[Zs3ZASpA]

HEADLINE: Fox News’ Andrew Napolitano wants to set free Oregon Christmas tree bomber




HEADLINE: Fox News' libertarian judge Andrew Napolitano actually wants to set free the Oregon Christmas tree bomber. He even accuses the US government of being the criminals by setting up the 19 year old terrorist.



LINK: Fox News? Andrew Napolitano wants to set free Oregon Christmas tree bomber - Vancouver American Politics | Examiner.com


Why do libertarians like Andrew Napolitano want to set free terrorists just because they WANTED to kill Americans? As long as you want to kill someone but haven't actually gone through with it, according to the Supreme Court, this is good enough to charge someone with a crime. Libertarians are weak on national security.

[spapsinee]

The guy pulled the "trigger". You can't let that loose.

[WelcomeMe]

I saw that segment when he was arguing with O'Reilly. The judge is against "thought crimes". Of course, there was more to this than just thinking about what the terrorist thought about doing. But, the judge thinks that if the gov't aided, by supplying the weapon, training the kid to use the weapon, this is NOT what the Constitution should be defending.

For me, I am having a bit of a time forming an opinion on what the judge thinks. I am generally in agreement with the judge on most things.

[AndyScouchek]

There appears to be a valid claim that the kid was entrapped.

I realize that it is a fine line between an undercover operation and outright entrapment, but the kid is only 19. That is a very impressionable age and the possibility exists that the FBI may have crossed the line here. All I have to go on is the media reports but I think it looks like there is enough for an investigation into the handling of the case.

This could be for any number of non-exclusionary reasons.

The FBI agents wanted a collar to justify their jobs an gain favour for future promotions.
The FBI brass wanted a high profile collar to justify the expenditure of resources on the investigation.
The FBI agents simply got caught up in their efforts and may have honestly believed that the kid was a potential threat and stepped over the line in their zeal to make the case.

[ZXRamon]

HEADLINE: Fox News’ Andrew Napolitano wants to set free Oregon Christmas tree bomber




HEADLINE: Fox News' libertarian judge Andrew Napolitano actually wants to set free the Oregon Christmas tree bomber. He even accuses the US government of being the criminals by setting up the 19 year old terrorist.



LINK: Fox News? Andrew Napolitano wants to set free Oregon Christmas tree bomber - Vancouver American Politics | Examiner.com


Why do libertarians like Andrew Napolitano want to set free terrorists just because they WANTED to kill Americans? As long as you want to kill someone but haven't actually gone through with it, according to the Supreme Court, this is good enough to charge someone with a crime. Libertarians are weak on national security.

Hardly. Libertarians just don't advocate entrapment or breaking the law to put someone behind bars. Libertarians don't condone violating the constitution either to secure your way of life. The FBI is a corrupt organization but no one likes to shine the light on them. The fact is, assisting someone at all in a crime whether it be part of an investigation or actually helping them is a crime. Those carrying out the operation deserve the same sentence as the kid who is now being tried as a terrorist. No one is above the law why should federal agents be above any of them?

[nasdfrdg]

We are racing Al-quida to find those willing to do this, and spreading mistrust among them over who they can trust.

Win-Win.

[markbila]

Why do libertarians like Andrew Napolitano want to set free terrorists just because they WANTED to kill Americans? As long as you want to kill someone but haven't actually gone through with it, according to the Supreme Court, this is good enough to charge someone with a crime.

No, I'm pretty sure the Supreme Court is not that stupid. Though many insecure conservatives might be. WANTING to do something isn't the same thing as making it happen. And it's not the same thing as posing a viable threat.

Libertarians are weak on national security. We're not. We just think that if the only way the feds can pretend they're doing something about terrorism is to setup rebellious teens for a life prison terms, they're pretty fucking useless.

[MilenaJaf]

A friend of mine was a court translator. One day he was really upset, he had been translating for a trial where a person approached a car mechanic, from somewhere in central America I forget which country, asking him if he could obtain cocaine, the mechanic told him he had no idea where to get cocaine. A week later another guy approached the mechanic, asking him if he knew someone who wanted to buy cocaine, the mechanic told him he didn't.
These two persisted in approaching the mechanic, so it was clear to the mechanic that he could make $5000, by taking a brief case from one guy and delivering it to another, which he finally did, and then was arrested for, and convicted of cocaine trafficking, both of the men who approached him testified against him, they were both DEA agents.

In the case in question, was this kid looking to join the Jihad, or was he talked into it?
It's pretty scary, even scarier if he was talked into it, because it demonstrates that it's not that hard to talk someone into being a suicide bomber.

[BloofPailafum]

...but the kid is only 19. That is a very impressionable age...

With respect... are you saying that at 19 this 'kid' didn't know it was wrong to kill people?

