PT6A posted:

PT6A posted:

I'm not making things up. Daesh really was recruiting Calgarians and other Canadians (one of them a convert) who were (probably) mentally handicapped to go fight in Syria. This is a documented thing that happened, not a paranoid fantasy. Daesh recruited and trained French and Belgian citizens to carry out the attacks in Paris. These are facts that we know, not empty threats. These two people that the RCMP targeted may not have been a threat to anyone on their own, but they quite possibly would have been a threat had they been found by terrorist recruiters, who, yes, absolutely prey on the mentally handicapped and/or children without a second thought. There's no reason to think that Daesh or another group locating these people and using them as tools, precisely as the RCMP did, is particularly far-fetched. As such, they did represent a threat to public safety, and while we spent too much money to catch them, I don't think it's a bad thing that we did catch them.

PT6A posted:

These people didn't just think about a thing, they were about to do a thing. They would've done that thing if they'd been dealing with actual terrorists and not undercover law enforcement.

This isn't thoughtcrime by any stretch.

PT6A posted:

These people didn't just think about a thing, they were about to do a thing. They would've done that thing if they'd been dealing with actual terrorists and not undercover law enforcement.

This isn't thoughtcrime by any stretch.

ChickenWing posted:

Then maybe just monitor them until they do the thing, thus probably saving a ton of time and $$ and also not entrapping them.

Ambrose Burnside posted:

this is the thing i dont get, there are a bunch of effective ways you can deal with people prone to being radicalized, monitor them or intervene and try to deradicalize them or address the underlying issues that lead to radicalization, or, you know, all sorts of goddamn things

none of which involve both the entrapment and further radicalization of mentally ill people, i mean, what, why, why die on this lovely monstrous rock, of all rocks

Brannock posted:

You know that this is exactly literally how they work in Western countries, right?

Pinterest Mom posted:

ChickenWing posted:

Then maybe just monitor them until they do the thing, thus probably saving a ton of time and $$ and also not entrapping them.

flakeloaf posted:

But then how will we know that this new legislation protects us from terrorists?

Gus Hobbleton posted:

You know what's going to radicalize me and make me go and blow up a parliament building? Reading about our government committing terrorist acts and blaming mentally ill people. I'm sure a lot of people can say the same.

Tsyni posted:

For 10 million dollars and some training in explosives I will blow up PT6A.

Gus Hobbleton posted:

I don't have that kind of money, but I wish I did.

Doctor Barry Cooper, Ph.D; Professor, Political Science, University of Calgary; Research Fellow, Canadian Global Affairs Institute posted:

In the federal election last fall, 60 per cent of Albertans voted Conservative. Twelve per cent voted NDP.

The provincial NDP were unimpressed. They have continued to govern as if they actually won the election last spring, not that the PCs lost it.

quote:

The provincial NDP... have continued to govern as if they actually won the election last spring

quote:

They have continued to govern

as if they actually won the election last spring

quote:

The following factors may be considered in determining if the police have gone further than providing an opportunity:

1. (1) the type of crime being investigated and the availability of other techniques for the police detection of its commission;
2. (2) whether an average person, with both strengths and weaknesses, in the position of the accused would be induced into the commission of a crime;
3. (3) the persistence and number of attempts made by the police before the accused agreed to committing the offence;
4. (4) the type of inducement used by the police including: deceit, fraud, trickery or reward;
5. (5) the timing of the police conduct, in particular whether the police have instigated the offence or became involved in ongoing criminal activity;
6. (6) whether the police conduct involves an exploitation of human characteristics such as the emotions of compassion, sympathy and friendship;
7. (7) whether the police appear to have exploited a particular vulnerability of a person such as a mental handicap or a substance addiction;
8. (8) the proportionality between the police involvement, as compared to the accused, including an assessment of the degree of harm caused or risked by the police, as compared to the accused, and the commission of any illegal acts by the police themselves;
9. (9) the existence of any threats, implied or express, made to the accused by the police or their agents;
10. (10) whether the police conduct is directed at undermining other constitutional values.

This list is not exhaustive.

ChickenWing posted:

Then maybe just monitor them until they do the thing, thus probably saving a ton of time and $$ and also not entrapping them.

THC posted:

I repeat:


And again:


This is coming from a professor of political science, at an accredited university. You see, the NDP didn't really win the May 5th 2015 Albertan election. I mean they did, but

PT6A posted:

Agreed. I'm not saying the ends justify the means; the means were quite clearly lovely and a giant waste of money. Just that the end is, in this case, not a bad thing, and the means (although not something to be encouraged) were probably legal, and should be legal.

ChickenWing posted:

"the ends justify the means" is probably not a phrase you should agree with in any significant capacity

PT6A posted:

And I don't. So what's the problem?

ChickenWing posted:

You basically said "I'm not saying the ends justify the means, but in this case the ends totally justified the means"

Ikantski posted:

What's that saying about liberals wonder how an issue makes them feel and conservatives wonder if it's correct? I never even considered how I feel about these two people.

quote:

They're mentally weak ex-heroin junkies who got off the train when they found methadone and Islam. They're walking playdough and I bet thousands of other people could have filled their role.

I feel like they were a couple of suggestible drug addicts who got cleaner by associating with a violent cult and then the RCMP comes along and turns that association into action. I'm not sure if I feel bad for them right now but it's hard to judge their character without having quit heroin, I've heard it's pretty tough. I feel bad that they replaced heroin with Islam and got sucked into the more violent aspects instead of just compulsively painting landscapes or something.

Helsing posted:

I've watched more than one person descend into serious addiction, including heroin in one case. That obviously in no way means I have any real insight into what it's like to be a recovering junkie, but in my experience people with drug addictions still have personal agency and can still be judged, at least morally, for the actions they decide to take.

PT6A posted:

There's also a difference between "I need to steal some poo poo so I can get money and buy drugs so I don't feel like death anymore" and "tra la la, let's go commit a terrorist attack!"

I'm guessing the average mentally handicapped person and/or drug addict is quite as horrified at the thought of killing many people as the rest of us are.

jm20 posted:

They live in a delusional reality where someone they think they had befriended encouraged them, in a bad state of mind, to do the offences in question. Are you not aware they spent 2 months playing video games and doing drugs before the RCMP got mad and threatened them before they actually created the fake bombs?

Throw the case out, stick them in an institution for a while, and monitor them if they ever get released.

Heavy neutrino posted:

They might have been willing, but "capable" is arguable. They certainly wouldn't have been able to blow anyone up other than themselves without direction, and I suspect your average actual ISIS mastermind would give up on these idiots roughly the second time he caught them playing video games instead of making bombs.

"My clients are way too stupid and disorganized to be of any use to any terrorist plotter" might not be the most dignified defence, but it might be correct.

PT6A posted:

It was a waste of time and money and we oughtn't do this again in the future, but the conclusion of this investigation and subsequent convictions are not problematic in my mind.

Brannock posted:

Though I'd like to see the people in the RCMP who approved and operated this idiotic endeavor rooted out and punished, and preferably stripped of any decisionmaking capability since they've shown that they're nearly as dangerously erratic, and I don't think either that or the above quote is remotely controversial and this thread has spent several pages arguing without any meaningful difference on policy stance.

Heavy neutrino posted:

They might have been willing, but "capable" is arguable. They certainly wouldn't have been able to blow anyone up other than themselves without direction, and I suspect your average actual ISIS mastermind would give up on these idiots roughly the second time he caught them playing video games instead of making bombs.

"My clients are way too stupid and disorganized to be of any use to any terrorist plotter" might not be the most dignified defence, but it might be correct.