Monday, June 20, 2016
Insufficiently paranoid again
As usual I was insufficiently paranoid.
When I heard that the Bureau of Instigation had "interviewed" the Orlando dude, I figured they were trying to get a sting going but decided he was too smart. Like other gang leaders, FBI prefers low-IQ or weak-minded stingees who will follow orders easily. I dismissed the notion of FBI influence on his eventual acts.
Right about the facts, wrong about the influence. An insider knows better:
“It looks like it's pretty much standard operating procedure for preliminary inquiries to interview the subject or pitch the person to become an informant and/or plant an undercover or informant close by to see if the person bites on the suggestion,” Coleen Rowley, a former FBI agent and division counsel whose May 2002 memo to the FBI Director exposed some of the FBI’s pre-9/11 failures, told AlterNet. “In the case of Mateen, since he already worked for a security contractor [G4S], he was either too savvy to bite on the pitch or he may have even become indignant that he was targeted in that fashion. These pitches and use of people can backfire.”In everyday life, suspicions and worries often turn out to be groundless. But when dealing with USA STRONG, facts always turn out to be worse than any paranoia I can develop.
Labels: Age of Stings
¶ 1:43 AM
