The FBI successfully thwarts its own terrorist plot

by Glenn Greenwald - The FBI is obviously quite pleased with itself over its arrest of a 19-year-old Somali-American, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, who -- with months of encouragement, support and money from the FBI's own undercover agents -- allegedly attempted to detonate a bomb at a crowded Christmas event in Portland, Oregon. Media accounts are almost uniformly trumpeting this event exactly as the FBI describes it. Loyalists of both parties are doing the same, with Democratic Party commentators proclaiming that this proves how great and effective Democrats are at stopping The Evil Terrorists, while right-wing polemicists point to this arrest as yet more proof that those menacing Muslims sure are violent and dangerous.

What's missing from all of these celebrations is an iota of questioning or skepticism. All of the information about this episode -- all of it -- comes exclusively from an FBI affidavit filed in connection with a Criminal Complaint against Mohamud. As shocking and upsetting as this may be to some, FBI claims are sometimes one-sided, unreliable and even untrue, especially when such claims -- as here -- are uncorroborated and unexamined. That's why we have what we call "trials" before assuming guilt or even before believing that we know what happened: because the government doesn't always tell the complete truth, because they often skew reality, because things often look much different once the accused is permitted to present his own facts and subject the government's claims to scrutiny. The FBI affidavit -- as well as whatever its agents are whispering into the ears of reporters -- contains only those facts the FBI chose to include, but omits the ones it chose to exclude. And even the "facts" that are included are merely assertions at this point and thus may not be facts at all.

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Feds drop charges against supposed OC terrorist

(OC Weekly) - Remember Craig Monteilh? The convicted con artist and OC Weekly cover story subject who claims he helped the FBI foil an OC terrorist cell operating inside local mosques only to be abandoned by the agency after they stopped believing his stories? The guy who first claimed he was a hero for helping the feds fight terror, but whose activities led only to the arrest of an Afghan immigrant named Ahmadullah Sais Niazi, who allegedly lied on his visa application about one of his in-laws being involved with Al Qaeda? The guy who promised that Niazi's arrest was just the tip of the iceberg and that soon the feds would be taking down an entire terrorist cell in Orange County?

Well, surprise, surprise, no big terror plot was ever uncovered.

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FBI gave inaccurate statements in claiming terror link to anti-war rally

WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI gave inaccurate information to Congress and the public when it claimed a possible terrorism link to justify surveilling an anti-war rally in Pittsburgh, the Justice Department's inspector general said Monday in a report on the bureau's scrutiny of domestic activist groups.

Inspector General Glenn Fine said the FBI had no reason to expect that anyone of interest in a terrorism investigation would be present at the 2002 event sponsored by the Thomas Merton Center, a nonviolent anti-war and anti-discrimination group.

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Bomb-plot informant testifies FBI sent him to terrorist camp in Pakistan

(Bloomberg) - The confidential informant at the center of the case against four men accused of plotting to bomb New York City synagogues testified that the Federal Bureau of Investigation sent him to Pakistan in 2008 to attend a terrorist training camp.

The informant, Shahed Hussain, told a jury in New York today he went to his native country in December of that year to meet someone at the camp. He didn’t identify the organization running the camp or discuss the result of the investigation.

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