Election Season Already?

"Sears Tower Plot" screams the headlines, making it seem that a hardened terrorist group was nearly ready to demolish the building before being stopped by savvy law enforcement officials. The pdf of the indictment makes for fascinating reading.

http://graphics.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/20060623_TERROR_INDICT.pdf

Al Qaeda Connection?

Despite the indictment mentioning Al Qaeda several times and Bin Laden for some reason, neither were involved in this alleged plot. There was a law entrapment, errr…enforcement officer who somehow convinced these boneheads they he was really part of Al Qaeda. He got them to swear allegiance to Al Qaeda and even got them to believe they would have a chance to blow up the Sears Tower.

They are so laughable inept that the idea they could be a threat to the Sears Tower is absurd. By the end of the indictment it is clear that this group has probably seen too many movies (just look at their materials list) and that even getting boots was a multi–step process that they could barely accomplish.

Boots of Terror

Some of the more amusing examples of "evidence" shows that this group wasn't even capable of procuring boots on their own. The indictment lists boots as one of the items they requested from the Al Qaeda representative (actually a law enforcement official, as no members of Al Qaeda were involved in the plot). Besides asking for boots, they sent the fake Al Qaeda representative a list of shoe sizes. After they sent out the shoes sizes they took delivery of the terror boots. Every step of the boot acquisition through the Al Qaeda representative is painstakingly broken down in the indictment and seems to be the bulk of the governments case.

Equipment List

If you were going to request equipment from a leading terrorist organization to blow up one of the largest buildings in the world which of the following would be most helpful: radios, binoculars ("Brother Rot, is that the Tower?? Quick, hand me the bios"), firearms ("By Allah it is, lets shoot it down"), bullet proof vests (I thought they were going to be martyrs?), vehicles, uniforms or $50,000 cash.

Why not just get a job and then buy a car, boots, a radio, and binoculars? Their plan was to use an Al Qaeda operative to get things that anyone can just pickup in an hour at Wal-Mart? Hmmm….

Don't forget the pictures

Some of the other evidence listed is also a stretch. No guns. No explosives. No architectural drawings. No rope to swing from a nearby building and land on top the tower for a top down assault. They did take some pictures though. In this day and age, you think these guys would use google images or Flickr or even just visit the places. What is the purpose of taking pictures?

They get an F for planning.

Casing The Joint

Consider this detailed security analysis of the Sears Tower:

The EST model IRC-3 fire detection and alarm control panel monitors the smoke detectors located in the HVAC return air shafts and the stair door unlocking system. An EST model EST-3 fire detection and alarm control panel monitors the two-way firefighters voice communication system and the stairwell speaker system. This system provides two-way communication for firefighting personnel between the exit stairs and the Control Center. Firefighters' phones have been installed at every fifth floor of the exit stairs.

Now consider that is on the http://www.thesearstower.com/ and the plotters were planning this operation using snapshots. Comical.

Not Hockey Fans

They indicated a desire to, "kill all the Devils that we can."

A threat?

The charges are serious, that they agreed to provide material support and resources to a Foreign Terrorist Organization, that they planned to damage by means of explosives, and to levy war against the United States.

At what point does talking about this plot turn to crime? How much of an influence was the law enforcement official acting as an Al Qaeda operative on their plans? If someone is too inept or ineffectual to commit even a minor act of terror what kind of resources should we use to control them?

We are either in very good shape since these terrorists were not very bright or we are missing real terrorists going after these easy pickings.

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