Man Pleads Guilty to Plotting to Bomb Amazon Data Center 163
A Texas man who had boasted that he was at the United States Capitol when swarms of Trump supporters stormed the building on Jan. 6 pleaded guilty on Wednesday to charges of plotting to blow up an Amazon data center in Virginia, prosecutors said. The New York Times reports: The man, Seth Aaron Pendley, 28, of Wichita Falls, Texas, had been arrested in April after he went to pick up what he believed were bombs made of C-4 plastic explosives and detonation cords from an explosives supplier in Fort Worth, but were actually inert objects provided by an undercover F.B.I. agent, prosecutors said. In a conversation recorded by an undercover agent on March 31, Mr. Pendley said he had hoped to anger "the oligarchy" enough to provoke a reaction that would persuade Americans to take action against what he perceived to be a "dictatorship," prosecutors said.
On Wednesday, in an appearance before Magistrate Judge Hal R. Ray Jr. of U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Mr. Pendley pleaded guilty to a malicious attempt to destroy a building with an explosive. He faces five to 20 years in federal prison. His sentencing has been set for Oct. 1. "Due in large part to the meticulous work of the F.B.I.'s undercover agents, the Justice Department was able to expose Mr. Pendley's twisted plot and apprehend the defendant before he was able to inflict any real harm," Prerak Shah, the acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas, said in a statement. "We may never know how many tech workers' lives were saved through this operation -- and we're grateful we never had to find out."
On Wednesday, in an appearance before Magistrate Judge Hal R. Ray Jr. of U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Mr. Pendley pleaded guilty to a malicious attempt to destroy a building with an explosive. He faces five to 20 years in federal prison. His sentencing has been set for Oct. 1. "Due in large part to the meticulous work of the F.B.I.'s undercover agents, the Justice Department was able to expose Mr. Pendley's twisted plot and apprehend the defendant before he was able to inflict any real harm," Prerak Shah, the acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas, said in a statement. "We may never know how many tech workers' lives were saved through this operation -- and we're grateful we never had to find out."
Problem correctly identified, but wrong solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazon needs to be reined in - and Google, Facebook, Akamai, CloudFlare, Microsoft and all the other players in the big data space. And at this point, they've gotten so big, so flush with money and so untouchable that it's easy to feel the only course of action against those companies involves violence.
But that's not the way to go. The law probably isn't the way to go either - since our elected officials are either on their payroll or asleep at the wheel. Somehow I have a feeling the best way would be to turn these companies against themselves in some way. Or perhaps push them to become so brazen and fuck up so badly as to elicit a massive backlash from the population.
In any case, bombing one data center isn't the solution: firstly it's only one data center, and secondly it might elicit pity or compassion for the "victim".
Re:Problem correctly identified, but wrong solutio (Score:5, Insightful)
But that's not the way to go. The law probably isn't the way to go either - since our elected officials are either on their payroll or asleep at the wheel. Somehow I have a feeling the best way would be to turn these companies against themselves in some way. Or perhaps push them to become so brazen and fuck up so badly as to elicit a massive backlash from the population.
Or, just perhaps, vote for politicians not beholden to "special interest groups" and "campaign-contributors".
Until that happens, nothing will really change.
Re:Problem correctly identified, but wrong solutio (Score:5, Insightful)
Voting has become the theater of democracy to hide the true plutocracy we live under. Haven't you noticed?
Voting hasn't changed much of anything in a long long time.
Re:Problem correctly identified, but wrong solutio (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd say the change from Trump to Biden is a very big change. Agree with or disagree with his politics. At least his behavior out in public is much better.
Re:Problem correctly identified, but wrong solutio (Score:5, Interesting)
It is an exaggeration that voting hasn't changed anything, but I'd say it is objectively true that US politics has not been very effective in the past few decades. One simple metric is how many amendments we have had to the constitution lately. This is arguably the best metric for government progress in keeping up with societal changes.
