What & Who discovers terrorist plots?

[davidbfpo]

I refer to the recent trial and convictions of three main plotters in the UK, for some background:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21414518

...it has emerged that, at no point during the 18-month investigation, did anyone in Birmingham’s Muslim community inform on the behaviour of the three...This comes despite the families of the four other men – who later pleaded guilty – intervening early themselves to bring their sons back from Pakistan....the four families “had become aware” the men had travelled for terrorism training ...None of the men received any training as they left the camps after just a day....Three of the four came back almost immediately, while the fourth stayed with his family in Pakistan.

The senior police officer, for CT stated:

I agree it would have been really good if more could have been shared with us, and we could have dealt with it in a different way. In terms of community engagement, would I like them to come forward more? Yes, I would. Do I think they (the Muslim community) were being disruptive – no, I do not....For the evidential journey .. there was some reporting of (relatively minor - including fake charity collections on the streets of Birmingham) concerns of these people over the years and that was properly followed through.

Link:http://www.policeoracle.com/news/Cri...ive_61495.html

Some of the reporting here differs on the four young men travelling to a terror training camp in Pakistan; the common features are that family pressure turned them round and no-one in the UK told the authorities.

I will try to get a community activist to explain what happened.

[davidbfpo]

Maybe a rather slanted claim in Canada, regarding the recent arrests of two plotting an attack on the Canada-US VIA rail link, as the author is the lawyer who handled the initial information on the plotters:

A tipoff from a prominent Toronto imam through our law office (Kutty, Syed and Mohamed) more than a year ago appears to be at the heart of the arrests this week in the alleged VIA Rail terror plot. In fact, counterterrorism police began their press briefing by thanking Muslim leaders.

Link:http://www.thestar.com/opinion/comme...ng_terror.html

[davidbfpo]

A third person has now been charged in NYC, with immigration fraud and is linked to the other two. A UC was involved.

Link:http://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-rel...onal-terrorism

[davidbfpo]

A blog piece by Brian M. Jenkins, which reviews more citizen involvement in the USA post-Boston:http://www.rand.org/blog/2013/05/cro...TKhSG0.twitter

[davidbfpo]

A rather good BBC article which poses the question after the Woolwich murder and a particularly nasty child murder in rural Wales:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22731671

When "snitching" and other phrases are used to advocate public reporting more few ever mention this:

Criminologist David Wilson says it's impossible to pinpoint when oddball behaviour turns into something worth reporting: "There is no tipping point."

[davidbfpo]

The retiring head of UK police CT has made some remarks:

(Direct quote)There are some very dangerous and very committed individuals out there that have got deadly terrorist intent, and if people really don't start coming forward and reporting that activity, especially that lower level stuff where they're looking to do something without the wider command and control, then there's a real strong possibility that we're going to get more attacks and there's going to be more fatalities. In all those instances, if the people that had known about it, if they had come to us and given us that information, we would have been able to do something a lot sooner and the country would be a much safer place.

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...ief-warns.html

[davidbfpo]

An interesting CBC article 'Who are the most wanted extremists in Canada?' using open source material, then wonders why Canada does not have a public 'Wanted' website unlike those in the USA, notably the FBI's:http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/canada/who-...nada-1.2845186

Within are two useful quotes for this thread's theme. First by a Canadian Muslim who became an informant on a terror plot:

They are missing public input...In this particular context it’s not going to be a police agent at a border point that’s going to pick the individual up. It’s going to be somebody who says ‘Hey, I know that guy.’ That’s how the information is going to come. I think there is a stronger case for making the information public.

Then a former FBI agent with a JTTF:

For any law enforcement organization your best asset at your disposal is the general public... Whether it’s an anonymous lead or somebody seeing a wanted poster and possibly motivated by the reward money - it’s to elicit help from the general public.