That's what it looks like the FBI is doing with the terrorism plots it has foiled. The plots were the result of the FBI using its 'informants' to initiate many of these plots. Every so often the media reveals the FBI's arrest of some very bad people who were planning a vicious act of terrorism. A study by UCal and Mother Jones has determined that almost all of these high profile plots were actually FBI stings.
A few other conclusions of the report:
- Nearly half the prosecutions involved the use of informants, many of them incentivized by money (operatives can be paid as much as $100,000 per assignment) or the need to work off criminal or immigration violations. (For more on the details of those 508 cases, see our charts page and searchable database.)
- Sting operations resulted in prosecutions against 158 defendants. Of that total, 49 defendants participated in plots led by an agent provocateur—an FBI operative instigating terrorist action.
- In many sting cases, key encounters between the informant and the target were not recorded—making it hard for defendants claiming entrapment to prove their case.
- Terrorism-related charges are so difficult to beat in court, even when the evidence is thin, that defendants often don't risk a trial.
We know that the FBI has counterterrorism as one of its main tasks. I didn't realize that, measured by its share (about 55%) of the FBI budget, counterterrorism is now its main task. To make it happen, The number of informants used by the FBI has grown from 1,500 in 1975 to 15,000 today. However, this number is the one that is officially acknowledged; some think that there are 2-3 times that many of unofficial informants.
What year is this? 1984?
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