Did anyone else hear "This American Life " from Chicago Public Radio...

[Up2Late]

...this weekend? I'm still shaking my head about this one.

Here's the summery from the TAL website, but I will explain further in a moment:

<http://www.thislife.org/>

The Arms Trader

The U.S. government spent two years on a sting operation, trapping an Indian man named Hemant Lakhani whom they suspected of being an illegal arms dealer. In the end, they got him, red-handed, delivering a "missile" to a "terrorist" in New Jersey. The only problem was, no one in the sting was who they appeared to be. Including the missile. Broadcast the weekend of July 8-10 in most places, or available via RealAudio next week. ALso available at Audible.com as an mp3 file. Also, see below.

Pictured (at the website): Lakhani, at right, finally delivering the phony missile to the FBI informant in, of all places, a hotel room at Newark airport. The video is taken from FBI surveillance tapes.

If you haven't heard it yet and plan to, here's a tip, have a pencil and paper ready to right down the names, because at one point, the reporter starts giving the name of the people involved, and if you don't right them down, you might get very confused.

But to sum it up, the U.S. District Attorney, who * appointed on September 10, 2001, and who's office was across the Hudson from the WTC, entrapped this overly ambitious 67 year old, Indian (from India) Salesman (a.k.a. a guy who will tell you anything to make a sale) into buying a F.B.I. arraigned, phony Surface-to-Air Missile, and then selling this phony Surface-to-Air Missile, to a FBI informant, who was previously judged unreliable.

And the thing is, you can tell by what the the U.S. District Attorney for Newark says, that he knows what they did to set this guy up was wrong, but his attitude is, "Eh! What's done is done, we're winning the "War on Terror."

It's nothing less than sick, what was done, and like I said it is confusing, at least the first 20 minutes is, the show is almost 1 hour.

It can also be heard over the internet,via the radio stations listed at this link.

<http://www.publicradiofan.com/cgi-bin/program.pl?programid=28>
It looks like the next "Live" broadcast is tomorrow at 3:00p- 4:00p at KPFT

[punpirate]

1. Entrapment of the greedy and stupid is easy...

... capture of the truly determined is hard. If you wanted kudos and promotion, upon which course of action would you embark?

`Nuff said. I'll look for the audio on this, per your recommendation.

[warrens]

4. Exactly

This guy was a buffoon. There was one person on the jury who said it was entrapment. The rest of the jury ganged up and said, well, we'll be here til next Christmas if you don't vote guilty. And she couldn't afford not to work, so she caved.

It's hard to have much sympathy for this guy on a personal level. He's the kind of guy who would sell Mac-10s to crack dealers, but on a societal level, this prosecutor and his FBI lackeys were reprehensible.

[hollowdweller]

2. Standard operating procedure in the drug wars for years

A friend who is an attorney said to me once about it "Entrapment is not a defense anymore. 80% of the people I represent have been set up."

[enough]

3. I'm sure that's true, but

the overwhelming impression of this hour-long story was that they were wasting a lot of resources and time entrapping this despicable person who hadn't done anything -- time and resources that could have been spent on trying to find REAL perpetrators, or stopping real crimes.

And then to hear at the end that this case was one of three being touted by Ashcroft as signs of success in the war or terrorism -- unbelievable.

A very interesting hour's listening. The details are what bring it to life.

[Up2Late]

5. Why does that NOT surprise me.

Your story sounds like what Gary Web reported in the 1980's- 1990's in L.A.

[Up2Late]

6. Next replay coming up at 7:00pm EDT

<http://www.wyep.org/>

:kick: