Sensible Erection | FBI stops bombing in Portland, OR

Saturday, 27 November 2010

quote [ The FBI thwarted an attempted terrorist bombing in Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square before the city's annual tree-lighting Friday night, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Oregon. ]

Glad i took my girlfriend out for coffee rather than go to the tree lighting tonight.

[by themanwhoeatslettus@8:24amGMT] [+9 Informative]

Comments

Chop-Logik said @ 9:10am GMT on 27th Nov
Title brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department wrote the title.

themanwhoeatslettus said @ 9:18am GMT on 27th Nov
thanks

Gunner v2.0 said @ 9:24am GMT on 27th Nov
I only clicked on this because of the title.
I was all like, "Man, Portland has a Christmas tree bombing ceremony?! That is so badass! And some dude tried to bomb the bombing ceremony?! Super badass!"
The actual article is still interesting, but not quite as badass.

themanwhoeatslettus said @ 10:13am GMT on 27th Nov [Score:1 Informative]
That would have been cooler article if it were not so close to my home.

A friend of mine canceled on me tonight we were all supposed to go but the crowd in the square pissed me off. This is only 3 blocks from my place and i am glad nothing bad happened. There has been a guy preaching right there on the corner about Muhammad's justice all summer (also a man that paints himself as a statue of George Washington) makes me wonder how much intelligence they had on him because there would have been so much footage that near the square.

ComposerNate said @ 11:15am GMT on 27th Nov
If only Obama had allowed the bombing, we'd have a popular president again.

KingPellinore said @ 3:07pm GMT on 27th Nov
Erm...no.

ComposerNate said @ 3:10pm GMT on 27th Nov [Score:1 Funny]
Don't you miss the days of reactionary, fear-driven nationalism?

arrowhen said @ 3:18pm GMT on 27th Nov
If you got a problem with reactionary, fear-driven nationalism, stay the fuck off my LAWN! Commie!

ComposerNate said @ 6:02pm GMT on 27th Nov
My beliefs are patriotically faith-based.

I'm beginning to wonder where your sympathies lie.

theolypse said @ 6:36pm GMT on 27th Nov
He may be a Commie Mutant Traitor.

cb361 said @ 7:37pm GMT on 27th Nov
Or a Commie Mutant Turtle.

Chop-Logik said @ 8:58pm GMT on 27th Nov [Score:4 Insightful]
That's how you get on the news, at any rate.

structured_spirits said @ 9:10pm GMT on 27th Nov
So April is insane, makes perfect sense really.

Supreme_Coconut said @ 9:55pm GMT on 27th Nov
She worked for channel 9. Whoever drew this probably recalled that but didn't realize the way he drew it turned them in to 6's.

structured_spirits said @ 10:12pm GMT on 27th Nov [Score:1 Informative]
After looking through a large amount of April O'Neil fan pic crap for actual screen shots and on youtube for confirmation, I'm pretty sure she worked for channel 6 on the tv show as is depicted in the painting. Wikipdia verifies this, although she was apparently a computer programmer helping Baxter Stockman build mousers in the original comic, which is news to me. That does explain the nerdy yellow jumpsuit with excess pockets.

Supreme_Coconut said @ 5:07am GMT on 28th Nov [Score:1 Funny]
I would wuff oo rerac my stament bu hai cat wewoove my foo fum my mao!

rezties said @ 11:54am GMT on 27th Nov [Score:1 Underrated]
At first, I thought the FBI was bombing Oregon. And then decided to take a small break at it.

All I could think was, "...Nice of them to eventually stop."

I'm tired.

Naruki said @ 3:33pm GMT on 27th Nov [Score:1 Informative]
Nah, that's what I thought, too.

smoug said @ 12:45pm GMT on 27th Nov [Score:4]
So the FBI came across a young man with an obviously troubled outlook and a dangerous attitude towards the U.S. and actively encouraged him to plan and execute a terrorist attack so they could arrest him for planning and executing a terrorist attack?

monday said @ 1:30pm GMT on 27th Nov [Score:1 Insightful]
No.

smoug said @ 2:14pm GMT on 27th Nov [Score:1 WTF]
Then what exactly happened here?

