Why You Shouldn’t Take Notes on Terrorist Plots

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/therefore/3981810961/sizes/z/in/photostream/">Dean Terry</a>/Flickr

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


On Wednesday the FBI announced that it had arrested Rezwan Ferdaus, a Northeastern University graduate in physics, for allegedly plotting to fly model planes packed with explosives into government buildings in Washington, DC, and elsewhere. As with previous sting operations, the actual plot, reliant on equipment provided by undercover FBI agents, was never going to take place. Unlike previous sting operations, the FBI got the target to outline the entire thing in writing. 

“It seems like the FBI intentionally trying to ensure the entrapment defense couldn’t be mounted,” says Karen Greenberg of the Fordham Center on National Security. 

According to the criminal complaint, Ferdaus handed the FBI agents a thumb drive with a plan described as “extremely detailed, well written, and annotated with numerous pictures.” Ferdaus doesn’t appear to have found anything suspicious about two supposed Al Qaeda operatives asking for what sounds, essentially, like a grant proposal.

As Trevor Aaronson reported in the September/October issue of Mother Jones, the FBI has relied increasingly on these kinds of sting operations as they try to shift focus from “professional” terrorists to “lone wolf” types who haven’t received any kind of formal training. The government has come under criticism from civil liberties advocates who say that the government is using agent provocateurs to manufacture terror plots involving people who might not otherwise have committed crimes.

Ferdaus’ plan, though detailed, wasn’t necessarily functional. He seems to have had trouble calculating how much explosive the planes could actually carry, and Talking Points Memo‘s Ryan J. Reilly spoke to an explosive expert who said that “the model planes would have to fly in though a window to do any real damage.”

That said, Ferdaus’ decision to write everything down may make arguing an entrapment defense even more difficult than usual. South Texas University law professor Dru Stevenson says that it’s not enough for defense attorneys to argue that Ferdaus couldn’t have executed the plot without FBI assets posing as accomplices—he has to show that he wouldn’t have done anything like this in the first place without the FBI’s encouragement.

“The jury will have trouble believing that someone who writes out the entire sinister plan is harboring doubts, dragging his feet, or hesitating,” Stevenson says. “The more premeditated the crime looks, the more willful it appears to be. There is no necessary connection—we know logically that people plan things they end up never doing…Nevertheless, I think the FBI knew that the jury would associate premeditation and planning with a predisposition to do the act.”

The criminal complaint also alleges that Ferdaus turned several mobile phones into detonators for improvised explosive devices, which the undercovers told him were used to kill American soldiers in Iraq. Ferdaus responded that this was “exactly what he wanted,” the kind of statement that will make it difficult for Ferdaus’ attorneys to argue that he wasn’t predisposed to committing this kind of act.

That said, there’s plenty of information that isn’t in the complaint that may turn out to be relevant—such as how Ferdaus came in contact with the FBI cooperating witness in the first place. The complaint states that Ferdaus started looking into “jihad” some time “beginning on or around” 2010, but the witness doesn’t make contact with him until January 2011, and the two undercover agents in March. That leaves unanswered the question of whether or not Ferdaus got serious about executing a plot only after coming into contact with FBI assets. Greenberg refers to that potential scenario as “ideological entrapment.”

“That’s when the government teaches someone the ‘proper’ way of doing jihad,” she explains, “rather than finding someone who is already seeking to commit a crime.”

*Origin of headline explained here.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate