FBI Uses Facebook to Catch Baltimore Terrorist
Dec 10, 2010
Gathering evidence on Facebook has become a standard legal practice, so a social sting operation was inevitable. This method led the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to apprehend a would-be terrorist in Baltimore. An FBI informant initially contacted 21-year-old Antonio Martinez after he publicly posted about his desire for jihad on Facebook earlier this fall, according to AFP. The U.S. Justice Department released a prepared statement that AFP cited: "An affidavit filed in support of the criminal complaint alleges that on September 29, 2010, Martinez publicly posted on his Facebook account a statement calling for violence to stop the oppression of Muslims, and that on October 1, 2010, he publicly posted a message stating that he hates any person who opposes Allah and his prophet." The FBI set Martinez up with a fake car bomb, then apprehended him when he attempted to detonate it remotely. The faux explosive was rigged in a vehicle parked outside a U.S. military recrui...