From the article:

'On Nov. 4, Mohamud and the FBI operatives traveled to a remote spot in Lincoln County, where they detonated a bomb concealed in a backpack as a trial run for the upcoming attack.'

'Later that day, Mohamud recorded a video of himself with the FBI operatives in which he read a written statement offering his reasons for the planned Portland bombing.'

'On Nov. 18, FBI operatives picked up Mohamud to travel to Portland, where they would finalize details of the attack. '

Arthur Balizan, FBI Special Agent in charge of the investigation:
"...I want to reassure the people of this community that, every turn, we denied him the ability to actually carry out the attack."

'He allegedly identified a location to place the bomb and mailed bomb components to the FBI operatives, who he believed were assembling the device.'

Clearly the FBI was deeply involved in this man's preparations and plotting. At the very least it seems the FBI provided -some- support to him with the end objective being him acting on this so they could arrest him.

maryyugo said @ 3:46pm GMT on 27th Nov
Yeah. It's called enforcing the law. You play with the perps until they reveal themselves. You really should look up "undercover work" with your site security turned off. All sorts of things come up.

phlegm said @ 4:50pm GMT on 27th Nov [Score:3 Insightful]
If they were just enforcing the law, they would have picked him up immediately after the first email. They had him the minute he asked how he could get involved with this sort of shit.

Usually when they kite someone along, it's to get to someone bigger. You want them to dig the hole as deep as safely possible so you can get them flip on the next guy up the chain and so on. In this case, it sounds like they let him dig the hole deeper just so they could throw the book at him (attempted execution instead of merely planning). That is unusual.

Between this and stuff like the Newburgh Four it looks like the FBI is more concerned with building high-profile cases than anything else. It might be a funding grab so if/when the spending cuts come they get passed over.

smoug said @ 7:41pm GMT on 27th Nov
My feeling in this case was that this was primarily intended to be a public 'win' for the FBI. After the Faisal Shahzad debacle and the public perception that it was due primarily to an investigative failure, a few controlled apprehensions of clearly dangerous people (and don't mistake me, Mr. Mohamud was clearly dangerous) goes a long way to rebuilding public confidence.

Hence my concern, this feels like an expensive publicity stunt. Especially when you consider the FBI should've had more than enough evidence against him well prior to him ever getting behind the wheel of that vehicle.

ComposerNate said @ 7:53pm GMT on 27th Nov
It's also a social experiment for the FBI, better understanding how and why someone would set off a bomb amongst his fellow Americans, a study.

blibblob said @ 8:47pm GMT on 27th Nov
Holy shit. The FBI is entering experimental science!

ComposerNate said @ 12:34pm GMT on 28th Nov
FBInvestigation = Federal Bureau of Detailed or Careful Examination

structured_spirits said @ 5:26pm GMT on 27th Nov
Yeah so giving the "perp" a real explosive at one was a good idea then?

structured_spirits said @ 6:02pm GMT on 27th Nov
I'd also like to point out that giving aid and comfort to the enemy, regardless of motive, is a form of treason. I wonder if the FBI briefed the president about the threat to national security in Portland beforehand.

scojam said @ 2:28pm GMT on 27th Nov
Entrapment, or a hypothetical lesson to other would be terrorists?

Didel said @ 4:12pm GMT on 27th Nov
It's not entrapment.

crom said @ 7:10pm GMT on 27th Nov
How do you know?

Didel said @ 7:37pm GMT on 27th Nov
Because I know what entrapment is? And based on the facts that are given, this case doesn't meet the legal definition of entrapment. Merely supplying the means and opportunity to commit a crime is not the same as pressuring an individual to commit a crime. For entrapment, you need to show the individual wouldn't have acted without any involvement from the government, but this guy's intent to do harm seems to be very well established in this case. He wanted to blow people up, and was apparently willing to spend a lot of time and effort to do it.

