Making An Espionage Impression

 

"It is fairly commonplace for individuals of his age to have access to classified information,"

"Often people at his level are supporting senior leaders, and he might have a 'need to know' if he was prepping senior leaders or putting together briefing books," 

"It does raise questions about how we are training individuals on how to handle classified information. It's exposing gaps in the system that will be looked at … but there's also a level of trust that you place in these individuals, that they are there for the right reasons."

Alexandria Seymour, associate fellow, Technology and National Security Program, Center for a New American Security think tank

"It's part of this drive to get as much information as possible for analysts to use."

"And that drive means that you are potentially opening up access to information that could be leaked."

"To have greater restrictions on information means more of a move towards a traditional type of strict need-to-know principles."

Dan Lomas, senior lecturer in intelligence and security studies, Brunel University

Suspected classified document leaker and U.S National Guardsman, Jack Teixeira, is taken into custody by FBI agents in North Dighton, Mass., April 13, 2023.  WCVB

"[I commend] the rapid action taken by law enforcement to investigate and respond to the recent dissemination of classified U.S. government documents."

"While we are still determining the validity of those documents, I have directed our military and intelligence community to take steps to further secure and limit distribution of sensitive information, and our national security team is closely coordinating with our partners and allies." 

U.S. President Joe Biden

This is the fourth time in recent decades that American high-security secret files have been accessed by trusted personnel with security credentials to have accessed files and documents not to be seen outside the confines of American intelligence, but which have been released to the scrutiny of the public at large at home and internationally. In most of these revelatory leaks those releasing secret files did so as a matter of personal principle in the belief that the public should be aware of what was happening behind the scenes. In this latest case, the release appears to have been effected by an emotionally immature man who sought attention and admiration from his peers.

The suspect in this latest release of secret American intelligence files, 21-year-old Jack Teixeira, comes from a military family, himself a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guards, now accused of having released to the public highly classified military documents. He was arrested and a day later appeared before a court to face charges under the Espionage Act, of having, though unauthorized, removed and retained classified and national defence information. Seemingly motivated by the irresistible urge to prove he had access to such documents.

The thoughtless act of a narcissist. Someone who wanted to be the centre of attention. And now he is up front and centre of attention. Perhaps not quite in the way he would have wished to be. He appeared to have begun his posting of document images, annoyed that other users of the clandestine social gamers' group he was part of failed to take his actions seriously in that they did not recognize the enormity of his transgression of the trust placed in him by his upgraded security assessment that enabled him access to the highly sensitive documents.

He had initially taken to typing out the documents he would post, but ended up with the feeling they weren't having the deeply admiring impression he meant them to. Which was when he reverted to photographing the documents themselves and posting those. And this went on for months; highly sensitive, secret military documents available for anyone to scrutinize in the international community. The Pentagon unaware of the situation until an investigation was undertaken and published by The New York Times.

 

Which sparked a weeklong criminal investigation into the public disclosure of government records, a breach exposing sensitive information on many issues, most notably, the war in Ukraine to the world at large. A capricious emotional pique upturning the nation's security and the trust of its international security partners. U.S. Magistrate Judge David Hennesy ordered Teixeira  to be held until a following hearing, when he appeared in court Friday for a brief proceeding. He is innocent until proven guilty, and is as yet only a 'suspect', but his future does not look bright.

A Defence Department official advised that as an information technology specialist responsible for military communications networks, the Guardsman now in prison would have held a high level of security clearance. The Pentagon is set to conduct a review of its "intelligence access, accountability and control procedures" with a view to preventing a similar such leak from re-occurring. It is believed by investigators that Teixeira led a private online chat group on the Discord channel platform. 

This is a social media platform people who play online games tend to gravitate to. The FBI took possession of billing records from Discord which helped investigators to identify Teixeira as a suspect. An FBI affidavit disclosed that an indioidual familiar with Teixerra's online posts informed investigators of a username linked to Teixeira posting classified information beginning in December. Teixera took home with him documents to photograph and post once he "had become concerned that he may be discovered making the transcriptions of text in the workplace".

