An agent provocateur is a person who commits, or who acts to entice another person to commit, an illegal or rash act or falsely implicates them in partaking in an illegal act, so as to ruin the reputation of, or entice legal action against, the target, or a group they belong to or are perceived to belong to. They may target any group, such as a peaceful protest or demonstration, a union, a political party or a company.
The 2008 Republican National Convention took place at the Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul, Minnesota, from September 1, through September 4, 2008. The first day of the Republican Party's convention fell on Labor Day, the last day of the popular Minnesota State Fair, though because of Hurricane Gustav, this day was mostly a call for action to help victims and formal, required activities; most of the politicking and partying did not start until Tuesday, the second scheduled day.
The Common Ground Collective is a decentralized network of non-profit organizations offering support to the residents of New Orleans. It was formed in the fall of 2005 in the Algiers neighborhood of the city in the days after Hurricane Katrina resulted in widespread flooding, damage and deaths throughout the city.
Malik Rahim is an American housing and prison activist based since the late 1990s in the New Orleans area of Louisiana, where he grew up. In 2005 Rahim gained national publicity as a community organizer in New Orleans in 2005 to combat the widespread destruction in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; there he co-founded the Common Ground Collective.
Yassin Aref is poet, writer, and religious scholar of Kurdish background who was the central figure of a controversial sting operation leading to years of incarceration in the Federal Bureau of Prisons. A resident of Albany, New York, Aref was arrested by Federal authorities in August 2004 as part of a sting operation, convicted in October 2006 of conspiracy and money laundering charges and sentenced to 15 years in prison in March 2007. The sting operation revolved around FBI informant Shahed Hussein, who later became notorious for his involvement in other controversial cases of entrapment as well as the Schoarie Limousine crash. In 2023, a federal judge ordered the release of 3 other defendants who were also entrapped in a separate sting by Shahed Hussein, saying that FBI had used a "villain” of an informant, and that "the real lead conspirator was the United States". Aref's case drew criticism from human rights groups such as the ACLU and the NYCLU . In July 2008, an appellate court upheld the convictions, rejecting all of the defense's arguments. The decision caused outrage amongst the local community, as supporters maintained the position that he was being persecuted. Aref completed his 15-year prison sentence in October, 2018 and was deported to Iraqi Kurdistan in June, 2019.
Operation Backfire is a multi-agency criminal investigation, led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), into destructive acts in the name of animal rights and environmental causes in the United States described as eco-terrorism by the FBI. The operation resulted in convictions and imprisonment of a number of people, many of whom were members of the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front.
Liam Campbell is an Irish republican from Dundalk, County Louth. He was found liable under civil proceedings for the 1998 Omagh bombing, which killed 29 people.
Daniel Gerard McGowan is an American environmental activist, formerly associated with the Earth Liberation Front. The U.S. government considers him a domestic terrorist, having been arrested and charged in federal court on multiple counts of arson and conspiracy, relating to the arson of Superior Lumber company in Glendale, Oregon, on January 2, 2001, and Jefferson Poplar Farms in Clatskanie, Oregon, on May 21, 2001. His arrest is part of what the FBI dubbed Operation Backfire.
Eric McDavid is an American green anarchist who was convicted of conspiring to use fire or explosives to damage corporate and government property and sentenced to 20 years in prison. While U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott has called McDavid the first person in the U.S. to be prosecuted on Earth Liberation Front (ELF)-related charges, the trial revealed that McDavid's group had not decided whether or not to claim the planned actions in the name of the ELF. On January 8, 2015, after he spent eight years and 360 days in prison, McDavid's conviction was overturned after the prosecution conceded that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had withheld thousands of pages of potentially exculpatory evidence.
Linda Sue Evans is an American radical leftist, who was convicted in connection with violent and deadly militant activities committed as part of her goal to free African-Americans from white oppression. Evans was sentenced in 1987 to 40 years in prison for using false identification to buy firearms and for harboring a fugitive in the 1981 Brinks armored truck robbery, in which two police officers and a guard were killed, and Black Liberation Army members were wounded. In a second case, she was sentenced in 1990 to five years in prison for conspiracy and malicious destruction in connection with eight bombings including the 1983 United States Senate bombing. Her sentence was commuted in 2001 by President Bill Clinton because of its extraordinary length.
The 2007 Fort Dix attack plot involved a group of six radicalized individuals who were found guilty of conspiring to stage an attack against U.S. Military personnel stationed at Fort Dix, New Jersey.
The Camden 28 were a group of leftist, Catholic, anti-Vietnam War activists who in 1971 planned and executed a raid on a draft board in Camden, New Jersey, United States. The raid resulted in a high-profile criminal trial of the activists that was seen by many as a referendum on the Vietnam War and as an example of jury nullification.
Brandon Michael Darby is an American conservative blogger and activist. He first became known in the fall of 2005 for actions in New Orleans in efforts to help residents, where he was a co-founder of the Common Ground Collective organized there. It coordinated the efforts of hundreds of volunteers from across the country for years.
On May 20, 2009, US law enforcement arrested four men in connection with a fake plot concocted by a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) informant to shoot down military airplanes flying out of an Air National Guard base in Newburgh, New York, and blow up two synagogues in the Riverdale community of the Bronx using weapons supplied by the FBI. The group was led by Shahed Hussain, a Pakistani criminal who was working for the FBI to avoid deportation for having defrauded the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles. Hussain has never been charged in the United States with any terrorism related offenses and was paid nearly US$100,000 by the FBI for his work on this plot.
Hector Xavier Monsegur, known also by the online pseudonym Sabu, is an American computer hacker and co-founder of the hacking group LulzSec. Monsegur became an informant for the FBI, working with the agency for over ten months to aid them in identifying the other hackers from LulzSec and related groups while facing a sentence of 124 years in prison. LulzSec intervened in the affairs of organizations such as News Corporation, Stratfor, UK and American law enforcement bodies and Irish political party Fine Gael.
The Federal Correctional Institution, Fort Dix is a low-security United States federal prison for male offenders in New Jersey. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. A satellite prison camp houses minimum-security male inmates.
Better This World is a 2011 documentary film that was directed by Kelly Duane and Katie Galloway. It had its world premiere at the San Francisco International Film Festival on April 23, 2011, where it won two Golden Gate Awards for Best Documentary Feature and Bay Area Documentary Feature.
Joshua Ryne Goldberg is an American internet troll, convicted of attempting a bombing on the 14th anniversary of the September 11 attacks while posing as an Islamic terrorist affiliated with ISIS.
In late 2001, the Jewish Defense League (JDL) plotted to bomb the King Fahd mosque in Culver City, California, along with the office of California Republican Congressman Darrell Issa.
On October 8, 2020, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced the arrests of 13 men suspected of orchestrating a domestic terror plot to kidnap American politician Gretchen Whitmer, the Governor of Michigan, and otherwise using violence to overthrow the state government. Some have labeled the attempt as an example of stochastic terrorism, where violent rhetoric by prominent figures inspired the plot.
Film Is Skeptical About Domestic Efforts on Terrorism by Brian Stelter, New York Times, September 4, 2011. [13]