You could argue that the facts as given are wrong, but I personally see no evidence of that, and that's why we have a court system. Probably the reason the FBI spent so much time and effort on this case, they wanted to establish intent and show that he was serious as to carrying out his plan. And having more evidence when you're a law enforcement agency that wants to successfully prosecute criminals is usually better than less evidence. This is the same thing as making a fake drug deal, just instead of trying to score a few pounds of coke, he was trying to blow up a bunch of people.

So yeah, not entrapment.

And I feel no pity for any douchebag who wants to blow a bunch of innocents up. Boo Fucking Hoo. But still, not entrapment.

crom said @ 12:11am GMT on 28th Nov
"pressuring an individual to commit a crime" is not necessary to meet the legal definition of entrapment in the United States.

We don't know if the idea for this specific crime came from him or his FBI handlers. We don't know the extent of their discussions with him and whether or not they persuaded him to do it. We don't know if he was actually ready and willing to commit this act prior to their intervention.

Nihil said @ 6:33pm GMT on 28th Nov
Help me figure out something out, since I'm not American and unfamiliar with its laws. We'll use the more common example of an undercover cop trying to sell illegal substances on the street:

(1)
Cop: Wanna buy some Kinder eggs?
Passersby: Sure!

This is entrapment.

(2)
Passersby: (*spots cop*) Hey, got any Kinder eggs to sell?
Cop: Well, well...

This is not entrapment

(3)
Cop: Wanna buy some Kinder eggs?
Passersby: Sure! Oh man, I've been looking all night to score some eggs!

Is this entrapment?

Naruki said @ 6:57pm GMT on 28th Nov
I don't know what a Kinder egg is, but entrapment is not handled identically in every state.

Also, I don't see the difference between 1 and 3 that would have you ask if 3 was entrapment. Clearly 3 is just a slightly more emphatic case of 1.

The question is whether you were right about 1 being entrapment. The objective test would have to prove that the cop's behavior would not convince an otherwise law abiding citizen to break the law. The subjective test would have to establish that the target was predisposed to break that law, and the cop merely provided the opportunity.

Objectively, that does not appear to be entrapment, and neither do the other two. Subjectively, #2 is fair game (not entrapment), but 1 & 3 could be argued either way depending on the circumstances you haven't supplied.

structured_spirits said @ 5:25pm GMT on 27th Nov
Yes it's basically a law enforcement PR stunt, just to show that there are "threats" that require the government to have all kinds of invasive security. They took a guy who would have never gotten a hold of a real bomb and had no real connections and fooled him into becoming a spokesman for the necessity and effectiveness of US security by giving him a real bomb at one point, and then they let him plant a "fake" bomb to plant in a crowded area to scare the fuck out of people. I wonder what would ahve happened if he'd killed himself or someone else by accident with that first real device, I bet we'd have never heard of the FBI's involvement if that happened. It's outrageous that the FBI is giving people explosives, absolutely outrageous. For me this puts a lot of speculation to rest. They gave a teenager explosives, there's no doubt in my mind that they were involved in giving guys like Oswald and Sirhan weapons and the know-how to use them.

clumsy_juggler said @ 1:35pm GMT on 27th Nov [Score:-2]
The terrorists have already won if we can't call it a Christmas Tree but need to call it a Holiday Tree.

Ankylosaur said @ 1:48pm GMT on 27th Nov [Score:5 Insightful]
Christian terrorists won when they wiped out the traditional religions that invented the tree custom and convinced everyone that Jesus was the reason for the season. They are in no position to start complaining if someone does the same to them, especially when it's bloodless this time around.

cb361 said @ 7:37pm GMT on 27th Nov
Tamp's back! :-)

benjamander said @ 2:28pm GMT on 27th Nov [Score:3]
Actually, the terrorists have already won because people are so scared they're allowing the TSA to look at them naked or grope them, getting arrested for taking pictures of bridges, and screaming and crying about people trying to build something islamic farther away from the WTC than a handful of porn stores.

maryyugo said @ 3:49pm GMT on 27th Nov
The terrorists have won what? Hovels, poverty, and freezing winters in Afghanistan? Some win. Oh, I guess they get to keep molesting their dancing boys another winter unfortunately. Win!