[yurawerj]

We're not. We just think that if the only way the feds can pretend they're doing something about terrorism is to setup rebellious teens for a life prison terms, they're pretty fucking useless.

I'm not sure you can reasonably call this defendant a "rebellious teen". He was into some very heavy shit, not just petty teenage rebellion.

Matt

[corkBrobe]

I'm not sure you can reasonably call this defendant a "rebellious teen".

Neither am I. But the argument that simply saying you want to do something is the same as having the will and morality to do it is dangerous. And the federal effort to combat terrorism by recruiting candidates is misguided.

[arriplify]

Neither am I. But the argument that simply saying you want to do something is the same as having the will and morality to do it is dangerous. And the federal effort to combat terrorism by recruiting candidates is misguided.

IIRC, he went well beyond just saying he wanted to - he actually attempted to detonate what he thought was a real car bomb.

I can see the argument for taking someone who has shown they would actually push the button off the streets.

Matt

[Equackasous]

IIRC, he went well beyond just saying he wanted to - he actually attempted to detonate what he thought was a real car bomb.

I can see the argument for taking someone who has shown they would actually push the button off the streets.

I suppose. I don't know all the details and don't have time to go reading right now. I was responding to the original post, and to the general idea that the way to combat terrorism is to go looking for all the angry kids who might do something horrible and goading them into it. Maybe we could hunt down the people who are recruiting these kids, rather than simply beating them to it? Or maybe, and I know this might sound crazy, but maybe we could give some thought to why there's so much seething rage against our nation in the first place.

[Lunims]

For whatever reason, the FBI doesn't have the recording of the first meeting they had with Mohamud, which could prove damaging to the prosecution.

This kid was given the cash to carry this out and then the list of bomb components that he had to get and send to the undercovers, who he thought were building the bomb for him.

This kid is an example of someone who was being influenced by the wrong side of Islam, from websites he visited and participated in. He made repeated attempts to reach a man who moved back to Yemen who is associated with Al Qaeda and the feds intercepted those e-mails and began tracking him.

How far would this kid have gone had he been left to his own devices? It is the million dollar question of this story, and we'll never know now because I believe law enforcement bungled it up. They should have just followed him instead of being an accomplice to him and giving him the means necessary to carry it out. He was already on a no-fly list.

He shouldn't be released until this case runs it's course and we find out exactly how involved the undercovers were, particularly the one who developed the relationship with him in the first place.

The burden of proof will fall to the prosecution to show that he got things going, but I just don't know how anyone will be able to ignore the fact that had he not been given the means to go out and make the purchases he did, would he have done this on his own?

It's really a shame, because by intervening and helping to cook this whole thing up with him, we'll never know what we were actually dealing with here. So instead of a normal situation where law enforcement follows the guy and then arrests him after he's actually done something illegal like buying bomb parts on his own, we've got to deal with the fact that if he goes away forever, it will be because of a criminal situation that never actually existed except for in his mind, since no one was actually going to get blown up that day.

[15Praxanant]

If the media accounts are correct, Jason, this guy actually pulled out his phone and dialed the number he thought would detonate the bomb.

That's not something he was trapped into doing - he chose to do that, thinking he was about to kill and mail untold numbers of people.

Matt

[drugsprevi]

If the media accounts are correct, Jason, this guy actually pulled out his phone and dialed the number he thought would detonate the bomb.

That's not something he was trapped into doing - he chose to do that, thinking he was about to kill and mail untold numbers of people.

Matt

Yes of course, that's true, however, if this story were real and not a sting operation, who do you think we'd be throwing the book at, the 19 year old errand boy, or the guy twice his age that funded the thing?

There are confused people like this kid, but then there are the brains of the operation, the one who is looked upon as the smart one, the one with connections, the one with the cash.

This kid was seriously going in the wrong direction, that's clear from everything you can read about him. However, I think the best, smartest and most efficient use of resources would have been to have an FBI agent follow and listen to see what, where and who it gets us.

I prefer the real world instead of fairy tales, and this kid should have gone down for actually going about doing something on his own, without the help of an older man who he simply trusted, since he did everything the older guy wanted him to do.

Given the chance to do harm to people, he took it in a hypothetical scenario. I find that a lot less interesting and a lot more troubling than had we just followed the guy around.

I wonder how much more it cost to design this whole frickin' scenario rather than just letting good investigative work win the day.

The authorities in this case are going to have some serious explaining to do, and it doesn't help their case that they don't have the first meeting recorded between the older guy and the kid, which just lends to this story being fishy.

Things should be done the way they were done with the millenium bomber, in terms of a person who we have information on prior to the event they want to execute. That guy was followed, the Canadian authorities handed over everything they knew about it to the Americans, and then the guy was picked up at the border with the explosives in his car, meant for LAX airport.