His actions remained undetected until April 6, when the Pentagon was alerted by the first published story of the documents breach. In their investigation it was discovered that Teixeira had searched online for the word "leak" in an effort to find what his leaked documents were leading to. Which gave the FBI another clue regarding his involvement. The group of gamers linked to Teixeira held certain issues in common regard: gaming enthusiasts, devout Christians, gun-lovers, racism and antisemitism.

Jack Douglas Teixeira, a U.S. Air Force National Guard airman accused of leaking highly classified military intelligence records online, makes his initial appearance before a federal judge in Boston, on April 14, 2023, in a courtroom sketch.

Margaret Small/Reuters

ANoM Encrypted Telephone Devices ... Bugged

"Essentially, we have been in the back pockets of organized crime and operationalized a criminal takedown like we have never seen."

"The use of encrypted communication apps presents significant challenges to law enforcement and ANoM has given law enforcement a window into the level of criminality that we have never seen before on this scale." 

AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw (Australian Federal Police)

Handout images from the Australian Federal Police show arrests and seizures made under Operation Ironside.

"This was an unprecedented operation in terms of its massive scale, innovative strategy and technological and investigative achievement."

"Hardened encrypted devices usually provide an impenetrable shield against law enforcement surveillance and detection."

"The supreme irony here is that the very devices that these criminals were using to hide from law enforcement were actually beacons for law enforcement."

Randy Grossman, acting U.S. Attorney, Southern District of California

 

Police in the United States, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Canada, Germany and Sweden all spoke publicly with huge satisfaction of their involvement in a global operational sting against worldwide drug operatives, a three-year enterprise that finally concluded with the arrest of about a thousand people globally, the collection of tons of drugs, a huge cache of guns, tens of millions in cash and assets, and just incidentally averting many planned (intercepted) murders.

 

Australia and New Zealand police began the rounds of arrests and seizures with resulting announcements making public the revelation of a complex sting operation that took three years as it rolled across Europe and the United States. It began with an odd collaboration between police and a veteran in the use of secure devices for criminal purposes. The man, serving time for criminal activity, was involved in Phantom Secure, a provider of "secure communications to high-level drug traffickers and other criminal organization leaders", according to the FBI.

 

Among the items seized was memorabilia from The Godfather

It was the sale of hardened encrypted devices by Phantom Secure that brought police into action; devices that began life as modified cellphones to maximize privacy and security enabling connection with other criminals with the use of a similar encrypted messaging device. It isn't that these devices were meant for exclusive use by criminals, but while they have their uses in legitimate enterprises, among the successful criminal class the premium cost of the devices was clearly affordable. 

 

When Phantom Secure was closed down by the FBI, its services seized, its CEO put on trial and imprisoned, those whom it had served looked elsewhere to procure the devices so useful to their security. A "next generation" of encrypted devices for underworld secrecy was discovered, called ANoM. And it happened that the previous distributor of Phantom Secure had invested heavily in the creation of ANoM, and he offered the device to the FBI in hopes of reducing his prison time.

Encryption geniuses at work for the Australian Federal Police investigators who had cracked Phantom's encryption inserted master keys to unlock the secret codes, built into the ANoM system. That computer code allowed investigators to gather, track, decrypt and store messages which were copied to police. Once the platform was up and running, the cooperating source convinced his clients to sign up for the program. The devices were offered to three former Phantom Secure distributors to sell, and they were off to the races.

According to a U.S. indictment, all those associated with the sale of the encrypted devices were linked to transnational crime groups who, oblivious of the police links, convinced clients with established reputations and criminal ties including outlaw bikers, Italian Mafia and drug lords, to make use of the devices; as police now say, ANoM's marketing pitch had been "designed by criminals for criminals". Early adopters became 'influencers', their involvement convincing others of the system's trustworthiness.

 

According to court documents, these were "well-known crime figures who wield significant influence". ANoM's price tag in Canada was about $1,700 for six months of service. While the FBI kept sending out devices, Australian police got on with monitoring them. Suzanne Turner, Special Agent in charge of the San Diego Field office of the FBI revealed about 12,000 ANoM devices were in circulation, busy sending 27 million messages through 100 countries in 45 languages. That's a reach far and wide.

Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Australia and Serbia were the top five countries where the devices were utilized. This past Monday and Tuesday, policing authorities made their move against a list of targets in 15 countries where about 800 arrests were being processed, included among them six law enforcement officials who had been caught working with the underworld. "This operation demonstrates that law enforcement will not stop in our pursuit of criminal activity related to encrypted criminal communications", stated the RCMP. 

A growing stable of criminal clientele had for years believed that ANoM phones were secure. Police officials were stunned at the trust evinced by criminals in the notion of the secure phones. To the extent that they neglected coded language used typically for explicit detail. An enormous database and allied information that was collected during the probe remains under investigation. "Countless spinoff operations will be carried out in the weeks to come", announced Europol, the police agency of the European Union.

The damage in Australia was particularly heavy, suspects arrested linked to "Australian-based Italian mafia, outlaw motorcycle gangs, Asian crime syndicates and Albanian organized crime". 17 people were indicted in the United States listed as distributors, administrators and underworld influencers for ANoM. Citizens of eight countries, six Australian, four Dutch.

Sleepwalking Intelligence Alerts : Dereliction of Duty

"None of the intelligence we received predicted what actually occurred."

"We properly planned for a mass demonstration with possible violence. What we got was a military-style coordinated assault on my officers and a violent takeover of the Capitol Building."

"I actually just in the last 24 hours was informed by the department that we actually had received that report."

"[Intelligence reports compiled from information from the Capitol Police, the FBI, the Secret Service, the Department of Homeland Security and Washington Metropolitan Police showed that] the level of probability of acts of civil disobedience/arrests [on Jan. 6 ranged from] remote [to] improbable."

"In addition, the daily intelligence report indicated that 'the secretary of homeland security has not issued an elevated or imminent alert at this time'."

"Without the intelligence to properly prepare, the USCP was significantly outnumbered and left to defend the Capitol against an extremely violent mob."

"I notified the two sergeant-at-arms by 1:09 p.m. that I urgently needed support and asked them to declare a state of emergency and authorize the National Guard. I was advised by Mr. Irving that he needed to run it up the chain of command. I continued to follow up with Mr. Irving, who was with Mr. Stenger at the time, and he advised that he was waiting to hear back from congressional leadership but expected authorization at any moment."

Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund

 

"That's very concerning whether or not [there are] procedures for the head of the intelligence on the U.S. Capitol Police to get the intelligence report, to review it, especially when there were significant other indications of potential violence."

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.)  

"What the FBI sent, ma'am, on Jan. 5 was in the form of an email."

"[I would think a warning] that something as violent as an insurrection at the Capitol would warrant a phone call or something."

Robert Contee, acting chief, Washington police

"We did discuss whether the intelligence warranted having troops at the Capitol."

"The collective judgement at that time was no -- the intelligence did not warrant that."

Paul Irving, former sergeant-at-arms, House of Representatives and Senate

 

The United States was and is in a turmoil of political, ideological fundamental social disequilibrium. There was so much grumbling, anger, threats, obvious polarization within the population, divisions between rural and urban Americans on the politics they chose under their system of democratic Republicanism, an overall level of alert awareness should have been front and centre in all plans for the January 6 Congressional certification of the election win of Joe Biden for the U.S. presidency.

 

Ever since the October election and the hugely disputed results, the undercurrent of voter fury, the continued incitement to reject the win as unlawful, conceived in a series of corrupt processes, the din on social media of ardent Trump supporters who vowed they would never accept a Democratic win over the incumbent Republican, mirrored in part the reaction of the Democratic furious over the 2015 ascendancy of a Republican candidate to the U.S. presidency. The non-stop efforts to decertify President Trump's win saw its reflection in the more recent obverse. 

The difference, of course, was that while the Democrats used all defamatory means within the law to express their anger and disappointment, the Republicans saw fit to go outside the law to express theirs. They were in actual fact, doing the bidding of the man they were loyal to, who obliquely instructed them in how to proceed, and they obliged. That violent thugs also took part in the effort at an uprising in the seat of American governance should have been predictable.

 

 

And while President Trump saw fit to urge his followers to violently invade Congress, his vice-president was aghast and refused his president's order to oppose Congressional validation of the Biden win, becoming an instant traitor to the cause, and a target for violent abuse. Lawmakers on both sides of the House failed to cover themselves with glory; all too many among them instead behaved like rioters themselves, stopping short of emulating the intruders, paralyzed with fear. All, however, stoked the fires of national fury that resulted in the rampaging mob desecrating Congress.

The FBI had issued a warning notice of the potential for a protest by supporters of Donald Trump  which had the capacity to become violent. The recipient of the notice was the U.S. Capitol Police which gave them ample time to take necessary proactive steps before the assault occurred. Unfortunately top officials in charge of Congress security happened not to have noticed the heads-up. 

 

We've seen this before. When there was a lack of communication and therefore warning, between the CIA and the FBI prior to the 9-11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

 

 

Two Senate panels studying the failures linked to the January attack on the Capitol building heard testimony that gives no credit to those tasked with the security of the building and protection of its inmates, in particular at a crucial time in the turnover of administrations. They were quite simply unprepared for hundreds of Trump loyalists in tactical gear storming the building. 

 

Conflicting accounts of discussions prior to the assault lingered on whether the National Guard be called in for support and whether to do so would slur the reputation of an open Capitol in injured pride as a free and open democracy, for the American public.

Yet the FBI's Norfolk Virginia office sent out a warning notice the day before giving ample warning that extremists were preparing a violent offence the day to follow, in an effort to stave off the departure of President Trump as Joe Biden prepared to ascend to the presidency and accompanying occupation of the White House. 

Shay Horse/AP

Is That All There Is?

"The act didn't take place. We disrupted the act."
"The individual identified expressed capacity and capability and intent but to specific ideology, I can't comment on that. It was a confirmed attack plan. There is motive, but I am not prepared to comment on that right now."
"From the initial information, it was a substantiated and credible attack plot, however, there was no indication where the attack was to take place, there was no specific targeting or time associated with it."
"The decision to arrest was not one because we had met any kind of threat to public safety. At no time was there a threat to public safety. A decision to arrest was made strictly on the collection of evidence and accumulating a substantial amount of evidence that allowed us to charge."
"I can't speak to the specifics of their communication or the relationship between the two [arrested]. They do travel in company, one with the other. They have an informal relationship, a friendship."
"They have been part of the investigation throughout the course of its duration and both were arrested simultaneously under the same reasonable and probable grounds."
RCMP Supt. Peter Lambertucci

A minor, who can't be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, appeared in a Kingston courtroom Friday to face two charges related to an anti-terrorism investigation. (Laurie Foster-MacLeod sketch)

"I know my son, he didn't think about that [terrorism]."
"He like Canada. He like the safety in Canada. How could he think about that?"
"It's fake news about my son. I trust my son. I know he cannot do anything against any human."
Amin Alzahabi, father of Hussam Eddin Alzahabi, 20

Comprised of father, mother, two sons and a daughter, the Alzahabi family, originally from Syria, arrived in Canada as refugees in 2017. They were co-sponsored by four churches in Kingston, Ontario. The Alzahabi's 20-year-old son was arrested at the same time as a juvenile, also a refugee from Syria had been arrested, but cannot be named under Canadian law because he is underage. The 20-year-old was released shortly following his arrest, while the juvenile remains in custody.

It was the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation that had alerted Canada's Royal Canadian Mounted Police to a terrorist plot in the making. Which moved Canadian police to undertake an investigation. That investigation included, of all things, night-time propeller airplane surveillance. The plane could be heard flying night after night, for hours in the area of Kingston where these two Syrian refugee families live, and residents were perplexed about why a plane would be in the air at night, arousing people from their sleep.

If that seems clumsy as an investigative technique, it was. And that growing mystery of a continuous plane sounding at night over sleeping houses began to appear on the Internet and in the print news media, bringing unwelcome attention to events that investigative authorities clearly would have preferred to remain under cover. And which, in the final analysis spurred them to act given the concern that this growing public awareness would disrupt the investigation and end in suspects being alerted and conceivably hiding evidence and making themselves scarce.

Finally, the mystery was solved when the RCMP and Kingston police went public. And though in doing so the country heard that another terrorist threat had been apprehended, the truly vital facts that might explain much more are all absent: motive, ideology of those concerned, what manner of fissionable material was found, how much of the explosives were seized, the identity of the youth, who was to have carried out the bombing, and were there any other suspects involved, much less what drew the attention of the FBI to the plot to begin with?

Police officers carry evidence from one of the homes in Kingston, Ont., that were raided. Two people were arrested and a minor has been charged with a terror-related offence. (Lars Hagberg/Canadian Press)

"He's exercising his legal rights and he cares about Canada's safety as much as the next person."
"He's here studying, he's doing everything that he can to be a contributing member to society and there is no reason to malign him or treat him differently than anybody else."
Hussam's lawyer, Mohamed El Rashidy


"What we know about terrorism in Canada is that individuals rarely act alone. They generally have people who they're getting materials or financial support from or encouragement." 

"[In order to lay the terrorism charge, officials would have had to have had a clear ideological link, so police are likely remaining silent because it relates to an ongoing investigation.] The individual would have had to been motivated by political, religious ideological considerations so they know what that is."
"Whatever the motive is could tip off other individuals."
Former CSIS senior strategic analyst Jessica Davis 

The youth (under age 18 has been charged with terrorism offences. His friend, arrested, then released was snot charged. "Precursor elements" of a bomb, an explosive substance and bomb parts were seized from the home of the adolescent. This ongoing investigation began in December when the FBI first alerted the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team of the RCMP that a bomb plot in Canada was underway.

The charge against the younger of the two suspects was: knowingly facilitating a terrorist activity and counselling someone to set off an explosive at a place of public use with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury. We also know however, that this is all false, concocted by the FBI and the RCMP -- because we would betray ourselves by expressing racism and Islamophobia were we to contradict a Syrian refugee who has labelled all of this "fake news".

In any event, everything's fine, folks. The 'act' didn't take place. But somehow Canada appears to have acquired a presence of maleficent intent lurking among those for whom humanitarian instincts mandated that generosity and a helping hand be extended to refugees from the world of Islam where a ruler saw fit to massacre his own. From cradle to grave. Whose grave remains the question.

Undercover Agent

"The look in Chiheb's eyes when he talked about killing infidels was something I'd never seen before in my life. It was a look of hatred and death."
"That isn't someone who isn't aware of what's happening, who's 'out there'. That's someone who's calculating to commit mass murder."
"You will never, ever hear me being the driving force behind any plot. I have been a sounding board and a comrade-in-arms, nothing more."
"There's 1.7 billion Muslims on the planet, and the only ones who seem to have a voice is al-Qaeda and ISIS."
"I believe in a strong vetting process. But ... I just don't know that we should be hiding from them [Islamists]."
"I think violence in the drug game is much more prevalent, and is much more likely to happen on a moment's notice, with no warning."
FBI agent Tamer Elnoury

The FBI have ensured Tamer El-Noury's true identity remains secret (file pic)

This is the voice of the man who was dispatched with a mission to gain the trust of a suspected Islamist and two of his jihadi colleagues, all three of whom had decided to make common cause with leading terrorist groups focusing on causing death and destruction both in the United States and Canada through plots they were assembling in the hopes of achieving success, reflected in the extent of the harm they might be able to manipulate through the careful planning of catastrophic incidents.

The FBI had alerted the Canadian RCMP national police force to the presence in Canada of a Tunisian-born man on a student visa to a Montreal university. Chiheb Esseghaier had made contact with Raed Jaser of Toronto for the two to work together on a destructive plot to kill as many people as possible, reflecting the malevolent violence they were determined to inflict on Western society. In an effort to get as close to the plotters as possible, Egyptian-born American FBI agent was tasked with gaining their confidence.

He proved to be successful through initiating a 'chance encounter', and in the due course of time as he portrayed himself as a wealthy Muslim prepared to finance terrorist operations in the West, he became a trusted confidante, recording conversations with the two and with a third jihadi, in the United States. Their discussions revolved around causing a Via passenger train from New York to Toronto to derail, with a massive loss of life.