ComposerNate said @ 4:27pm GMT on 27th Nov
There are currently less than 100 members of Al Queada in Afghanistan.

incpenners said @ 11:43pm GMT on 27th Nov
What are you, the Al Queda social director?

ComposerNate said @ 12:06am GMT on 28th Nov
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/president-obamas-secret-100-al-qaeda-now-afghanistan/story?id=9227861

ComposerNate said @ 9:52am GMT on 13th Dec
And yes, I did notice incpenners implying I may work for Al Queada.

Gn0me said @ 4:34pm GMT on 27th Nov [Score:1 Insightful]
tl;dr : as long as foreigners are miserable, Mary wins

structured_spirits said @ 5:50pm GMT on 27th Nov [Score:1 Insightful]
My understanding is that it's the enemies of the Taliban, whom we are alied with and giving arms to in Afghanistan, that like to molest young boys. One of the reasons the Taliban gained power in the area to begin with was that they were against that kind of thing.

themanwhoeatslettus said @ 6:55pm GMT on 27th Nov
someone mistook the kite runner as a documentary and not a fiction novel based on historical events.

theolypse said @ 5:52pm GMT on 27th Nov [Score:1 Insightful]
Your fear.

Do try to remember what "terror" means.

CompletelyIrrelevant said @ 3:35am GMT on 28th Nov [Score:2]
The terrorists won when the Bush administration curtailed freedoms for Americans and justified it by claiming to protect them against the terrorists that attacked America because, as Bush said with a shocking lack of irony, 'They hate our freedoms'
Furthermore, the terrorists won when the Bush administration launched two poorly planned wars and further radicalised the Middle East, allowing extremists to become more firmly entrenched in popular support. Not to mention kindly shipping Americans to the Middle East so they're easier to kill, having to travel all the way to America to kill Americans must've been a logistical nightmare.
Even furthermore, the terrorists won when knee-jerk anti-muslim fear lead to further marginalisation of expatriate muslims and radicalising them in a self-fulfilling prophecy (we're scared of muslim terrorists! Any muslim could be a terrorist, so therefore we'll treat any muslim like a terrorist! Oh look, constantly treating these folks like evil scum has pissed them off, we woz right!), leading to a rise of 'home-grown terrorism' in these migrant communities that would otherwise have acted as the point of cultural familiarization that would diffuse the east/west conflict the Bush administration fostered in the first place.

The TSA pat-downs are only the most recent way the terrorists have won. Don't forget how it started =(

arrowhen said @ 2:29pm GMT on 27th Nov
Given the lack of compelling visual evidence to the contrary, I believe that Mohammad was actually a tree.

maryyugo said @ 4:07pm GMT on 27th Nov
I wish...

arrowhen said @ 4:17pm GMT on 27th Nov
Why?

Supreme_Coconut said @ 5:22pm GMT on 27th Nov
Well duh. Where else do you think they got the paper to write the Quran on?

kishi said @ 6:31pm GMT on 27th Nov [Score:2 Funny]
I guess that would explain all the splinter factions...

CompletelyIrrelevant said @ 1:59am GMT on 28th Nov [Score:1 Interesting]
Hopefully I haven't fucked this up...

theolypse said @ 5:51pm GMT on 27th Nov
So "the terrorists", who are apparently so concrete an entity you feel no need to elaborate further, are trying to drive our nation toward religious multiculturalism.

I'd like you to think about that for a minute.

Jack Blue said @ 12:28pm GMT on 28th Nov [Score:-2]
The terrorists have already won, since I am going to have a cheese sandwich right now.

Mmm. Cheese.

nbob said @ 1:37pm GMT on 27th Nov [Score:2 Funny]
Or what?

dali said @ 8:40pm GMT on 27th Nov [Score:2 Funny]
OR

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

benjamander said @ 4:30pm GMT on 27th Nov
What if he had made an independent device as a backup because he was suspicious of the undercover authorities' commitment.

Masterghoti said @ 4:45pm GMT on 27th Nov
,OR what? Don't you 'merican journalists know sentence structure?

kichijoii said @ 6:12pm GMT on 27th Nov [Score:5 Insightful]
tl;dr version:

FBI stops fake bombing that would never have happened without its help in Portland, OR

danshyu said @ 7:06pm GMT on 27th Nov
Still a good thing though. That the crazy guy decided to get this fake bomb from the FBI than a working one from somebody else. And since they need more evidence to prosecute him as a terrorist, it's understandable they let it go as far is it went before arresting him.

