Quote Originally Posted by Denziloe View Post
Firstly, this simply doesn't make any sense in the real world. The FBI doesn't have a magic truth machine. If they could tell which threats were genuine and which were false leads, they wouldn't need to investigate in the first place, would they? All you can do is investigate potential threats.
You're right, I should have worded it better.

Prosecute genuine terrorists*

Quote Originally Posted by Denziloe View Post
Secondly, although your rhetoric suggested otherwise, this is not actually different from the first option.
It certainly is different.

Making it illegal to plan acts of terrorism sounds well and good, except just about anything can fall under "terrorism" today. This includes drawing up a plan for a non-violent protests. I'm sure many of the activism-related brainstorms/mind maps I've drawn up for assignments in my political science class can easily be interpreted as an act of terrorism, even though it was clearly done as an academic exercise. That's the sort of thing that concerns me, the possibility of the authorities knowingly snatching up activists or would-be dissidents and using "evidence" like this to justify an arrest. Once someone ends up on a list and is labelled a terrorist, there's almost no oversight by the public.

To give another example, I've done a short write-up on the Black Panther Party of the 1960's and how their organizational methods could be improved and possibly applied (within a non-violent context) in today's socio-political climate. Innocent enough, it's just a thought exercise. But as far as the state is concerned, the Black Panther Party was a terrorist organization... So if I've written down ways to improve their methods and apply them today, what does that make me in the eyes of the state?

Now I don't expect anyone to come kicking down my doors, but think of the ramifications. Say you have a genuine political activist out there who's organizing others and posing a legitimate challenge to the state, this sort of "evidence" can easily be used as justification to shut everything down. And given the FBI's history, I wouldn't put that sort of thing above them.

Quote Originally Posted by sivason View Post
It shows that in both of these cases these people would have done these things IF they were approached by actual terrorists.
Fair enough, but it begs the question, how likely are these people to actually be approached by terrorists? If the risk is high, I'd say a sting operation is justified. But if the risk is low, they should simply continue to be monitored. And if the variables are too high, or the risk factor can't be calculated, then these operations needs a great deal of oversight/checks and balances.

And if people differ on this point, then it comes down to what each individual expects of the state. Personally, I prefer to keep my expectations high.

Quote Originally Posted by Denziloe View Post
It's important what you mean by "help".
To encourage or groom.