[Infowarrior] - FBI wary of relying on amateurs

[Richard Forno]

FBI wary of relying on amateurs
The bureau acknowledges that fighting domestic terror threats requires the
assistance of two unreliable allies: the public and informants.
By Josh Meyer, Times Staff Writer
6:50 PM PDT, May 11, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Even as the FBI hails as a major success story its breakup of
an alleged plot by "radical Islamists" to kill soldiers at Fort Dix, N.J.,
federal authorities acknowledge that the case has underscored a troubling
vulnerability in the domestic war on terror.

They say the FBI, despite an unprecedented expansion over the past 51Ž2 years,
cannot possibly counter the growing threat posed by homegrown extremists
without the help of two often unreliable allies. One is an American public
that they lament is prone to averting its attention from suspicious behavior
and often reluctant to get involved. The other is a small but growing army
of informants, some of whom might be dodgy and in it for the wrong reasons
-- such as money, political ax grinding or legal problems of their own.

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-terror12may12,0,3732513
,full.story?coll=la-home-center