone had done the same in the US, they wouldn't merely be kicked out, they would be jailed for being in violation of the law.
> CIA operatives have been charged in numerous European countries for kidnapping and abducting people not guilty on anything by local laws. Because the US wanted them silenced, because of "terror" or whatever.
As a European, I'll bet you whatever you want they were doing this with the full knowledge of the government and intelligence departments of the aforementionned countries.
Nope. That's why pretty much everywhere, in civilized countries, foreign and domestic spying are done by separate entities: the laws they have to follow are different, and there is (usually) a different degree of oversight.
Secret services are hardly all about "abducting people and torturing them", that's actually an aberration of their role. Most of what they do is signal-intelligence of various sorts, and the most silently they can do it, the better. "Abducting and torturing" are all but silent activities; you are basically shouting at your enemy to go fuck himself, the intelligence equivalent of yokels shooting in the air. Abducting and torturing is what a secret police does, the sort of stuff you see in clueless dictatorial countries. Albeit it might be considered effective in the short term, it makes you powerless in the long run, when you've abducted/tortured/killed all the enemies you knew but you don't know anything about the new enemies.
I don't know, the effectiveness of torture as an interrogation tool is for understandable reasons difficult to assess. However, the fact that it's a constant whenever a state is confronted to assymetrical warfare (think of the infamous Battle of Algiers, or how torture used to be legal in Israel until 1999) is an indication that it is difficult to work without in some contexts, dictatorship or not.
Of course, the fact that it's perfectly unethical entails a heavy cost in terms of image, especially for modern democracies.
I don't know, the effectiveness of torture as an interrogation tool is for understandable reasons difficult to assess.
Not so. It is remarkably easy to assess, and everyone who cares to know already knows the answer.
After you break under torture, the victim will tell the torturer anything they think the torturer wants to hear, and has very little sense of what is or is not true. "Beating" torture is simple - pretend break early and tell interesting lies. When you really break you'll no longer know truth from fiction - nor can a questioner who has no idea which leads are true and false. Once you've hit that point then absolutely no method of getting information can work.
We have much, much more reliable interrogation techniques. Ones that we can use without giving propaganda benefits to our enemies. Admittedly no other technique gives the same visceral satisfaction of making someone pay. But once you've gone the torture route, you can't undo that choice.
I can assure you that if anyone had done the same in the US, they wouldn't merely be kicked out, they would be jailed for being in violation of the law.
Can you assure us that based on an actual law with a citation, or an actual case reported in the news with a link to the news report? The most usual disposition, all over the world, for an overt government operative of a foreign government operating on your territory in a way your country doesn't like is for the operative to be expelled as persona non grata. That's all. Most foreign intelligence operatives in most countries operate in a half-overt way, with "diplomatic cover," and many others operate under liaison agreements built into international treaties. It's fine for each country to decide which foreign nationals get to stay on their territory (I had to deal with that during the years when I lived as an American overseas), but it's exceedingly uncommon for people to be put into jail simply for activities inconsistent with their visa status of that nature.
(I had to deal with that during the years when I lived as an American overseas)
As in, you had to get an employment/education/whatever visa? I'm snickering at this: I've found that we Americans have a really easy time getting whatever visas we want whenever we want. Some nations will issue a month (or longer) visa just from the airline informing them, "we have an American on board this flight". Some will issue a visa at the immigration gate. For a many-year work visa you'll typically have to go through an embassy or consulate, but as long as you don't get stuck in the same line as the Indians (this is not a statement about Indians, but about how I've seen them treated in embassies!) you're not going to have much trouble.
...it's exceedingly uncommon for people to be put into jail simply for activities inconsistent with their visa status...
Which visa is it that allows a foreign national to harass, detain, and kidnap citizens without the due process of law? Does 007 have that visa? I could actually understand it if there were a more involved process for obtaining that one.
I'm snickering at this: I've found that we Americans have a really easy time getting whatever visas we want whenever we want. Some nations will issue a month (or longer) visa just from the airline informing them, "we have an American on board this flight".
Can you please tell us the name of one nation out of those?
In my understanding, the Visa rules followed by country X in issuing Visa to US citizens is similar to the rules followed by US while issuing Visa to citizens of country X.
E.g., if US issues 10 year visitor visas to Indians, then India also issues 10 year visitor via to Americans. I haven't done extensive research on this so this may not hold in some instances.
