Inventing-Terrorists-study

and shame him or her into doing something illegal; or it may bringother pressure to bear to force the target to engage in criminalconduct. The target is typically presented with a test of whether he orshe can withstand the inducements of the government to engage inillegal acts, whereby the government applies as much pressure aspossible and uses the vast resources at its disposal, based on thepremise that the targets may be recruited by highly persuasive,manipulative terrorists. (In reality, true terrorists would never recruitmost of these people because they are too vulnerable and thereforeunreliable.)One of the best signs of a preemptive prosecution by sting isthat the targets were either uninterested in or unable to develop anyplot without the government’s involvement. In many such cases, thegovernment provided not only the resources but also the plansthemselves. 32 In the Aref-Hossain case, the FBI included a (dummy)missile in the sting so that as a weapon of mass destruction, it wouldtrigger enhancements in the sentencing. But the FBI failed to showthe missile to Aref, because they were afraid that if Aref saw themissile it might “spook” him and he might refuse to continuewitnessing loans, thus ruining their frame-up. 33 In the NewburghFour sting, the targets in New York were instructed to buy guns inConnecticut so that they would cross a state border, which wouldtrigger federal jurisdictionStings often set up the targets for the harshest sentences byinducing them to become involved in actual bomb plots rather thanjust provide material support to some group. This accomplishes two26