In the first 75 years of our constitution there were only 2 amendments. It makes sense there wouldn't be as much need for immediate change since the constitution was new (a new house doesn't need many repairs for the first couple decades either). Then from 1865 to 1971, there were 14 amendments. One every 7.5 years. Since then we have had only one amendment in 1989 and it was only to regulate how Congress can increase its salary.
If current politics had kept up with the pace of progress over the past 50 years that it had in the previous 100 years, we would have had 5-6 new amendments over my lifetime. But politicians making significant improvements to our lives on the order of the abolishment of slavery, voting rights, and equality has mostly stopped. Sadly most progress has only come from our courts interpreting 75+ year old amendments with modern lenses. That is not a sustainable path.
So while who is elected has still had an impact on many people's lives over the past few decades, its almost inarguable that our politicians have been ineffective for a very long time. This shouldn't be that surprising to hear about a country where things like universal healthcare are considered radical ideas.
re: Constitutional Amendments (Score:2)
I'd have to disagree with you on this. Our Constitution should serve as a basic framework that outlines the purpose of our governmental bodies and the general goals for whatever legislation is written. It enumerates the inalienable rights that all humans have and promises to uphold them.
There should really only rarely be a need for an amendment, especially since we had all this time to "fill in the blanks" and make some improvements/corrections. I get the feeling that in recent times, many people want to
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The Russians weren't the invaders, they were asked into the country by the actual government. The US-financed al Qaeda and mercenary groups were the invaders.
The Nobel Peace Prize has been meaningless ever since they gave it to war criminal Henry Kissinger and then later to unrepentant terrorists Begin and Arafat. May as well give it to Rump, he can hang it on his wall in Mierda Lago next to his faked 'Man of the Year' Time magazine cover.
And if you think fracking is a good thing then you're utterly ignor
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Sorry if I disappoint you, but "Big environment" and "Big fair trade" are still tiny compared to any Big business of any sort. Friends of the Earth Europe, one of the largest environmental organizations, only have a dozen people employed at their very modest Brussels headquarter, for example.
Companies trying to make a profit by promoting a green image is something completely different.
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Lobbyists who mostly do not represent the environment, homeowners, foreign farmers or immigrants, but the people who have made a very profitable business out of catering to these interests.
We are unlikely to never have a perfect world where there are no lobbyists and where politicians can only ever take a max of $100 contributions from individuals. Companies which have built successful businesses catering to environment activists, middle class homeowners, family farmers, and immigrant activists spending some of their money to fund lobbyists on their behalf is a very good and realistic solution to combating money from "Big Business". It may not be a utopian solution but it is still a very good
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Isn't that the reason given my many for voting for Trump? Independently wealthy and self funded, promising to drain the swamp etc.
Re:Problem correctly identified, but wrong solutio (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Problem correctly identified, but wrong solutio (Score:4, Informative)
Considering the widespread dislike for Hillary, I assume they thought Trump would be the one person she could run against and win.
But as it turns out, she was probably the only one Trump could win against, as the US was forced to pick between "the lesser of the two evils".
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At least you'll never hear a woman president go "And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything.". Lessor of two evils indeed.
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The "lessor" is the lease holder, i.e. the one who leases to the lessee. So we, the American people, leased our government to two evils; you were right, but perhaps in not the way you intended.
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That is sexist of you to assume a woman wouldn't say something like you.
Also, considering all the enabling she did for her husband's sexual harassments and possible assaults', she didn't beat him out on moral fiber for this category.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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I was going to vote for Sanders and didn't vote for Clinton, but I didn't vote for Trump either. I know a ton of Sanders supporters that voted for Trump once Sanders was out of the race.
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I also know a ton of REPUBLICANS that were going to vote for Sanders (because they knew how bad Trump was going to be)
You've got to have a pretty bad candidate to get a Republican to vote for someone with such a "socialist image" as Sanders, and Trump was a pretty known quantity of crazy, even among some reps.
But then when Hillary got the nom, they went ahead and voted for Trump because they hated Hillary worse than Trump, which really says a lot about Hillary's image.
