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I don't hate that idiots get taken out of circulation. I hate that these are used to build a narrative that there is some greater problem, and the resources waisted.
Nobody knows for sure what’s actually going on in the interior of these institutions. I sometimes wonder how disconnected reports are from the actual facts on the ground of this supposed ‘lead’ they have on the workings of the FBI.
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Calculating how resources are wasted is difficult when the efficacy of how their work is measured is defined by how many terrorist attacks ‘don’t’ happen. It’s a lot like working in the SOC in infosec. There’s no scoreboard for security and so it’s something you don’t see. People think you just sit around all day and do nothing and ironically on the rare occasion where that happens, those get counted among the most productive days you’ll experience. When you’re hard at work that’s often a bad sign.
It’s been known in sports analytics for years now that NBA teams often have a very hard time calculating individual players defensive impact on the court. Daryl Morey (one of the most intelligent GM’s in the game who came out of MIT) was once asked whether there were any publicly reliable statistical techniques for determining one’s defensive impact and he replied “no.” It’s all done privately, behind closed doors with big money behind it trying to advance the state of knowledge on it because of how difficult it is. How many points would the other team have scored if Draymond wasn't on the court? Defense is something you don’t see.
As it relates to IT though, it’s part of the reason why when there’s a downturn in the economy or the Fed hikes interest rates and corporate balance sheets begin to suffer and businesses have to start saving, when employees get laid off one of the first groups of people the exec’s begin eyeing is your IT and infosec staff because they don’t understand the economic value you bring. You’re a cost center and a liability. They don’t understand the digital landscape of the field they’re operating in. Corporations no longer have to be individual targets. Threat actors can just spray exploits at everything en masse and those lacking staffed expertise in that department suffer enormous economic losses before they realize why they had you in the first place. They’ll payout a $20m ransom bribe to an Eastern European criminal outfit and get rid of the guy that tells them the truth for $78k a year. It’s incredibly stupid. It’s why tech isn’t a “recession proof” job unless you want to get out of the front lines and go into GRC and compliance. Corporations can’t afford to get rid of you in tech if you’re someone whose presence is legally required to report the status of the business to the government on a regular basis.
I had a debate with my father several years ago around this phenomenon. I tried presenting a plausible account of a conspiracy that police don’t have a real incentive to stop crimes because if they did, wouldn’t that take away their whole reason for existing? It’s been known to have a real effect in some countries. Several years later I realized that there was an informal term to describe exactly what I was I was trying to articulate. I still regard it as a valid concept. I just don’t know on what level it’s true.
I agree with this but also simultaneously internet chat rooms would be a pretty easy way of running up the score on blowhards who'd never actually do anything
Running up the score here meaning…?
Declare you've foiled serious plots since you've got it written down on paper but the vast majority would likely never have any real chance of moving off the secret Al Qaeda fan club discord
Well yeah, I’m sure there’s certainly that too. But at the same time at what point can you honestly declare an event to have never likely happened without some effort made to thwart it? At the very least you’re involved in the surveillance of the activity. The other way is to withdraw from the affair entirely and just hope nothing ever comes of it. Not a way I’d want to govern society however.
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I've long wondered how many people the FBI radicalizes in an effort to entrap... but then they fall between the cracks. Maybe they start getting their own ideas instead of listening to their FBI handler. Maybe someone retires and their casework gets lost in the shuffle. Maybe the target just can't follow instructions correctly and accidentally commits a terrorist attack at the wrong location so the FBI fails to scoop them up. All sorts of things can go wrong. The FBI is obviously playing with fire, trying to create terrorist so they can then arrest them. If it ever went wrong, they'd probably be the most darkly held secrets the FBI keeps.
It has definitely happened before. Egging on terrorists and then they actually try to mass kill people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Culwell_Center_attack
Actually had a single FBI agent following them as they attempted a mass shooting. Only stopped because of a shootout with off duty law enforcement acting as armed security. If it weren't for armed security they would have slaughtered attendees and I don't suppose a single FBI agent would stop two guys with rifles.
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One of the key figures behind O9A, 764, Atomwaffen, and other offshoots is a FBI informant who runs an extremist literature publishing company. You have to wonder how many people he radicalized over the years, and what percentage of them the FBI managed to apprehend before they committed a serious crime.
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/the-satanist-neo-nazi-plot-to-murder-u-s-soldiers-1352629/
https://www.wired.com/story/the-dangerous-exploits-of-an-extremist-fbi-informant/
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‘Suspect was known to the fbi’ describes just about every school shooter.
Hindsight is always 20/20. But even still, a conflux of suspicious behavior isn’t grounds for arresting someone.
A young, bullied and disenfranchised boy who acquires a gun and writes hateful things online often commonly precedes an actual shooting that takes place. But a young man who gets a gun and writes hateful things online but has no desire to shoot a school up can only be watched and monitored. You can’t convict someone on odd or abnormal behavior.
Also just somehow entering a watchlist through automatic keyword flagging doesn't mean anybody is actively monitoring anything.
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It was ATF, not the FBI, but the attempts to entrap Randy Weaver demonstrably were part of the radicalization of McVeigh, although Waco was probably a larger factor and as far as I'm aware wasn't "entrapment" per se.
I think that's strong evidence that the body count is probably positive, but it's always hard to consider counterfactuals --- maybe some would have radicalized anyway.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=266YzszdYUQ
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Not entrapment, no, but very clearly corrupt. There is overwhelming evidence that the investigation was being run as a PR operation, and this focus on generating press rather than law enforcement is the direct cause of the subsequent disaster. Not least because there is strong evidence that the crimes the Davidians were initially being investigated for were entirely fabricated by the ATF.
Waco is one of the worst law-enforcement scandals in American history. Federal Agents and their agencies very clearly committed numerous felonies in an attempt to curry favor with the incoming Clinton administration, and then to cover their asses when it all went horribly, horribly wrong right in front of the TV cameras.
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I mean, why assume it'd be an accident if it happens? I kind of take it for granted that many terrorist attacks are successful ops by the FBI et al, parts of some grand chess game they're playing that involves killing lots of innocent American civilians.
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Remember how the Buffalo shooter was in a groupchat with a "retired" FBI agent and then there were never any followup stories? Weird how that happens.
Or how there was an undercover FBI agent in the second car of terrorists who traveled to the "First Annual Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest" and he didn't warn anyone of what was happening? Weird again.
I think the FBI denies this one, but there's the 1993 World Trade Center bombing
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You beat me to it.
The FBI is and always has been a fundamentally corrupt organization.
And that's just the FBI, without having to get into the ATF and their shady behavior. Although the "Draw Muhammad" shooting had a crossover element: one of the shooters bought his handgun at Lone Wolf in Phoenix, Arizona, which is the same store the ATF was using as its Project Gunwalker (Fast and Furious) operation center. Quite the coincidence.
My favorite on the ATF's greatest hits:
Defrauding a tobacco co-op out of millions to create an unaccountable slush fund: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/08/us/atf-tobacco-cigarettes.html
Using a literal retard (IQ in the 50's) as a pawn in a sting operation and then pressing charges against him after: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2013/04/07/ATF-sting-nets-mentally-handicapped-man/58531365366967/
Is that the same one where a woman ATF agent pretended to be a GF to a retarded kid to get him in trouble?
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In fairness to the ATF, imagining the mentally disabled man cheerfully helping his new friends buy guns and drugs for their fake store is funny. And the prosecutors ended up only seeking probation. A guy with an IQ in the 50s might not even notice he's on it.
He'll probably be sad when his friend the probation officer stops calling and asking him what he's been up to.
See Kevin McAleer and the British Army 😁
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