Off the top of my head, I think it was New Zealand that had that airline notification thing, and I think that got you a 90 day business visa. That was ten years ago, and I lived in Singapore at the time, so perhaps I'm misremembering or they've changed the policy since then.
I think in general the reciprocity policy you mention is a good rule of thumb, although I'm sure there are exceptions.
As advice for newbie travelers: make sure you have the relevant visas well before you enter a country, it can be a huge hassle in the event that you didn't luck out with something like "we have an American on board".
Please read carefully, this is gold mine for all interested in work of US/UK puppet masters. Also it has nothing to do with communism and other ideologies, it has to do with destabilize EU over decades and even now.
um the CIA are not police and neither are the FBI in there internal security role nor sould they - note that the only time MI5 had an ex copper as a boss as a disaster
Wow what a weird map. No state in Europe is labeled (except Denmark in Greenland and Russia in Asia) whereas most but not all of the others are. And Europe is divided on Europe and European Russia-Asia. Russia is labeled up there in the upper right corner. The map's scale is in Libya. Only prime meridian, arctic circle and tropic of cancer are shown. And there are some weird blobs west of Portugal. And Kosovo is still part of Serbia
Looks like it's the first time they ever had to produce a map of Iceland's location. It seems like the text "Iceland" and the arrow are manually added.
is this because it's illegal to work without a permit [edit: no, not needed for 90 days for americans]? or is it just detectives that cannot work there? or is it that they claimed to be local policemen?
if i were a market analyst who flew to iceland (private plane or not - what has that got to do with it?) to study local opinions on some new product, say, would that get a similar reaction? would it be ok as long as i didn't ask to speak to govt officials?
is there some kind of international convention / agreement that says that policemen don't work abroad? is it that the request for cooperation was at too low a level? [edit: ok, i added this just as it was suggested in a reply; thanks]
i'm having a hard time understanding what the problem was here from the article, which seems to assume that something was obviously wrong.
In general it's a problem in pretty much every country when official investigators fly in and start investigating without prior notice. The US administration would do the same if the german police sent an investigation team over to collect evidence in a german case. The official procedure is to request help or permission from the local government and only send investigators if granted. Such requests get denied in some cases, for example if the alleged crime is not a crime in the country that you're trying to investigate in.
Note that this is not arbitrary, it actually makes sense: while in a different country, any police force would be expected to follow that country's own laws, including things like what you are allowed to ask, how you can ask, what evidence you can collect or take out of the country, etc etc. A bit of oversight is required, hence they need to ask for permission, and be assisted on the ground.
This, incidentally, is one of the outrageous elements in the raid of Kim Dotcom's house: US authorities pretty much disregarded all local New Zealand laws on the matter (and somebody in NZ let it happen, they were only slammed in court during subsequent appeals).
So you have a pattern: federal US authorities investigating copyright "crimes" will blatantly ignore traditional jurisdiction rules. The Hollywood Empire does not recognise any equal power, so to speak.
The problem is that the FBI sent law enforcement officers into another, sovereign country without prior permission.
This could have turned into a major diplomatic incident, it is not something you do no matter how upset you are about people leaking your stuff over the internet. Basic common courtesy - you ask first.
> s there some kind of international convention / agreement that says that policemen don't work abroad?
I think you have got it backwards. There is no agreement saying that they can.
Staying in a foreign country is a privilege not a right. You are only permitted to do whatever your visa says you can do. In case of visa-waiver agreements, you can only do what the agreement states you can do, on top of that the government can pretty much kick you out at its own discretion citing vague reasons like national security.
A market analyst is comparable to a covert FBI operation on foreigh spoil? Really?
Does the US allow foreign agents to arrive quietly unannounced by private plane to disappear in to the US for unknown reasons? I do hope not.
This really is the sort of thing that destroys good will to the US, and feeds the international bully,arrogance and hypocrisy monster. If any one dared to try to pull this on US soil, all hell would break loose. Why then does the US think its allowed to do it? Why even try?
Although, as I type this, in the back of my mind is how the US authorities bully their own citizens in to suicide. So.... <shrug>
I would imagine that SIS officers work in the US under cover as diplomats - and what does the USA broken system for electing electing Law officials have to do with how intelligence agencys are run ?
