In the summer of 2009, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) thwarted a home-grown terror plot. Or so it would seem.
The would-be terrorists, now known as the “Newburgh Four,” plotted to bomb two synagogues and destroy an airplane with a stinger missile. They might have carried out the attack, except the bombs and stinger missile were fake—and sold to them by the FBI.
The most disturbing part of the story, however, is that were it not for the goading of an FBI informant, the Newburgh Four would likely never have undertaken such a nefarious plot.
“The Newburgh Sting,” a documentary film about the undercover operation that led to the Four’s arrest, reveals through the FBI’s own surveillance footage that the informant, Shahed Hussain, worked tirelessly to recruit Muslims to join in a terrorist plot. Most of those he talked to viewed him as crazy or dangerous, according to the film, but his apparent wealth and status attracted small-time marijuana dealer James Cromitie.
When Hussain could not get Cromitie to follow through, he offered Cromitie and his compatriots, all of whom lived in relative poverty, $250,000 to take part in the plot.
When the four were convicted in 2011, Manhattan Federal Judge Colleen McMahon, who presided over the case, criticized the government’s handling of the investigation, stating, “The government did not have to infiltrate and foil some nefarious plot—there was no nefarious plot to foil.”
The FBI, through the actions of an undercover informant, convinced four men to carry out a terrorist attack, then arrested the four men and declared the arrest a victory in the war on terror.
There could be no better example of political theater, and understanding the incentives at play, it makes perfect sense. These kinds of arrests make the public feel safer and justify the FBI’s massive budget, which is almost three times what it was before the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.
Not only are these types of operations fiscally wasteful, they contribute to unwarranted anti-Muslim sentiment.
While Hussain did meet Cromitie at a mosque, Cromitie didn’t appear interested in actually committing an attack until Hussain promised him a large sum of cash. And in the surveillance footage, Cromitie stated that the other men involved weren’t doing it for “the cause,” but for the money. They weren’t “Muslim terrorists.” They were, as Judge McMahon put it, “thugs for hire, pure and simple.”
If it weren’t for the defendants opting to take the case to trial, the public would never have seen the FBI’s surveillance footage. There’d be no option but to take the FBI’s word that Cromitie, et al., were Muslim extremists hell-bent on harming America, and that if not for the Bureau’s gallant efforts, they would have succeeded.
Unjustified police shootings, like those of Walter Scott and Eric Harris, have begun to highlight the need for greater public accountability in policing. But the public should also have the chance to scrutinize the activities of federal law enforcement agencies, which often hide behind a veil of secrecy and classification in the name of “fighting terrorism.”