Other plots involved a sniper killing Jews in Toronto, while Esseghaier flirted with the possibility of bombing Times Square in New York.

In the end, with the skilled confidence-building of the FBI agent working with the RCMP, the pair was arrested in Canada and charged with terrorism offences. Raed Jaser, a petty crook, claimed innocence of plotting to terrorism, he was only a drug addict hoping to pay for his habit through the generosity of the 'wealthy co-conspirator', which the FBI officer, Mr. Elnoury portrayed himself to be. During the ensuing trial, Esseghaier, recognized as the leader, left doubt that he was completely sane given his eccentric behaviour in court.

FBI agent Tamer Elnoury [an assumed 'cover' name], decided he would write a book, explaining in detail the circumstances and issues that made up his part of the investigation. Above all, he set out to dispute and put to rest the insistence by some that Esseghaier was not in possession of his full mental faculties so he wrote "American Radical" focusing for the most part on the Via case for which Esseghaier and Jaser were found guilty and sentenced to life in prison for conspiring to commit murder.

60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley and FBI-undercover operative "Tamer Elnoury" at the 9/11 Memorial, formerly known as ground zero    CBS News

Agent Elnoury, while through his persona as a fellow agent for terrorism, helped to rout out the presence of terrorists intent on slaughtering innocent people, was also concerned that their actions and intentions were giving Islam a bad name. As a devout Muslim he hoped that by writing his book he would help lead the public to regard these jihadis' actions as aberrant, unreflective of true Islam. What he overlooks in his zeal to redeem Islam is that it is not only al-Qaeda and ISIS, as he insists, that actively engage in violent jihad against the West.

There are numerous other, regional and far-flung groups in the Middle East, Asia and North Africa also engaged in mass slaughter in the name of Islam, not to mention the wide net thrown throughout the world by the Muslim Brotherhood; by groups nourished by Wahhabi Islam in Saudi Arabia, exporting their brand through the funding of madrassas in Africa, Europe and North America, and the Iranian-trained Shiite terrorist groups, all of which like the Taliban, Boko Haram, Hezbollah and Al Shabaab, wreak havoc throughout the world.

If they are not busily engaged in performing the work of the faithful extolled in the Koran and the Hadiths to engage in jihad, what is it that their odious jihad represents other than Islam?

Violating the U.S. Constitution

"This is a very serious Fourth Amendment issue. [The Obama administration use of the National Security Agency for surveillance and its failure to admit it demonstrated] an institutional 'lack of candor'."
"The full scope of non-compliant querying practices had not been previously disclosed to the Court."
"According to media reports, during the last year of the prior administration, law enforcement and intelligence officials sought, and eventually obtained, authorization from this Court to eavesdrop on then or former Trump campaign officials; continued monitoring the individuals even when no evidence of wrong-doing was said to have been found; then relaxed the NSA rules to allow evidence to be shared widely within the government."
"[The administration] rushed to collect and then distribute intelligence information collected to numerous federal agencies, increasing the likelihood that certain information, including the identities and conversations of private U.S. citizens, might be leaked to the media."
U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court) report

"This is the sort of thing that would make Richard Nixon blush."
"President Obama ... has abused and misused the National Security Agency in a way that no one ever even pondered before."
Chris Farrell, director of investigations, Judicial Watch

"[The information showed] everyone from the chief justice of the Supreme Court, to other justices, to hundreds of judges, to Donald Trump, to me -- anybody who was anybody -- was subject to this government surveillance by the intelligence agencies, the NSA, and CIA."
"Comey sat on this for over two years, he buried this investigation of perhaps the biggest scandal in American history."
Larry Klayman, founder, Freedom Watch

One in every twenty of the NSA's searches through upstream Internet data targeted Americans, reports by John Solomon and Sara Carter for Circa state. They had been in receipt of internal, classified reports on the issue. Data intercepted by the NSA as it is transmitted through data routes between computer networks describes 'upstream' collection.  These searches, according to the FISA report, violate American surveillance laws, a situation well known to the principals involved.

