"Han" wrote
stuff snipped
Are they?? Or are they spouting off nonsense after a few too many?
Unfortunately, there's a rich, well-documented history of LE agencies and
particularly their confidential informants (CI's) creating crimes where
none would have existed. That's to be expected when LE agencies pay
informants in money and reduced sentences for the information they provide.
When the CI's run out of legitimate information to sell, they very often
invent what's needed to maintain their income.
The practice of trading information for guilt is so pervasive that it has
literally become a thriving business. For example, Ann Colomb and her three
sons were wrongfully convicted in 2006 of running a crack cocaine ring in
Louisiana. They were convicted based on the fabricated testimony of dozens
of jailhouse informants-participants in a for-profit snitch ring operating
in the local federal prison. As part of that ring, prisoners were buying and
selling information about pending cases to offer to prosecutors in order to
reduce their own sentences.
https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/(S(3...ookieSupport=1
Atlanta police sought a no-knock warrant for the home of Mrs. Kathryn
Johnston. In order to get the warrant, the officers invented an imaginary
snitch, telling the magistrate judge that a non-existent "reliable
confidential informant" had bought crack at Mrs. Johnston's home. While
executing the warrant on November 21, 2006, police shot and killed the
92-year-old grandmother.
The use of informants that manufacture information to get a payday is
becoming more and more of a problem in the US.
the Secret Service discovered that one of their top former informants,
Albert Gonzalez, was running one of the largest credit card data theft rings
in the country. Gonzalez had used his connections with the government to
promote his illegal activities and also to tip off other hackers on how to
avoid detection
There are other, serious problems:
Information obtained from informants is infamously unreliable. A 2004
study by Northwestern University Law School examined all the wrongful
capital convictions discovered to date. The study concluded that over 45
percent of those innocence cases were due to the testimony of a lying
informant, making "snitches the leading cause of wrongful convictions in
U.S. capital cases."
If they are indeed real bona fide terrorists then let's go get them. But
if
they are teenagers spouting nonsense, keep an eye on them and make sure
they aren't getting in deeper.
When law enforcement offers serious sentence reductions and cold hard cash
for information, it's pretty easy to see why snitches would start making
stuff up or worse, still, actively encourage people to commit crimes so they
could profit from selling that information. What more proof is needed that
government agents often facilitate criminal activity than the now infamous
"Fast and Furious" ATF operation that put guns in the hands of criminals
that eventually led to the death of a Border Patrol agent? This stuff
happens all the time.
Providing them with (fake) bomb material
and encouraging them to go ahead is on the wrong side of the line for me.
I've got mixed feelings about this because I recall a case where informants
decided to just use gasoline to burn down a synagogue instead of dealing
with fake explosives the government provided. Where there's even a slight
possibility of someone being able to commit a terrorist act that could kill
or injure people, I think it's better to err on the safe side. Although
like you, I feel it's morally dubious, I feel as I do just because these
situations are often not in the complete control of the agents/informants
working the case.
However, I feel strongly that the new enemy combatant laws and all this BS
about removing cases from the court system to military tribunals is pretty
much antithetical to how and why the country was created. We are beginning
to replicate the Star Chamber and other legal abuses that led our
forefathers to leave England in the first place.
When the panic over 9/11 finally subsides, I expect that there will be a
number of cases bound for the Supreme Court that may invalidate some of this
dubious legislation that gives the President unchecked authority against US
citizens. That's very obviously not in keeping with the intricate series of
checks and balances written into the Constitution. I find it quite amusing
that some people are SO paranoid about terrorism and so overblow terrorists'
ability to do serious harm to the US that they'll even agree to *OBAMA*
having these incredible extra-Constitutional powers. Now *that's* hatred!
Or lunacy.
Irrelevant, insipid, SOS rant about "lib loons" snipped
I'm not going by what Homeguy said, but what else I glean from here and
there. Why should I think your truth is the only truth?
There are some people who believe they're 100% right, all of the time. I
think Bush was of that persuasion as I've never heard him admit to any
serious failing, and that's just not humanly possible. We all have weak
spots and we've all made bad decisions. The people that refuse to admit
that they could be wrong or that there are any gray areas are basically
holding up a billboard that says: "We Perfekt People" and their truths
should be evaluated in that light. (-:
I hope that law goes away, because I am just not sure the interpretation
isn't going to be what I fear.
The US goes through these cycles every few decades it seems, whether it's
the Palmer Raids and the Red Scare of the early 20's
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Raids
or the McCarthy witch hunts of the 50's or the terrorist scares of the last
two decades. The reaction is first to curtail civil liberties, then to
demonize a segment of the population as the root of all current evil.
Finally the pendulum swings and people start remembering why the Founding
Fathers put so many clauses in the Constitution to specifically deal with
government overreach and the Supreme Court starts invalidating laws that
don't pass muster. This "pulling the wagons in a circle" and finding some
group of people guilty of all the sins of society goes back at least as far
as ancient Egypt. It's just how people are. )-:
--
Bobby G.