If you tried to go to Iceland (or any other nation in the world) without having first received permission, then yes you could expect to be given the boot. That's what a "visa" is.
If you're only staying for a short period and your own nation is on friendly terms with the place you're visiting, you can often expect to get a (limited) visa automatically. If you try and sneak in without one, that's called "illegal immigration".
I don't think this is really the issue, it's more of a diplomatic snafu - these were not businessmen or tourists, they're law enforcement there on official business. You don't send law enforcement officers to other places without them being invited.
Try saying to a USCBP official that you're going to work for 90 days in the US
"Business travel" precludes several things, including work.
(of course, several duties in a business travel can be considered work, but they're usually spelled out). Basically you can't be compensated by your activities directly by someone in the receiving country.
But I'm sure doing an investigating in another country under government orders does not count as business.
An "automatic visa" is what I get when I visit South Africa. The officials at the airport when I arrive put a paper in my passport which says "temporary visa."
Iceland does not have a visa, automatic or otherwise, for Americans on a short visit. Quoting from the Icelandic Útlendingastofnun at http://utl.is/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&... : "Who does not need a visa to enter Iceland?" ... "Nationals of the following countries are exempted from the obligation to carry a visa on arrival in Iceland for a stay of up to three months in all within the Schengen area." ... "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA."
So no, US citizens visiting Iceland do not need a visa to enter Iceland.
I haven't downvoted you, but I would hazard a guess that the reason for the downvotes as at least partially due to the combative nature of your tone.
As to your point, I have no idea about the legalities, but it seems to me that if law enforcement officials are going to operate in a foreign country they might want to go through official channels before turning up.
Regarding the private plane, I would imagine that the article mentions it because it (accurately or otherwise) enables me to better visualise a group of brash Americans turning up via the most expensive mode of transport and expecting the little Icelanders to be so awed by the powerful FBI that they won't ask for little things like, you know, governmental authorisation.
I really want to like America. There are so many things to love about it, especially on paper. And then I read about stuff like this and wonder if it really is that much of a mystery why much of the world has such distaste for the country and the people.
Not that I'm claiming the UK is any better, mind. And our teeth are much worse.
If somebody is gathering data for a foreign government without the permission of the local government, that's called spying, and most (or all?) countries have laws against that.
Sovereign states do whatever they want. Most countries (if not all) have a legal framework for expelling foreign citizens on grounds of national security or foreign policy (and it's up to them to decide what constitutes that). This is accepted as a perfectly valid thing to do and this is what has happened here.
In this particular case, it is bad manners for a state to send its agents to another sovereign state in any capacity without getting some sort of a permission from the latter.
An Icelander here
The Reykjavik airport is quite popular for private jets since it's right in the middle of the city whereas the KEF international airport is about 1 hour drive from the city.
Security there is also almost non-existent, but customs authorities are notified and dispatched when international flights are expected.
If the agents would have used a regular scheduled flight there would probably have been much more security and scrutiny regarding their arrival.
Well, Sweden's kind of irrelevant to whether this is permitted in Iceland, and I think it was more the going there and snooping around.
Also please read the options for contact with a witness -
- Travel to the United Kingdom to make a statement
- Statement at a British embassy
- Statement by telephone or email
The entire page you linked there was about formal and informal ways to make requests to law enforcement in other countries, and 'direct' contact still doesn't involve the cops actually going to the other country, just speaking to people who are in another country via one of these methods.
--edit-- thanks for the link, that was informative reading
--edit2-- All that said, even Brit cops do go to other countries for their investigations from time to time, just this week I heard about some going to Libya for continuing investigation into the Lockerbie bombing - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-2128117...
Presumably this is with the full knowledge and cooperation of the (new) Libyan government though. I wonder what use it can possibly be after so long.
The context clues in the first paragraph should have given it away - "...their plan was interupted when Home Secretary Ögmundur Jónasson learned about the FBI's visit and sent them packing. The Icelandic government then issued a formal protest to United States authorities."
Do you really think that a top government official would have been notified of a market analyst arriving in the country?
But GP's question was, what did the FBI actually do that pissed off Iceland? Just being there? Asking questions? Locking Icelanders in rooms and conducting interrogations? I think the question is a good one.
It sounds like the consensus of the responders here is that it is the fact that they are an arm of the US gov't. So, for example, if the FDA sent somebody to inquire about food processing, say regarding Mad Cow disease, we could also expect that the Icelandic government would be pissed if they weren't in the loop.
"what did the FBI actually do that pissed off Iceland? Just being there?"
Just being there at a time that a member of Iceland's parliament is afraid to step outside Icelandic borders because she might be arrested by the United States seems like a pretty good reason...
Given the way that the Icelandic government has written off the bank accounts of the pensioners who had money there leaving the UK and I presume US governments.
You will have to forgive me as a uk taxpayer who is having to cover icleands debts - I personally don't give a fuck that the wheels came of there ponzie scheme.
Being there and asking questions without prior approval is enough if you're a government employee, even more so if you're an official investigator (part of any police force). You're intruding on foreign jurisdiction and trying to apply your own laws.
um if I where a CIA operator id be highly pissed of if you compered me to a sheriff billy bob elected in some rotten borough) let alone some minimum wage security guard
Good luck with that should or do you not understand the class/status system - society defiantly thinks that there is a difference between a minimum wage security guard and say a FBI,CIA,SIS,SS officer who will have an directly equivalent rank to his or her counterpart in the milatery?
It seems reality doesn't work quite like Hollywood movies, where the FBI just walks in whatever country and starts flashing their IDs, while random local citizens soil their pants.
There's a hilarious scene in The Guard (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1540133/) where all of the Irish Garda are trying to seem very respectful of Don Cheadle's FBI agent, except for Brendan Gleeson's Garda who mercilessly takes the piss out of him. Later he says, "Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, these men are armed and dangerous, and you being an FBI agent you're more used to shooting at unarmed women and children."
Well, that's certainly dimmed my views of Rackspace UK a bit. There would appear to be a rapidly thinning list of UK cloud providers who aren't subject to US interference.
It would be like the Malaysians going to America to investigate and arrest George Bush due to alleged war crimes. They wouldn't get particularly far unless they OK'd it all with the relevant local authorities.
While I have no sympathies for those at Wikileaks, and I do not support them at all, we as Americans need to stop having this grand delusion that our Government and its agents can do whatever they want whenever they want, as if all other countries' laws/governments can just be disregarded.
In a way, it's a mindset that, sometimes, I get to admire.
It's the supreme confidence in your own right: that everyone else in the world is equal (or, more often than not, inferior) to you.
The UK used to have something similar; British law specifically said that no power on Earth could be superior to (English/British) Parliament in any case. Albeit originally meant to nullify papal (and aristocratic...) claims, so to speak, that provision came to define the UK approach to foreign policy for centuries. Nowadays there are umpteen exceptions for EU, UN and whatnot, the British Empire is gone and with it the hubris, but coming from a much "weaker" country, I feel that approach can be quite beneficial in many ways.
It seems that Iceland is a proud country that doesn't hesitate to say "No" to the US. I recall that in 2008 they gave to Bobby Fisher the Icelandic nationality to avoid him been prosecuted by the US (on the motive that he made Iceland famous for playing his world championship match there), which, as maeon3 mentions, is another very useful way to occupy the US police forces.
I think it says a lot about the U.S. and its world police attitude. Coming without notice to another country on a private jet demanding full cooperation. That's the height of arrogance. I can only praise Iceland for such swift and duly response.
I have to say, between this and their big middle finger to the banks wanting their taxpayers to bail out banks' bad loans, Iceland is currently my favorite country. They are well-run organization.
While I do agree with you that Iceland is pretty cool, the fact that pornography is illegal doesn't sit well with me. Plus Icelandair has been nothing but unhelpful to me.
While FBI Agents are busy flying to Iceland working on Hollywood's vision for the future of who owns the internet, data, and computers, the following is allowed to happen:
2. No Executive anywhere on the planet has yet to do prison time for any action, decision or behavior relating to the largest manufactured Financial Crisis since 1929. Because when prosicuting the best and brightest who use the law to subvert justice, it's like trying to nail a vapor to the wall: http://www.propublica.org/article/why-no-financial-crisis-pr...
