dChan - Q Origins Project Archive

Manufacturing Terrorism: The Danger of Using Informants as Agents Provocateurs excerpted from the article The FBI currently has more than 15,000 informants, approximately three times as many as it had in the 1980’s. Many of the informants are used conventionally — i.e. to observe wrongdoing and draw the FBI’s attention to it. However, the FBI has been increasingly using informants as “agents provocateurs,” that is, the informants provide the means and opportunity for individuals to commit acts of terrorism, often going to great lengths to convince suspects to engage in terrorist acts.Why would someone want to become an informant? FBI informants in terrorism cases are usually either criminals trying to avoid jail time or immigrants facing deportation. They are motivated by money and a sense of self-preservation to achieve results. For successfully convincing a suspect to support or engage in a terrorist plot, informants receive as much as $230,000 and may avoid deportation or see their own criminal records cleared. This creates some incredibly perverse incentives — the conviction of defendants strongly weighs in the informants’ favor. A recent study conducted by the University of California-Berkeley found that approximately 10 percent of cases involving terrorism charges were stings conducted by agents provocateurs. Of course there’s the argument that these defendants would have radicalized anyway if the FBI hadn’t come along, but there’s nothing to support such a claim. Additionally, the evidence against defendants in sting operations is often very scant, and one former FBI agent has publicly stated that the FBI avoids obtaining video or audio surveillance of the stings because doing so would be inconvenient once the matter came to trial. Convictions are more likely when the FBI can rely solely on the informant’s testimony as evidence. https://cornellsun.com/2011/09/01/manufacturing-terrorism-the-danger-of-using-informants-as-agents-provocateurs/