It always was a "lesser of the two evil
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Don't forget that Clinton actually won the popular vote, i.e. she was more popular than Trump by a bit over 2%.
So it might be more accurate to say that Trump was able to beat her in states that matter, not overall.
Re: Problem correctly identified, but wrong soluti (Score:3)
That's like saying a football team really won the game because they completed more field goals even though they lost in points.
Re: Problem correctly identified, but wrong solut (Score:2)
AMERICAN football. I can understand why you might be confused.
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what the h... were the Dems thinking when they put her on the ticket?
They were thinking that Trump would be the same sort of "tomato can" opponent they set up Lincoln Chaffee to be (and yes, there was that other candidate, but he ended up selling out the first day of the convention.)
That's why I still contend that the Clinton campaign, or their allies, arranged the extensive media coverage that Trump received. Their thinking was that nobody would be stupid enough to think that Trump would be an effective President, so Clinton would easily win.
That's how the 2016 election cam
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I can imagine that it was a reason for many people to vote for him in 2016. I don't live in the US, but if I had to vote back then, I would probably have voted for Trump over Clinton (what the h... were the Dems thinking when they put her on the ticket?). But vote for him again in 2020? No way.
A better question is what were you thinking when you decided it was a good idea to vote for a guy who bankrupted six casinos, flew an airline into the ground, ran a mortgage company into the ground, ruined a football league, got sued for fraud over Trump University, failed at selling vodka (which literally involves no more than mixing alcohol and water at the correct ratio) .... I bet you were thinking: "Now there's what America needs a competent businessman for president ...".
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You forgot "had his 'charitable foundation' shut down for being a fraudulent slush fund"
Re: Problem correctly identified, but wrong soluti (Score:2)
You mean the guy who somehow manipulates the system and earns money while his companies go bankrupt? Yeah, I can see why someone might think a president with the ability to use legal loopholes might bring something valuable to the table; especially if you think much of the current system is broken and stacked against you.
And the reality distortion around the Clintons helped frame Trump as someone being vilified by the media rather than a piece of shit.
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Trump does not earn money, he borrows it from idiot bankers (for the last few years, Deutsche Bank) and pisses it way on failed ventures.
So like most politicians?
Re: Problem correctly identified, but wrong solut (Score:2)
You seem to have bought into the Trump is a genius meme if you're arguing so vociferously against a point that was never brought up.
Re:Problem correctly identified, but wrong solutio (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine calling a guy that inherited his money from his daddy "independently wealthy".
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Imagine calling a guy that inherited his money from his daddy "independently wealthy".
I know, right? It's so much better to become mysteriously rich from spending years in political office.
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100% of the people who used that as justification were always going to vote for whatever candidate had the R next to their name.
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Isn't that the reason given my many for voting for Trump? Independently wealthy and self funded, promising to drain the swamp etc.
I can’t understand this logic whatsoever. Why would anyone think a man worth billions, who couldn’t possibly spend all that money on reasonable things in their lifetime, who never needed to work for money and neither do any family for the foreseeable future, but who still works “80-100” hour weeks hoarding ever larger amounts of money is the right choice to avoid temptation of selling out America to make even more money? Billionaires all suffer from a serious addiction to making m
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Re: Problem correctly identified, but wrong soluti (Score:2)
https://youtu.be/bWcASV2sey0 [youtu.be]
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How is parent a "troll"? Can anyone explain?
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Crossing several borders to get to our border is where the legality question kicked in. You don't typically get to shop and chose where you are going to live when you are fleeing for your saftey.
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Actually there is no requirement to stop in the first safe country either. You are allowed to travel to your country of choice before claiming asylum. The 1951 Refugee Convention has no such requirement.
There is the concept of a "first country of asylum". It's not a rule, but by convention a country receiving an asylum claim can, with the agreement of the first safe country they reached, ask for them to return and wait there while the claim is processed. In practice this is only possible where countries hav
Re:Problem correctly identified, but wrong solutio (Score:5, Insightful)
US voters want to hear the other candidate is a Satan-worshipping pedophile that eats kittens. Feeding that addiction takes money, so only a candidate who sells his soul to a corporation, can be elected. The only way to get politicians that are "not beholden" is to demand a voter base her choice on policies. Even that doesn't work, because jobs, 'muh freedoms' and "tough on crime" displace real issues like healthcare, market regulation and personal privacy. Even if people did consider such issues, a federal government that controls many state responsibilities, cannot be dismissed because it is wrong.
Then, there are people who follow the Christian-right, 'patriotism' or "evil government" propaganda, refusing to consider policies and declaring their chosen one, as the saviour (du jour) of the USA. These sycophants do a lot of damage to democracy. Remember, 74 million people voted for Trump, whose one-size-fits-all policies often threw-out the baby with the bath-water, and some imagine a coup will put Trump back in the White House.
A large part of politics is ensuring the right people never get elected to Congress.
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"US voters want to hear the other candidate is a Satan-worshipping pedophile that eats kittens."
Nonsense, the media promotes this as what people want because that is the programming they are pushing: see, it isn't our fault, Americans want this.
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Nonsense, the media promotes this as what people want because that is the programming they are pushing: see, it isn't our fault, Americans want this.
And why does the media promote it? Because it gets viewers, and more viewers leads to more money from selling advertising.
Re: Problem correctly identified, but wrong soluti (Score:2)
"US voters want to hear the other candidate is a Satan-worshipping pedophile that eats kittens."
Incorrect. The US media wants to tell you the other candidate is a Satan-worshipping pedophile that eats kittens because you can't tell the difference between angst over a story and passion for the person telling it.
Re:Problem correctly identified, but wrong solutio (Score:5, Interesting)
53% of Republicans still think Trump is the true President. [reuters.com]
You cant have a proper functioning democracy when 1/4 of the voters are not based in the same reality as the rest of them.
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Your right, it's very hard to have a proper functional democracy when over 33% of democrats thought Trump stole the election from Hillary. Pot meet Kettle.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/13/one-third-of-clinton-supporters-say-trump-election-is-not-legitimate-poll-finds/ [washingtonpost.com]
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Yes and spent 3 years trying to impeach him. They only stopped because covid took over on the news and that was an easier noose to tie around Trumps political neck.
And 200-400 people do not equal the 75 million people that voted for Trump any more than Weinstein and Clinton represented all democrats.
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Re:Problem correctly identified, but wrong solutio (Score:5, Insightful)
So where is your poll showing those issues are more important than believing in the Republican party's big lie?
But you don't know those types of people:
Just maybe you don't know those types of people as well as you think you do.
Democracy still happens whether you believe in the result or not.
No not really. If enough people don't believe it. Or just enough of the right kinds of people don't believe it. Then you wont have one any more.
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Democracy still happens whether you believe in the result or not.
Now that's what you call taking it for granted.
Because democracy can and has stopped happening when enough people don't believe in the result that they go outside the system to achieve the results they want. Historically, this is achieved through violence.
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They consider them the biggest issue because billions have been spent convincing them that they are in mortal danger from people of different ethnicities literally constantly to the point where they feel like they need an AR-15 to go grocery shopping in their small rural Walmart.
That didn't just happen, that was a thing that was done intentionally. And it was done to you as well.
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So you're suggesting we write in Dudley Do-Right and other cartoon characters?
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Re: Problem correctly identified, but wrong soluti (Score:2)
You could have just voted for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein. Same thing.
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So you're suggesting we write in Dudley Do-Right and other cartoon characters?
Dudley Do-Right is a Canadian, and therefore cannot be elected US President.
So pick someone else to waste your vote on, and know that you are partly to blame for the next administration.
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We never hear about these guys, because they don't have the money to run for office.
Once you start getting into a position where to get elected, personally knocking on the doors and talking with the constituents is no longer possible. You are going to need a lot more money to run, a big company who may be able to give you millions of dollars is very appealing.
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Does your "against themselves" includes dividing a company against itself? How about changing the tax system so that the objective of increasing retained earnings makes the companies want to divide themselves into smaller companies? NOT a penalty for success, but rather an incentive to reproduce the good ideas within smaller companies. My original idea was to link the higher tax rates to market share, but now I think total profit should be considered, too.
Here's a relatively simple example (though I've cons
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Is this not the free market at work?
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yes. Specifically it's a race to the bottom. A frequent problem when a market is insufficiently regulated.
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Free Markets have historically resulted in repeated boom/bust cycles and we learned quite a while ago to regulate them to allow for slow constant growth with minimal booms or busts. This has only changed as the republicans work to eliminate regulations because people with a lot of money can manipulate boom/bust cycles to their advantage.
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"The law probably isn't the way to go either - since our elected officials are either on their payroll or asleep at the wheel."
Ah, the usual dyspeptic postmodern whine about elected officials. They are not asleep just because they believe differently than you. While lobbying is a problem, by its nature some pols won't get a particular industry's re-election money or perks.
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We see the same syndrome with the Supreme Court. Liberals will get pissed when they unanimously vote to e.g. not give temporary residents a path to citizenship. They think all "liberal" justices must always vote big-P Progressively since they are seen as being to the left. Similarly, when John Roberts makes a sane decision to the detriment of the Conservative cause, he's seen as being some huge liberal traitor by the usual right wing rabble.
How cases really can and should be decided impartially based entire
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Locate the "fresh air" intake for the building and hold a "fart-in" with a thousand of your closest bean eating friends.
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I think that the only thing that would flip them would be a major disaster that in turn would show their cloud customers that they had put all their eggs in the same basket.
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Lol at this fucking passive aggressive "I don't condone it (wink wink) but I understand it (lol wink wink)" tripe being rated Insightful. You nuts always talk around this because you can't really point out anything concrete. Amazon - I buy shit from them, they deliver it. Them getting so large is about problem #9,387 on my list of problems. Facebook, Akamai, CloudFlare, Microsoft are a few notches below that at #9,390.
What kinds of weird fucking lives to some of you people lead that you are so concerned wit
It seems like only a matter of time (Score:5, Interesting)
Actual explosives must be pretty tough to come by because it seems like the FBI pretty regularly finds people who want to blow something up.
But give how often the FBI seems to catch someone who wants to blow something up (ok, maybe encourages them to want to) you'd think we'd have more bombings if explosives weren't hard to get.
It seems like it's only a matter of time before someone actually attacks a data center, whether it's Amazon or someone else's. The Nashville bomber (boy, did that story fall off the radar) really appeared to be attacking the telco wire center/data center, despite the media's unusually tepid lack of willingness to connect the dots between his motorhome blowing up and its position in front of the telco site.
It almost seems like this is the jumping off point to some kind of sci fi dystopia where data centers become fortified bunkers guarded by corporate militias.
Re:It seems like only a matter of time (Score:5, Funny)
Just put signs around the building that say "WARNING Building is guarded by vaccine drones!" and those idiots will be too afraid to go anywhere near it.
Re: It seems like only a matter of time (Score:3)
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Most of them are listed in Google Maps. When I was at AWS we kept asking for them to be de-listed, and then a few weeks later they'd be back. Not sure if they're still playing that game or if they gave up.
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Drones are cheap. And nobody bothers to put a metal roof on an office building, and tar is flammable.
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So someone super determined has lots of options. The problem for most miliia types is they're fuck-up losers which
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Security should be commensurate to risk. Physical and online.
Ask industrial level crypto-miners or commercial pot growers.
And it's not corporate militia, it's just corporate security. They may have guns.
When I visited Quito almost every store had a body-armored guard with a riot shotgun or a short barreled M4 style rifle. To guard shoes, purses, or clothes. The bank branch had a small platoon of guards, and they weren't standing around chit-chatting, they surrounded the room and watched everything.
And t
Data centers should be designed for defense (Score:2)
The money is obviously not a problem. Buy enough real estate for standoff distance, install blast walls like the Texas barriers in the Green Zone then get on with business.
BTW explosives aren't a high barrier except to the tards who do most terrorism. Be glad most are stupid as well as insane.
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And this is why you should NEVER trust a supplier for explosives.
Besides, when rust and magnesium are so easy to get a hold of, not to mention nitrated flash cotton, diesel, and fertilizer, who needs to BUY explosives?
Mix it yourself, it's the only way to be sure.
Who do you trust? (Score:5, Funny)
Roll 2d6 for each member of your militia or other person involved in your plot:
2 - True Believer, like yourself
3 - opportunist pursuing entirely different agenda
4 - whacko who just wants to blow stuff up
5-7 FBI/ATF agent
8-9 other undercover cop or informer
10 - mole working for a foreign government
11 - leftist mole
12 - alien infiltrator or renegade lizard man
Not the sharpest knife in the drawer (Score:2)
Is this really the right solution? (Score:5, Insightful)
Some fruitloop rants about wanting to blow things up. A well-meaning person reports this to the FBI. What does the FBI do? They encourage him, provide him with information and support. Right up to the critical moment, when they get him to cross a line and do something illegal. Then *bam* he's arrested.
Why not talk the guy down. if he's mentally ill, get him some help. In really extreme cases, force help on him. But pushing him along the way, encouraging his delusions, until he becomes a full-fledged criminal, so that you can through him in jail? Is this really the way to go?
Re:Is this really the right solution? (Score:5, Interesting)
Some fruitloop rants about wanting to blow things up. A well-meaning person reports this to the FBI. What does the FBI do? They encourage him, provide him with information and support. Right up to the critical moment, when they get him to cross a line and do something illegal. Then *bam* he's arrested.
As much as some like to scream "Entrapment!", the fact remains that at any point, the good citizen could have stepped away, perhaps even turned in the FBI sting to the FBI. The apparent thesis on the part of the "Entrapment!" people is that the only reason that the guy attempted to purchase the stuff was the FBI - nothing else.
Why not talk the guy down. if he's mentally ill, get him some help. In really extreme cases, force help on him. But pushing him along the way, encouraging his delusions, until he becomes a full-fledged criminal, so that you can through him in jail? Is this really the way to go?
And if the guy, after getting that mental help, goes out and successfully carries out his little project, you would say what? "It's okay, we knew his plans - looks like the weekly visits with a therapist didn't help. Thoughts and prayers!"
This is not all that simple. People can and do things like commit suicide even while under therapy - this is the unfortunate fact that therapy - even drug therapy doesn't always work.
The only alternative to the situation is determining the person is dangerous, perhaps mentally ill, then involuntarily incarcerating them in a mental institution. So not much difference.
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So entrapment is never a defense since people can always just say no to the trap?
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So entrapment is never a defense since people can always just say no to the trap?
The definition of entrapment is pretty simple - Entrapment is where a law enforcement agent or agent of the state causes a person to commit a crime that the person would have otherwise been unlikely or unwilling to commit.
So one way or the other, a crime was committed. He had posted on an encrypted message system that he wanted to kill off 70 percent of the internet, he travelled to pick up the fake explosives, he was found to have notes and plans for the attack on a search of his residence. Before the sa
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Yes... and? Literally nothing you said in the first part of this paragraph contradicts the second half. He's not a great person. But no, there's zero evidence he would have turned into a terrorist had the FBI not turned him into a terrorist. So now we have a guy in jail rather than a productive member of society.
He had plans to do what he was arrested for. FBI was not called in until after there was reasonable suspicion of his intent when he announced his plan using Signal, an encrypted messaging app. This was not a person that the FBI radicalized, it was a person who had plans to do what he said he was going to do.
People take good and bad paths all the time, nobody's perfect, but we try to guide people so their positive sides are channeled towards something constructive, and they don't have an opportunity to act upon their negative sides. I suspect there's something you could do that's truly awful if you were surrounded by people encouraging it and giving you the means to do it. Anger can do that.