But on the plus side, there hasn't been many terrorist attacks as have been in the middle east, so they're doing an upstanding job there. Who checks the power of a dysfunctional FBI and smacks them around when they step out of line? What's the process even if it's only possible in theory? I know the FBI has to be irreproachable enough to resist the collective action of Mafias and cults/sects, which would make it a tough system to get rid of, even if it devolves into the Ministry of life/Ministry of truth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Truth)
> FBI Agents are busy flying to Iceland working on Hollywood's vision for the future of who owns the internet, data, and computers
Wikileaks has very little to do with Hollywood. Whether you sympathize with Wikileaks or not, hopefully it makes sense that since they have publicly released federal secrets, the Federal Bureau of Investigation would be charged with investigating them, right?
I make no comment on whether the handling of the investigation has been appropriate.
As for the rest of the post, I think you're trying to make the point that our "national effort" (of which there is seemingly be a finite pool) is being expended on an overseas investigations, so we couldn't fix weapons legislation or prosecute white-collar criminals.
I disagree. There's nothing to suggest that either of those problems would be fixed if those FBI agents were doing anything else. Frankly, neither of those problems exist for lack of effort.
> I know the FBI has to be irreproachable enough to resist the collective action of Mafias and cults/sects, which would make it a tough system to get rid of, even if it devolves into the Ministry of life/Ministry of truth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Truth)
Could you explain, specifically, how the FBI is becoming substantially similar to the Ministry of Truth? It would help if you could explain who, by name, and what initiatives are responsible for this.
In theory the FBI is supposed to be responsible for domestic security, the CIA for international. Wikileaks is about as international as you could want and therefore shouldn't really be in the FBI's ballpark.
That's wrong. The GP is right. The FBI is responsible for investigating any leak of US secrets. They will investigate if the CIA leaks secrets, the military leaks secrets, or Russian agents steal American secrets.
People hear CIA and thoughts of horrible conspiracy theories overwhelm. But it is in abstract principle the more appropriate organization to have gotten involved.
It's not hard when they kidnap people, take them to far away countries and torture them. If any non-US allies behaved like this we would never hear the end of it.
There are more crimes committed under their purview than they have the resources to investigate. Therefore they should prioritize. They obviously prioritized wrongly here.
> No Executive anywhere on the planet has yet to do prison time for any action, decision or behavior relating to the largest manufactured Financial Crisis since 1929.
Wrong! Iceland imprisoned multiple executives, among others.
Be careful about thinking Iceland is some utopia. Many articles in the Anglosphere seem to not have done any fact checking. Some even think Iceland is in the EU and uses the Euro.
"Iceland told the banks to f* off, why can't USA do the same" is a nice story. The truth is usually more complicated.
The truth is Iceland forced their banks to reduce the dollar amount of mortgages to within 110% of a house's retail value. If that's not telling a bank to "F OFF" then I don't know what is.
When everyone went underwater, they lowered the water level instead of putting people on stilts.
yeah, many people took out loans and couldn't pay them back. Iceland's answer? The banks are evil and those people shouldn't have to pay them back anyway.
Yeah, many banks gave out loans and then couldn't pay their other debts. America's answer? The home owners are evil and banks should be propped up and shielded from the risks they took.
Letting the banks fail was an option. Lehman failed. I wonder what the EU would look like now if we let the banks fail. Too big to fail is a problem though.
Not quite. These people, perhaps foolishly, took out loans denominated in Euro. When these banks imploded, they took a huge chunk of the Icelandic economy with them, and the Krona was heavily devalued.
Yes, people should have been more wary of taking out foreign currency-denominated loans. These banks were the reason they could never pay the loans off, though.
Not quite. "Iceland's households also racked up debts amounting to 213% of disposable income. Britons and Americans owed just 169% and 140% of disposable income respectively—figures that make them seem almost sober by comparison. "
Well, of course the citizens played a key role. But it doesn't mean they weren't fleeced or foolishly lent to by sleazy, greedy bankers just like everyone else in the Western world.
Even if you hold these citizens fully accountable, at least in Iceland the people who so irresponsibly led themselves to financial ruin were bailed out, rather than the banks who so irresponsibly led themselves to financial ruin.
"The analysis suggests that the share
of indebted households in distress grew from 12½ per cent in early 2007 to 23½ per cent on the
eve of the banking collapse in the autumn of 2008, when the lion’s share of the balance sheet
shocks had already taken place. The extent of acute distress nearly quadrupled over the same
period. Forbearance efforts provided temporary breathing space, but the share in distress is
estimated to have peaked at 27½ per cent in autumn 2009, before declining to 20 per cent at yearend 2010 due to policy and legal interventions. Financial distress is found to be inversely related to
income and age, as well as being higher among families with children and those with foreigndenominated debt than among childless couples and those with ISK-denominated loans only.
