Sunday, June 25, 2006

The agent provocateur in Miami

I wrote yesterday about my expectation that the Miami "terror" arrests would turn out to be a case of an agent provocateur. On the money:
The defendants had no guns or other weapons when they were arrested. The informant did provide some boots and a camera for the suspects to photograph a North Miami Beach FBI office and other local targets, the indictment says.

But it's unclear from the indictment if the alleged conspirators actually visited their most ambitious target, the 110-story Sears Tower in Chicago.

I'm not quite clear why you need boots to take photographs, but the fact that this group didn't even own a camera and had to depend on the government agent to loan them one pretty much says it all; cameras aren't exactly expensive items these days. And remember, photograping alleged suspected targets is the only concrete action in the entire "conspiracy," and that one action was clearly facilitated, and most likely (here I'm surmising) suggested, by the agent. As for visiting the Sears Tower, its rather unlikely that a group which had to borrow boots and a camera could afford a trip from Miami to Chicago, much less actually stage an operation there.