Probably not, I'm not a person that has a lot of desire to go outside the law and harm other people.
Your thesis is that after telling others of his plan, which happened before before the FBI was invo
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Is being a sad lonely person easily manipulated by peer pressure as bad as an actual terrorist? I get that he's obviously bad. And needs to be stopped. But how much was he just being egged on to do something he never would have done without being pressured to by others?
See Taliban, ISIS, Osama, Sadam Hussain. It wouldn't be the first time America created its own enemies.
There is a really big difference. Allow me to illustrate. If someone came along and offered to sell me some nasty stuff, I'd report them to the FBI as soon as I got away from them. He didn't.
It's somewhat similar to the "I was drunk" defense, when people try to be declared innocent because they were inebriated. Entrapment is not when a person tries to do what they almost certainly would have done if some other domestic terrorists offered him the goods. To defend this, the defense would have to say that
Sounds like online ranting (Score:2)
I don't have much sympathy for this guy, but I didn't see many details that elevate this person's actions above online ranting until the FBI performed a sting operation on him. It seems closer to entrapment targeted at an online crackpot, based solely on what I read in the article.
Hopefully there is plenty of other details which led the FBI and the courts to deem him a credible threat before sending him to federal prison for 20 years. I mean if he did attempt to pay for the explosives I agree he broke the l
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The quoted article makes it sound more like the FBI "ran the store":
he went to pick up what he believed were bombs made of C-4 plastic explosives and detonation cords from an explosives supplier in Fort Worth, but were actually inert objects provided by an undercover F.B.I. agent, prosecutors said.
Other sources [star-telegram.com] paint a more questionable picture. Specifically, the word "gave".
A man planning to blow up an Amazon Web Services data center met on Thursday in Fort Worth with an undercover FBI employee who gave him C-4 plastic explosives and showed him how to use the devices, federal prosecutors said.
But in the end the defendant's plea moots the question of entrapment.
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But in the end the defendant's plea moots the question of entrapment.
True. Only guilty people plead guilty when the full force of the law is pressings down on them
IRL Mad Stan (Score:2)
This guy is like an IRL version of Mad Stan from Batman Beyond:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Relevance? (Score:2)
pled (Score:2)
a plea for pled vis a vis pleaded
Wrong vendor (Score:2)
So you're saying... (Score:2)
They got their Prime suspect?
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Lemonparty?
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But not the only violence..
Whatever happened to the peaceful transfer of power that happens in all the other grownup democracies? Why the backsliding? Why are you OK with this?
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It happened. Biden is in office. The transfer of power happened. And unlike the last transfer, they are not running constant impeachment hearings to try to delegitimize the vote.
In fact, this event pretty much killed any opposition people could have since they were (and still are) immediately linked to armed insurrectionists if they don't toe the line.
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Constant? There were impeachment hearings starting in Sept 2019, more than half way into his term, because of Trump's actions with Ukraine and the Ukrainian President.
Republicans in Congress knew Trump crossed the line. Trump's impeachment defense wasn't even arguing what he did was OK. To be clear, no Republicans in Congress want any future President to do what Trump did, EVER, they just don't want to punish Trump for doing it. Most figured Trump learned a lesson and getting time served was enough, as
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If this were true of republicans in general, you'd have a lot more trouble on your hands. Trump had over 74 million votes.
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If this were true of republicans in general, you'd have a lot more trouble on your hands. Trump had over 74 million votes.
I know, I know. Who are you going to believe? Faux Newz, Newzmin, One Amerika Newz Netwerk, and Republicans like Ron Johnson and Andrew Clyde, or your own lying eyes and ears? I mean, you can't trust your own eyes when you see them Beer-belly putsch beating cops with flagpoles, hockey sticks, and other weapons. You can't trust your lying eyes and ears as you see the crowd breaking into the Capitol, a hallowed symbol of Democracy, without regard to damage. Obviously it's your eyes lying when you see Trump s
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And the democrats constantly redefine what is terrorisms versus protests. But that is deeply rooted in your party roots - from succession to current events.