http://www.ted.com/talks/trevor_aaronson_how_this_fbi_strategy_is_actually_creating_us_based_terrorists?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_campaign=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_content=button__2015-06-04#t-309233
Trevor Aaronson
Journalist
An investigative journalist who reports on the FBI’s misuse of informants in counterterrorism operations, Trevor Aaronson asks the question: Is the United States catching terrorists or creating them?
Why you should listen
Trevor Aaronson is the executive director of the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting and the author of The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism. In 2014 he reported and produced "Informants," a one-hour documentary for Al Jazeera Media Network about the FBI’s counterterrorism program. In 2015 he published "To Catch the Devil" with Foreign Policy and "The Sting: How the FBI Created a Terrorist" with The Intercept, both about his work on the FBI's counterterrorism methods.
Trevor Aaronson’s TED talk
Trevor Aaronson on the TED Blog
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Giant pouched rats, baby corals & the FBI: A recap of TEDFellows Session 2 at TED2015
In Session 2 of the TED Fellows talks, we learn about the FBI’s use of informants in counterterrorism operations, how giant pouched rats are helping to save lives, laser-delivered HIV drugs, how Silicon Valley companies are working to protect our privacy — and that’s not to mention the piano solo, percussive dance and opera! Sri Lankan […]
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Subtitles and Transcript
The FBI is responsible for more terrorism plots in the United States than any other organization. More than al Qaeda, more than al Shabaab, more than the Islamic State, more than all of them combined.
0:26This isn't likely how you think about the FBI. You probably think of FBI agents gunning down bad guys like John Dillinger, or arresting corrupt politicians.
0:36After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the FBI became less concerned with gangsters and crooked elected officials. The new target became terrorists, and the pursuit of terrorists has consumed the FBI.
0:47Every year, the Bureau spends 3.3 billion dollars on domestic counterterrorism activities. Compare than to just 2.6 billion dollars combined for organized crime, financial fraud, public corruption and all other types of traditional criminal activity.
1:01I've spent years pouring through the case files of terrorism prosecutions in the United States, and I've come to the conclusion that the FBI is much better at creating terrorists than it is at catching terrorists.
1:14In the 14 years since 9/11, you can count about six real terrorist attacks in the United States. These include the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013, as well as failed attacks, such as the time when a man named Faisal Shahzad tried to deliver a car bomb to Times Square. In those same 14 years, the Bureau, however, has bragged about how it's foiled dozens of terrorism plots. In all, the FBI has arrested more than 175 people in aggressive, undercover conterterrorism stings.
1:43These operations, which are usually led by an informant, provide the means and opportunity, and sometimes even the idea, for mentally ill and economically desperate people to become what we now term terrorists.
1:57After 9/11, the FBI was given an edict: never again. Never another attack on American soil. FBI agents were told to find terrorists before they struck. To do this, agents recruited a network of more than 15,000 informants nationwide, all looking for anyone who might be dangerous. An informant can earn 100,000 dollars or more for every terrorism case they bring to the FBI. That's right, the FBI is paying mostly criminals and con men six figures to spy on communities in the United States, but mostly Muslim American communities.
2:29These informants nab people like Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif and Walli Mujahidh. Both are mentally ill.Abdul-Latif had a history of huffing gasoline and attempting suicide. Mujahidh had schizoaffective disorder, he had trouble distinguishing between reality and fantasy. In 2012, the FBI arrested these two men for conspiring to attack a military recruiting station outside Seattle with weapons provided, of course, by the FBI. The FBI's informant was Robert Childs, a convicted rapist and child molesterwho was paid 90,000 dollars for his work on the case. This isn't an outlier.
3:04In 2009, an FBI informant who had fled Pakistan on murder charges led four men in a plot to bomb synagogues in the Bronx. The lead defendant was James Cromitie, a broke Walmart employee with a history of mental problems. And the informant had offered him 250,000 dollars if he participated in that plot. There are many more examples.
3:25Today, The Intercept published my new story about a counterterrorism sting in Tampa involving Sami Osmakac, a young man who was living near Tampa, Florida. Osmakac also had schizoaffective disorder. He too was broke, and he had no connections to international terrorist groups. Nonetheless,an FBI informant gave him a job, handed him money, introduced him to an undercover agent posing as a terrorist, and lured him in a plot to bomb an Irish bar.
3:51But here's what's interesting: The lead undercover agent -- you can see him in this picture with his face blurred -- would go back to the Tampa field office with his recording equipment on. Behind closed doors, FBI agents admitted that what they were doing was farcical. A federal judge doesn't want you to hear about these conversations. He sealed the transcripts and placed them under a protective order in an attempt to prevent someone like me from doing something like this. Behind closed doors, the lead agent, the squad supervisor, described their would-be terrorist as a "retarded fool who didn't have a pot to piss in." They described his terrorist ambitions as wishy-washy and a pipe dream scenario.
4:29But that didn't stop the FBI. They provided Sami Osmakac everything he needed. They gave him a car bomb, they gave him an AK-47, they helped him make a so-called martyrdom video, and they even gave him money for a taxi cab so that he could get to where they wanted him to go. As they were working the sting, the squad supervisor tells his agents he wanted a Hollywood ending. And he got a Hollywood ending. When Sami Osmakac attempted to deliver what he thought was a car bomb,he was arrested, convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison.
5:04Sami Osmakac isn't alone. He's one of more than 175 so-called terrorists, for whom the FBI has created Hollywood endings. U.S. government officials call this the War on Terror. It's really just theater, a national security theater, with mentally ill men like Sami Osmakac unwitting actors in a carefully choreographed production brought to you by the FBI.
5:29Thank you.
5:30(Applause)
5:40Tom Rielly: So, those are some pretty strong accusations, pretty strong charges. How can you back this up?
5:47Trevor Aaronson: My research began in 2010 when I received a grant from the Investigative Reporting Program at U.C. Berkeley, and a research assistant and I put together a database of all terrorism prosecutions at the time during the first decade after 9/11. And we used the court file to find out whether the defendants had any connections to international terrorist groups, whether an informant was used, and whether the informant played the role of an agent provocateur by providing the means and opportunity. And we submitted that to the FBI and we asked them to respond to our database. If they believed there were any errors, we asked them to tell us what they were and we'd go back and check and they never challenged any of our findings. Later, I used that data in a magazine article and later in my book, and on appearances on places like CBS and NPR, they were offered that opportunity again to say, "Trevor Aaronson's findings are wrong." And they've never come forward and said, "These are the problems with those findings." So the data has since been used by groups like Human Rights Watch on its recent report on these types of sting operations. And so far, the FBI has never really responded to these charges that it's really not catching terrorists so much as it's catching mentally ill people that it can dress up as terrorists in these types of sting operations.
6:56TR: So The Intercept is that new investigative journalism website, that's cofounded by Glenn Greenwald. Tell us about your article and why there.
7:05TA: The Intercept seemed to be the most logical place for this because my article is really leveraging the fact that a source had leaked to me transcripts of these private FBI conversations that a federal judge had sealed based on the government's claim that their release would irreparably damage the U.S. government's law enforcement strategy. So a place like The Intercept was set up to protect journalists and publish their work when they're dealing with very sensitive matters like this. So my story in The Intercept, which was just published today, tells the story of how Sami Osmakac was set up in this FBI sting and goes into much greater detail. In this talk, I could only highlight the things that they said, such as calling him a "retarded fool." But it was much more elaborate, they went to great lengths to put money in Sami Osmakac's hands, which he then used to purchase weapons from the undercover agent. When he went to trial, the central piece of evidence was that he paid for these weapons, when in truth, these transcripts show how the FBI orchestrated someone who was essentially mentally ill and broke to get money to then pay for weapons that they could then charge him in a conspiracy for.
8:05TR: One final question. Less than 10 days ago, the FBI arrested some potential ISIS suspects in Brooklyn, saying that they might be headed to Syria, and were those real, or examples of more of the same?
8:18TA: Well so far, we only know what's come out in the court file, but they seem to suggest it's another example of the same. These types of sting operations have moved from flavor to flavor. So initially it was al Qaeda plots, and now the Islamic State is the current flavor. What's worth noting about that case is that the three men that were charged only began the plot to go to Syria after the introduction of the FBI informant, and in fact, the FBI informant had helped them with the travel documents that they needed. In kind of a comical turn in that particular case, one of the defendant's mother had found out that he was interested in going to Syria and had hid his passport. So it's unclear that even if he had showed up at the airport, that he ever could have gone anywhere. So yes, there are people who might be interested in joining the Islamic State in the United States, and those are people that the United States government should be looking at to see if they're interested in violence here. In this particular case, given the evidence that's so far come out, it suggests the FBI made it possible for these guys to move along in a plan to go to Syria when they were never close to that in the first place.
9:17TR: Thanks a lot, that's amazing. TA: Thank you.
9:19(Applause)
Speaker's Footnotes
Relevant notes and citations provided to TED by Trevor Aaronson.
- 00:01“The FBI is responsible for more terrorism plots in the United States than any other organization.”This statement, while provocative, is quantifiably true. It is based on my analysis of terrorism prosecutions in the decade after 9/11 — which was funded by the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California, Berkeley. In that decade, the FBI nabbed 158 defendants in sting operations, in which, to varying degrees, an FBI agent or informant provided the means and/or opportunity for a terrorism plot.You can see a visualization of this data analysis, and you can also search the raw data. The FBI was provided with multiple opportunities to challenge the accuracy of this data — which the Bureau has never done — and most recently, Human Rights Watch incorporated this data into its Illusion of Justice report.
- 00:39“Every year, the Bureau spends $3.3 billion on domestic counterterrorism activities.”The FBI’s budget is available online. You can find the budget breakdown for the counterterrorism program on pages four through five.
- 00:56“I’ve come to the conclusion that the FBI is much better at creating terrorists than it is at catching terrorists.”For an example of how pursuing an elaborate sting operation may have distracted Boston FBI agents from paying attention to would-be Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, I recommend my 2013 story “How the FBI in Boston May Have Pursued the Wrong ‘Terrorist.'”
- 01:03“In the 14 years since 9/11, you can count about six real terrorist attacks in the United States. These include the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013, as well as failed attacks, such as the time a man named Faisal Shahzad tried to deliver a car bomb to Times Square.”This is based on my analysis of terrorism prosecutions in the decade after 9/11, and includes the Boston Marathon bombings as well as two attackers who were not tried in federal courts, Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan and Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, who attacked the El Al ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport.
- 01:19“In those same 14 years, the Bureau has bragged about how it’s foiled dozens of terrorism plots. In all, the FBI has arrested more than 175 people in aggressive undercover counterterrorism stings.”Here’s a complete list of the 158 defendants caught in counterterrorism stings in the decade after 9/11. Since September 11, 2011, more have been arrested following counterterrorism stings, putting the current number at more than 175.
- 01:46“After 9/11, the FBI was given an edict: never again. Never another attack on American soil. FBI agents were told to find terrorists before they strike. To do this, agents recruited a network of more than 15,000 informants nationwide — all looking for anyone who might be dangerous.”You can read in detail about the FBI’s transition to an intelligence and counterterrorism agency in myMother Jones article “The Informants” and in my book, The Terror Factory.
- 02:03“An informant can earn $100,000 or more for every terrorism case they bring to the FBI.”
- 02:18“These informants nab people like Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif and Walli Mujahidh.”I wrote about this case in the May/June 2015 issue of Foreign Policy.
- 02:55“In 2009, an FBI informant who had fled Pakistan on murder charges led four men in a plot to bomb synagogues in the Bronx.”The informant referenced here is Shahed Hussain. I first wrote about Hussain in Mother Jones in 2011. Hussain is also featured in two recent documentaries — The Newburgh Sting and (T)ERROR.
- 03:15“Today, The Intercept published my new story about a counterterrorism sting in Tampa involving Sami Osmakac.”The story referenced here is “The Sting: How the FBI Created a Terrorist."
- 03:51“Behind closed doors, FBI agents admitted that what they were doing was farcical. A federal judge doesn’t want you to hear about these conversations. He sealed the transcripts and placed them under a protective order in an attempt to prevent someone like me from doing something like this.”You can read the 403 pages of sealed transcripts that we've published online.
- 04:45“When Sami Osmakac attempted to deliver what he thought was a car bomb, he was arrested, convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison.”The local newspaper, The Tampa Bay Times, covered Osmakac’s sentencing in November 2014.
- 05:42“A research assistant and I put together a database of all terrorism prosecutions at the time during the first decade after 9/11.”The research assistant was Lauren Ellis, and the database, also referenced earlier in the footnotes, isavailable online.
- 08:15“These types of sting operations have moved from flavor to flavor. So initially it was al Qaeda plots, and now the Islamic State is the current flavor.”
- 08:24“The three men that were charged only began to plot to go to Syria after the introduction of the informant, and in fact the FBI informant had helped them with the travel documents.”Murtaza Hussain of The Intercept wrote about the key role the informant played in the plot. The criminal complaint, which details the informant’s actions, can be read online.
- 08:32“In a comical turn in that case, one of the defendant’s mothers had found out he was interested in going to Syria and hid his passport.”On page 10 of the criminal complaint, the government disclosed that Akhror Saidakhmetov’s mother had hidden his passport.