Raw information received from the surveillance documents, according to the FISA report was disseminated by the FBI. This fact connects with accusations that intelligence agencies had illegally spied on members of Donald Trump's election team, as he has claimed to general disbelief. The FISA report adds that certain contractors "had access to raw FISA information on FBI storage systems [going] well beyond what was necessary to respond to the FBI's request."

The Obama administration "has not explained" how raw information it provided to FBI contractors might not have been a violation of the law. The report states that the FISA Court is "nonetheless concerned about the FBI's apparent disregard" for the rules. It was noted that the Obama administration went on to mobilize other government branches for its political motives; the Internal Revenue Service to suppress political rivals and to politicize the Justice Department and other government bodies.

A former contractor for the NSA and CIA, Dennis Montgomery, took with him 47 hard drives and over 600 million pages of information when he left his post. That data exposed illegal surveillance of judges, politicians and virtually anyone holding power in the United States. Once he was granted immunity, Montgomery surrendered the data to the FBI over two years earlier, helped by Larry Klayman.

Proactively Anticipating Jihad

"We're not going to wait for the person to mobilize on his own time line."
Michael B. Steinbach,  chief, F.B.I. national security branch

"They're manufacturing terrorism cases. These people are five steps away from being a danger to the United States."
Michael German, former undercover agent, F.B.I.

"[Oregon imams warn] that we have those among us who are not with us."
"Avoid the F.B.I. like the plague. They're definitely not an ally. That's what the F.B.I. does -- they infiltrate."
Tom Nelson, Muslim lawyer, Portland

Is that surprising? That the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States infiltrates suspected enemies of the  United States? That as an intelligence and public safety agency which is tasked to protect the nation, it undertakes to measure that danger by infiltrating its presence to be able to assess situations as they arise, and to reach a judgement call? Pssst! In Canada, the RCMP is known to do the same thing. And hear this: similar intelligence and public safety agencies elsewhere do too!

Its critics point out that the agency is using questionable tactics by gaining the trust of suspects and leading them to make decisions based on their suggestibility and commitment to supporting and upholding an ideology whose thrust is a deliberate threat against the United States. In other words, the agency has a job to do, one they take seriously and they set about doing it, however best they can.

Or, seen another way, they manipulate vulnerable people who are not too bright, by befriending and encouraging them to proceed with initiatives they may think about but would never commit to, if agents weren't tasked to incite them to commit deeds which they will later be accused of, face a trial and a finding of guilty as charged, and end up incarcerated for a long, very long time.

These secret operations have resulted in charges being brought against some 90 Americans whom it is believed have been linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, in the past two years. F.B.I. officials deny they are in the business of entrapping people. Yet investigations across the country have revealed that agents have aided suspected extremists to acquire weapons, study bombing targets, and routing some to Syria, joining the Islamic State.

They have little choice, say F.B.I. spokespeople, given the situation of pervasive social media allowing a cloak of anonymity to fall over extremists. Online stings, as well as those conducted face-to-face have become a vital defence against attacks by extremist jihadis. According to counterterrorism officials, Islamic State inspires loyalists to commit to swift strikes, taking immediate advantage of fresh radicalization.

There certainly have been some documented instances where paid informants and agents have encouraged mentally unstable people to commit to expressing a wish to embark on terrorist activities. To the point of providing them with weapons. And once the suspects have been lulled into the complacency of feeling they're doing what is expected of them and begin to launch an attack, they are immediately apprehended; another attack foiled.

Of the thousand open investigations the F.B.I. admits to, a "significant number" -- some hundreds -- entailed undercover work. Since 2014, court records indicate that the F.B.I. has used undercover operations more frequently against suspected ISIL operatives. Pre-dating that, however, was a similar modus operandi used against suspected al-Qaeda threats.

The F.B.I. has identified latterly, a larger, more dangerous pool of suspects, and it has acted accordingly. Espousing support for the Islamic State or exhibiting symptoms of extremism on social media sites have become the first hints of where they should be concentrating their attention in many instances. Agents look through Facebook and Twitter to isolate those likely to consider terrorism. It's what they're schooled to do, after all.

Sting operations are well known to Muslim leaders in the community. And at mosques imams warn the faithful to beware of the tactics and techniques of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.