“We’ve talked multiple times about how the FBI seems to spend an awful lot of time stopping its own terrorist plots, and it appears to have done so yet again. iamtheky points us to the story of a “terrorist plot” to blow up the capitol averted… thanks to the fact that the whole thing was planned by the FBI, so it was pretty easy to stop the one dupe who thought it was real.”{From: FBI Saves Us From Another Of Its Own Terrorist Plots | Techdirt}
It’s hard to know exactly whether or not the fellow FBI first assisted and then arrested would have ever become a real threat, or if he would have remained too individually useless to ever cause any real harm. But, every time the FBI has announced the prevention of a terrorist plot, the suspect(s) are almost always utterly clueless losers, led down a primrose path by federal agents.
If this is all the FBI has to show for itself, one has to wonder if this is yet another federal agency desperately trying to prove its usefulness (and spending millions on each investigation in the process)–which means that there may be much more credible threats that remain completely undetected.
On the other hand, it’s also possible that there are major, serious terrorist plots being foiled on a regular basis that, for security reasons, the FBI is just not able to take credit for.
I hope it’s the latter, but even so: If much more credible threats are being thwarted on a regular basis, why gin up plots with these incompetents for no better purpose than PR?
The CIA’s not constantly making noise about the work they’re doing, but most of us assume that behind that cloak they’re at least doing something.