Parents of every fifth child in Iceland were in distress at year-end 2010. The incidence of negative
housing equity increased dramatically, from roughly 6 to 37 per cent of indebted homeowners,
over the four-year period. Negative housing equity is more widespread among high-income than
low-income households. The share of homeowners simultaneously in distress and negative equity
rose from roughly 1 to 14 per cent but declined to 10 per cent by the end of the period. Middleincome families with children, most of which had foreign-denominated loans, and low-income
singles seem especially vulnerable. Some of the seeds of households’ financial difficulties were
sown by imprudent lending in 2007 and 2008, when 16 per cent of the total amount of new loans
was granted to households already in distress. Up to 34 per cent of households in distress at yearend 2010 were granted loans in 2007-2008, when they were already financially distressed."
http://www.cb.is/library/Skr%C3%A1arsafn---EN/Working-Papers...
Responsibility? The onus is on the banks to lend responsibly. They made outrageously risky loans and were liable for when the borrowers could not pay them back.
Bailing out the banks by putting whole populations into long term debt "doesn't really teach responsibility".
The really criminal thing is that not that we haven't found someone to prosecute but that we haven't found anyone with the cojones to break up the banks into small enough entities that can fail on an individual basis without taking out the financial system.
I'm wary of comparisons like that- the implication is that if the FBI weren't busy in Iceland they would have caught the child abductor. I don't see any evidence to suggest that is the case.
The implication was that the FBI has better things to do than to assist Hollywood in turning the world into a police state because they don't want to adjust their business models to fit 2013.
There are lots and lots of people in the US, for example, who should be prosecuted for their financial crimes, but are not, and will not be because that's how the world works these days.
What does WikiLeaks releasing US Government secrets have to do with Hollywood? This just seems like a, "Hey this story is about the FBI, and I hate the FBI! Everybody let's pile on and bash the FBI for completely unrelated reasons!"
Sure, it may well be. I just clarified why I was talking about FBI and Hollywood together. But really, Hollywood has actually changed the Western world towards police states. That's bad, regardless of what agencies or "channels" they've done it through.
It implies to me that they have better things to do. The crimes blatantly committed during the last financial crisis could easily be keeping every available FBI agent busy now. Instead the way things are going we'll likely see the statute of limitations run out on many major criminals who actually harmed others.
Somewhat surprised to see such a random government bashing comment making the top of the list. I'm all for criticizing the FBI but 1&2 are super remote factors, that have next to nothing to do with the actual Iceland situation.
And by the way: Are the "take the guns away" arguments really that popular now? It almost seems to take forms of the "but think of the children" meme, where people try to connect on thing to a completely unrelated subject in order to support the alleged moral superiority of their argument.
> But on the plus side, there hasn't been many terrorist attacks as have been in the middle east, so they're doing an upstanding job there.
Most of the cases the FBI has prosecuted for terrorism in the US have been entrapment cases where they supplied most all the material and know how to carry out a "bombing".
That word does not mean what you think it means. Entrapment only applies if someone is coerced to commit a crime they otherwise would not have.
In the case of the FBI's terrorism stings, the suspect was looking for allies to carry out an attack, and unknowingly contacted an undercover officer. The FBI might have supplied the "materials" and the "knowledge", but the action is all on the suspect. The FBI doesn't even swoop in for the arrest until the suspect actually tries to detonate the fake bomb.
Even in the instance of a much weaker case, where a hypothetical "radical" says "Hmm, it would be neat to blow up $building" and a hypothetical undercover officer says "Really? Well I know a guy.."
I'm finding it hard to call foul. Any sane person should recoil at the thought of indiscriminate killing and damage.
Except this is not what has been happening. There have been many stories reported of FBI actively trying to make someone into a terrorist. Some of the supposed perpetrators even contacted the police while under pressure from FBI to commit acts they would not want to do. Forgive me but I do not have time currently to dig up more than one, but this one I have fresh in my memory: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/471/t...
It's a story of a sting/long con op gone really bad. Have a listen and see that it is nothing like the hypothetical that you posted.
