I guess the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) has decided that creating terrorists to arrest is too much work and are now opting to arrest people who write intricate fantastical plots involving science fiction inventions:
New York (CNN) — Two New York state men have been charged in a bizarre plan to develop a mobile X-ray system that would be used from afar to silently kill people that they deemed “undesirable,” federal officials said.
Glendon Scott Crawford, 49, and Eric J. Feight, 54, were arrested Tuesday after an undercover operation by the Albany FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force. They were charged with conspiracy to provide material support for use of a weapon of mass destruction, according to the criminal complaint.
Crawford and Feight were developing a device “intended to be mobile … designed to turn on remotely from some distance away” that would emit “some dangerous levels of X-ray radiation,” according to John Duncan, executive assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York.
Perhaps it’s too much to ask that a charge involving a conspiracy to build a weapon of mass destruction actually require the construction of the weapon to be plausible. If those two are found guilty it will sets a precedence that will allow the FBI will be arrested every male elementary school student who gets into a competition with his friends to see who can imagine the most powerful weapon ever.
Whether those two are found guilty or not the fact that they were arrested at all should invalidate any legitimacy the FBI claims to have. The agency actually invested resources into this investigation. As soon as the FBI agents assigned to this task heard that the plan was to build a ray gun they should have laughed, told the two to carry on, and went back to doing what the FBI does best, finding people with lukewarm intelligence to hand a fake bomb to so the agency can claim to have stopped another terrorist plot.
This story also demonstrates a total lack of creativity on behalf of the agents assigned to this task. The best science fiction plot they could drum up involved a ray gun? Really? That shit is so 1950s. Since I’m sure somebody in the FBI is reading this post (if they have time to investigate those two bozos they probably have time to watch me) let me post a proposal. For a small fee I will gladly write a low grade science fiction plot for the FBI that actually involves weapons of mass destruction. It could involve an orbital ion cannon, a walking robot that lobs nuclear missiles, a device capable of create localized black holes, or an alien invasion. If I get paid a little extra I’ll even get creative and come up with something halfway original. Then the next time the FBI encounters a group of people with science fiction fantasies the agents assigned to the investigation can suggest something far more interesting than a ray gun. After the arrest the agency can then claim they saved the lives of millions, or even billions, of people.
Seriously, I can’t even sum up how incredibly stupid this story is. If nothing else convinces the American people that the FBI is, quite literally, making shit up as they go nothing will.