Ashburn terrorist thwarted by the FBI

[WRXtranceformed]

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Good to know for all you guys still living in the Arlington / Alexandria / Herndon area. Dude was from Ashburn, crazy. I think this is a pretty good strategy for the FBI to fight terrorism, they are basically planting seeds of doubt in would-be terror contributors so that they never know if they're dealing with real Al-Queda or with FBI informants. Unfortunately I don't think it's a foolproof plan but if there's anything good about "big brother" practices it's that our intelligence community can root this stuff out before it actually goes down.

[CaptainHenreh]

Not sure I'd say "thwarted", but whatev.

[WRXtranceformed]

Sigh...

[Evan]

not surprising unfortunately, this is a hotbed (and obviously attractive) area for that kind of activity.

several of the 9/11 bombers lived in Vienna, the large mosque in Falls Church has had several 'extremist' Imams speak and has been linked with suspected terrorist funding and operations.

but you know, its so unpolitically correct to talk about it, so it gets swept under the rug

[REED]

I did like this quote from the washington post article

But she said she remains alert while riding the train. Li, 25, who lives in Falls Church, said she keeps her distance from riders carrying large bags. "You don't know what might be in there," she said.

right, because if they have a bag big enough for you to "avoid" I'm pretty sure being at the other end of the train isn't going to do shit

but all in all, I agree with most peoples sentiments, its all part of living/working here. luckily I don't feel that I commute during the real peak, and I usually take the bus, so I'm in the clear :thumbup:

[Kaan]

that our intelligence community can root this stuff out before it actually goes down.

you have NO IDEA how much luck is involved. You are giving "them" way too much credit.

[G.Irish]

Unfortunately I don't think it's a foolproof plan but if there's anything good about "big brother" practices it's that our intelligence community can root this stuff out before it actually goes down.

Eh, I don't really believe that the huge dragnet approach to collecting intel is as valuable as some say it is. Some people in the intelligence community have said it is an outright waste of time, simply because it produces too many false positives to be worthwhile.

Usually good old-fashioned human intelligence, surveillance, and investigative work is what works. I suppose all of the snooping through electronic communications could be a good supplement to that though.

[WRXtranceformed]

Regulation of email and online forums seems like it would be a pretty easy thing to do, and is probably commonplace for agents who are surveiling (sp?) people anyhow.

What would I know, I'm not an FBI agent.

[Kaan]

Regulation of email and online forums seems like it would be a pretty easy thing to do, and is probably commonplace for agents who are surveiling (sp?) people anyhow.

What would I know, I'm not an FBI agent.

the NSA would do that anyway.

[G.Irish]

Regulation of email and online forums seems like it would be a pretty easy thing to do, and is probably commonplace for agents who are surveiling (sp?) people anyhow.

What would I know, I'm not an FBI agent.

Do you mean actually regulating email and forums or just sucking it all up and data mining it? Regulating online speech would be a non-starter but as Kaan said they're sucking all that stuff up already. I don't think searching everyone's emails is a useful or even legal strategy but I don't know exactly how it works so who knows. Maybe if you store all emails and then do a targeted search of a specific subset when you have a suspect could work though.

One thing that makes me feel good though is that none of these plots that have been uncovered seem particularly well thought-out or intelligent. Seems like most of the would-be terrorists are pretty dumb.

[Kaan]

DUMB... i can sort of agree. They slipped under the radar... but werent able to pull it off. Shoe bomber, underwear bomber, and the guy in NYC with the car bomb. They all had the 90% solution... we were lucky they didnt do damage. Better ignition systems and the right fertilizer and we'd have more than 9-11 to remember.