If they arrested him right on the spot when he tried to get the explosives. He would've just gotten a slap on the wrist.

cb361 said @ 7:34pm GMT on 27th Nov [Score:1 Interesting]
It's a good question. If someone really really wants to commit a crime that they're incapable of, are they guilty of it?

On the one hand they seem guilty of something, but just wanting to slaughter people isn't illegal. It becomes illegal when you take one step towards making it happen. And when people mightn't have taken that step without state help, well, it's all a little too close to thought-crime for my liking.

I mean, there are probably people who would like to make the whole of North America sink beneath the waves, if they had the power. But you can't charge them with mass-murder just for that.

And you can't let the FBI claim that there are terrorists with bombs all over the place that you need the FBI to protect you from, if the only reason those terrorists have bombs is that the FBI gave them bombs.

danshyu said @ 7:56pm GMT on 27th Nov
To be fair, they probably assumed he might have had connections higher up. So they figured they'd let it go on so they could possibly fry a bigger fish. Only later on they found out he's just a lone nutcase.

happiest_sadist said @ 9:46pm GMT on 27th Nov
According to the FBI affidavit, the case began in August 2009 when Mohamud was in e-mail contact with an unindicted associate overseas who was believed to be involved in terrorist activities.
So apparently he had at least one contact, if an email correspondent counts as a "contact".

structured_spirits said @ 10:32pm GMT on 27th Nov
I wonder how much the FBI payed said oversees contact / informant for the information on this criminal mastermind.

Anti-fuites said @ 7:59pm GMT on 27th Nov [Score:2 WTF]
Mostly I just want to post this, but let's see, somehow make it relevant...

Crows = FBI
Brown & White Cat = Terrorist
Black Cat = Portland? Sure

atter_cob said @ 10:04pm GMT on 27th Nov [Score:2 Funny]

arrowhen said @ 8:39am GMT on 28th Nov
Why the fuck was he holding the gun upside down in the first place? Is that supposed to be even cooler than the 90s sideways gun thing?

J-Loser said @ 10:18pm GMT on 27th Nov
But Pioneer Courthouse Square? What kind of lasting damage did he think that was going to cause? It's like bombing Haight-Ashbury - not a high-value target, shall we say.

structured_spirits said @ 10:30pm GMT on 27th Nov
One wonders who it was that actually selected the target. Was it the young Somali immigrant who picked the Christmas celebration in liberal Portland as the target, or was it the FBI who suggested the target. Look liberals, the Muslims hate Christmas!

themanwhoeatslettus said @ 11:22pm GMT on 27th Nov
2 blocks in most directions there was crowds of people. thick enough crowds that there would have been plenty of loss of life. Also it is the meeting point of the green, yellow, blue and red lines and would cause major congestion for a while.

blibblob said @ 2:45am GMT on 28th Nov
The goal of terrorism isn't simple mass murder.

themanwhoeatslettus said @ 3:21am GMT on 28th Nov
calculative damage although there was most definitely child killing on this terrorists mind

lilmookieesquire said @ 5:06am GMT on 28th Nov [Score:1 Insightful]
Now I'm not a professional here, but usually bombs ripping through families in busy areas of a community, during the holidays is a fairly decent way to create a general feeling of terror.

Ie. Gosh if it can happen in Portland, it can happen here.

structured_spirits said @ 5:58am GMT on 28th Nov [Score:1 Informative]
A smart terrorist would make a small bomb to explode and cause a few casualties/injuries to civilians, and then trigger a second, much larger detonation very near to the first when firemen/medics/police arrive to investigate, removing as many highly trained government agenst as possible. Thats what happened in the Bath School Disaster.

Naruki said @ 6:59pm GMT on 28th Nov
I'm just surprised they don't go around poisoning food or water supplies. I've been told by some security professionals that it's "impossible", but I think that's bull puckey.