Edit: If anyone is interested, more similar stories can be found in democracynow.org and bestoftheleft.com podcast archives.
If the FBI supplied this guy with a fake bomb, what crime did the guy commit?
He obviously didn't commit an act of terrorism. I don't even think you can claim he /attempted/ to commit such an act since the FBI gave him a fake. So we're left with what, the desire to commit an act of terror?
>If the FBI supplied this guy with a fake bomb, what crime did the guy commit?
If you get behind the wheel of a car drunk but get home safely, what crime did you commit?
You needn't actually cause damage to break the law.
>I don't even think you can claim he /attempted/ to commit such an act since the FBI gave him a fake.
Whether the bomb or not was real doesn't change the fact that he has the mens rea to blow up a building, and considering he thought the bomb was real and took positive steps to set it up, the reus actus as well.
> If you get behind the wheel of a car drunk but get home safely, what crime did you commit?
A more accurate analogy would be that the FBI has been supplying you with lots of drink though a 3rd party informant that they pay, in cash or reduced sentencing time or both. That informant is always talking about drinking and telling you how you should drink, and then they supply you with all the liquor you could handle. Then the informant mentions you really ought to head home, why not drive? The minute you get into the car and start to drive, the authorities show up and arrest you, as they have been watching you covertly for several months while the informant does his work. Oh, and they likely selected you based on your skin color and/or religious affiliation.
> Whether the bomb or not was real doesn't change the fact that he has the mens rea to blow up a building, and considering he thought the bomb was real and took positive steps to set it up, the reus actus as well.
While this is true, some of the cases to date the FBI has prosecuted are really likely to have never occurred if informants weren't being paid to intentionally push someone towards an illegal act. Even if someone were to go through with it even without a paid informant involved, it is incredibly unethical for a policing organization to pay people to mislead people into breaking the law.
>That informant is always talking about drinking and telling you how you should drink
Without laboring the analogy too far (which was only a throwaway intended to show that you don't need to cause harm to commit crime), what would any reasonable person do in this situation, if we replace "drinking" with "blowing shit up"?
The reasonable response here is "Get away from me, you psycho moron."
If you collude with that? Willingly? To the point of setting up a "bomb" and blowing it up?
The informant didn't shove the detonator in the suspect's hands and press the button. The informant didn't set up the bomb.
>Oh, and they likely selected you based on your skin color and/or religious affiliation.
Huge citeplz here.
>While this is true, some of the cases to date the FBI has prosecuted are really likely to have never occurred if informants weren't being paid to intentionally push someone towards an illegal act.
Yours and my definition of "intentionally push" must be worlds apart. But then again, if your mindset is such that you can be convinced verbally to blow up a building that you and the person "pushing" you agree is full of innocent people that would "die".. well, let's say I don't have a lot of sympathy for that person.
Perhaps they should be involuntarily committed to a mental health institution instead of imprisoned, but this person is a danger to themselves and others.
>it is incredibly unethical for a policing organization to pay people to mislead people into breaking the law.
There's no misleading here. The people convicted so far were not "misled".
If the suspect 'pushes the button' which he believes is hooked up to a real bomb, I think it's reasonable to say that he attempted to commit a terror act.
Did you honestly just compare a shooting spree to a job in the financial industry? I am honestly astonished statements like this get absolutely no rebuttal. Please, enumerate for me the individuals who you believe are guilty and the crimes you believe they are guilty of.
Not really. Number two was not actually a crime so much as a systemic regulatory failure fueled by greed and stupidity (Iceland's banks perpetrating some of the more egregious stupidity).
>While FBI Agents are busy flying to Iceland working on Hollywood's vision for the future of who owns the internet, data, and computers, the following is allowed to happen:
You're acting as if the FBI devoted all of their efforts towards this.
Edit: There's been numerous news reports all over the world about FBI/CIA agents doing police-work without reporting to local authorities in countries which are not the US, where they have no rights and no jurisdiction, as if it was their own turf.
CIA operatives have been charged in numerous European countries for kidnapping and abducting people not guilty on anything by local laws. Because the US wanted them silenced, because of "terror" or whatever.
I'm going to pressume this is what happened here as well.
I can assure you that if anyone had done the same in the US, they wouldn't merely be kicked out, they would be jailed for being in violation of the law.