Thought police

I was reading the latest news on the work of hte FBI against terrorists and the latest arrest of individuals in a "terrorist" cell, see news story. I don't know of the facts of this case, but it strikes me like all the rest of the one the FBI has done, meaning in the end, it was all thought and worse the defedants were convicted of were criminal charges, except the blanket one, "providing material support to terrorists", which is so vague anyone could be convicted for accidently talking with a suspected terrorists.

I won't argue there is some truth in the indictment, but why is it that only Arab men are charged by the FBI with terrorism and their case made public? Where are the terrorism arrests and cases against non-Arab men? Why does the FBI use the word of Arab informants against those same terrorists, even members of their own group?

What terrorists can't tell the truth but informants can't lie?

Why does this make the FBI seem more and more like the thought police? Hollywood can make movies on terrorism, even hiring ex-FBI agents as consultants and disclose a lot of information about the infrastructure for real terrorists to use. Writers can published even move explicit books on terrorism and terrorists in this country. They can write the most elaborate plan and show how to make it work.

But a 16-year old high school student who was a legal immigrant, and by the way from Pakistan, was asked to write a story about a woman suicide bomber by her high school teacher. After the story was submitted another teacher found it and reported her to the FBI. She was deported, even though the evidence was on her side and it was just fiction. It was the fact her family was from Pakistan, obviously a known terrorist home, even for high school students here.

But a bunch, er. terrorist cell. of bumbling Arab men, almost always encouraged, trained, funded, arm, lead, etc. by undercover FBI agents, and suddenly their arrested for planning to attack America. Is the FBI saying our security system and the their "targets" are so lax that these guys could actually carry out their plan?

And what happened to just thinking out loud? If a gang of white guys took over a mall, as they alleged this Arabs of planing, would the FBI have called them terrorists and treated them the same as Arab men? Why don't I think they wouldn't, and they would just be called criminals?

If a fiction writer were to write the story of the FBI's terrorist sting operations, we would consider it absurd in the least, and comical in the worst. I'm all for the FBI, but I'm also all for keeping them honest, and more and more it seems they're focusing on arresting racial or ethnic groups for simply thinking and talking, much the same as we do or could, but the FBI considers them terrorists, but not us.

I would rather see the FBI work on catching real terrorists than creating them or inventing cases against them. In this country we're supposed to do something before it's a crime, but for Arab men, it's all about the thought of it. Conspiracy does have legal value in many cases, as we've all seen in the news. But with terrorism and Arab men, the FBI seems to have lost their common sense and their touch with reality.

But then again, I'm just thinking out loud again, and probably more wrong than right, but in this country, thinking and talking isn't a crime, unless of course something criminal actually happen using the information from those words, except of course if it's obviously just thoughts and talk, something the FBI seems to lose sight of these days.