That guy decided to do something real and to carry out a real attempt at something. Meanwhile, this kid was attempting to connect to somebody who could help him along in his quest, and instead of just following that and seeing where it played out, we intervened, and I just think it's fishy. It smells.

Again, in a real time scenario, where we pick up the older and the younger, we profile immediately and correctly who the errand person is and who the mastermind is, just like with the snipers a few years ago.

And I'm sorry to say it, but this kid is no mastermind. They gave him the resources and all the tools necessary for what he had to do, and only then did he actually do it.

If authorities have picked up on somebody, I just think it's wiser to leave individuals to their own devices, since in the end it could lead us to other people of interest as well, but we didn't let that happen in this case, and I think that's unfortunate.

The trial will clear everything up, but boy does this smell bad.

[arrismVam]

Neither am I. But the argument that simply saying you want to do something is the same as having the will and morality to do it is dangerous.

He demonstrated that he had the "will and morality" to do it. He wanted to do it, and expressed such a desire even after being told that he could be a good Muslim if he didn't.

Suggesting that a 19 year old man doesn't know that killing people is wrong is silly...

[Shootohoist]

He demonstrated that he had the "will and morality" to do it. He wanted to do it, and expressed such a desire even after being told that he could be a good Muslim if he didn't.

Suggesting that a 19 year old man doesn't know that killing people is wrong is silly...

Some of you guys aren't seeing the bigger picture.

Yes, he's guilty of this hypothetical thing he was involved in.

However, a smarter investigative team would have known to follow the kid to see if he would eventually connect to a more powerful associate, which is exactly what he was trying to do.

This kid could have lead authorities to a more dangerous terrorist who was older, well connected, and well funded. I mean, would it not have been much more pleasing to know that a whole lot of terrorist money got frozen in the process and that a powerful terrorist or cell got nabbed?

Instead, the authorities got ahead of themselves and now we'e patting ourselves on the back for apparently a job well done, but it's really the least we could have done.

He was trying to reach an older man who went back to Yemen. It didn't look like that connection was going to pan out, but now there's no way of knowing where the kid would have lead authorities.

I think it's a huge waste of resources, and now we're going to be treated to a lengthy trial with a prosecution that doesn't have a recording of the first meeting they had with the kid. What else don't they have? What else is just heresay?

Just because they put some errand boy with confused thoughts in his head in a situation that obviously fed his ego and fed the part of him that wanted to do harm to the public, it proves that given the right set of circumstances he was certainly capable of doing his part, but what little consolation it is that he got nabbed in a make-belief situation.

Meanwhile, the consequences of this whole operation is that the kid's mosque got set on fire and already touchy feelings about muslims from the public are set off again, but this time unnecessarily.

They should have not gotten so zealous and should have just focused on following him. He was already up to no good in the real world.

[gennickhif]

HEADLINE: Fox News’ Andrew Napolitano wants to set free Oregon Christmas tree bomber




HEADLINE: Fox News' libertarian judge Andrew Napolitano actually wants to set free the Oregon Christmas tree bomber. He even accuses the US government of being the criminals by setting up the 19 year old terrorist.



LINK: Fox News? Andrew Napolitano wants to set free Oregon Christmas tree bomber - Vancouver American Politics | Examiner.com


Why do libertarians like Andrew Napolitano want to set free terrorists just because they WANTED to kill Americans? As long as you want to kill someone but haven't actually gone through with it, according to the Supreme Court, this is good enough to charge someone with a crime. Libertarians are weak on national security.

He DID go through with it, but the actual bomb had been switched.

[joanbertis]

There appears to be a valid claim that the kid was entrapped.

I realize that it is a fine line between an undercover operation and outright entrapment, but the kid is only 19. That is a very impressionable age and the possibility exists that the FBI may have crossed the line here. All I have to go on is the media reports but I think it looks like there is enough for an investigation into the handling of the case.

This could be for any number of non-exclusionary reasons.

The FBI agents wanted a collar to justify their jobs an gain favour for future promotions.
The FBI brass wanted a high profile collar to justify the expenditure of resources on the investigation.
The FBI agents simply got caught up in their efforts and may have honestly believed that the kid was a potential threat and stepped over the line in their zeal to make the case.

He was not entrapped:

n criminal law, entrapment is constituted by a law enforcement agent inducing a person to commit an offense that the person would otherwise have been unlikely to commit.[1] In many jurisdictions, entrapment is a possible defense against criminal liability. However, there is no entrapment where a person is ready and willing to break the law and the government agents merely provide what appears to be a favorable opportunity for the person to commit the crime. For example, it is not entrapment for a government agent to pretend to be someone else and to offer, either directly or through an informant or other decoy, to engage in an unlawful transaction with the person (see sting operation). So, a person would not be a victim of entrapment if the person was ready, willing and able to commit the crime charged in the indictment whenever opportunity was afforded, and that Government officers or their agents did no more than offer an opportunity. Entrapment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia