Good work by FBI, and informants, in halting another terrorist plot against the U.S.
And, no surprise, the alleged terrorists were not from any foreign group.
The four men arrested Tuesday were from an anti-government militia group in the state of Georgia.
Why am I not surprised?
Reuters:
The Justice Department said the men were members of a fringe domestic militia group and had planned to manufacture ricin for use in their attacks.
The men attended meetings starting in March where they discussed carrying out crimes, including murder, in order to undermine federal and state government, prosecutors said. The targets included local police, federal government buildings and employees of agencies such as the Internal Revenue Service.
The men are Frederick Thomas, 73; Dan Roberts, 67; Ray H. Adams, 65; and Samuel J. Crump, 68. Thomas is from Cleveland, Georgia, and the other three men are from Toccoa.
Ricin is a very deadly poison, and a dose as small as a few grains of salt can kill.
According to the New York Times, one of those arrested said:
“There is no way for us, as militiamen, to save this country, to save Georgia, without doing something that’s highly, highly illegal: murder,” one of those charged, Frederick Thomas, 73, of Cleveland, Ga., was recorded telling the informant.
“When it comes time to saving the Constitution, that means some people have got to die,” he said.
I'm glad that the Constitution allowed law enforcement means to find this plot. I'm going to jump on a limb and assume that good police work did the job here, and not because of any violations of anybody's rights. Funny how that can generally work, isn't it?
I'm glad these guys were caught. If found guilty, I assume they will all be spending the rest of their lives behind bars.