My four long-term readers will know that I grew up in New Jersey (admittedly not a fact that I brag about). My parents still live in New Jersey, quite close to a U.S. Army base called Fort Dix.
Yesterday six men were arrested for plotting a terror attack on the soldiers at Fort Dix. This is being covered by every news organization under the sun, and new facts are still emerging, so I’m not going to bother linking.
But one element of this event stands out: how the FBI discovered the plot.
It turns out that these terrorists, like their brethren in the Middle East, made a video of their training program. Apparently they wanted to use this in their recruiting program, so they needed some DVDs. So what did they do? They took the video tape down to a local store, and asked that copies be made. Fortunately a clerk at the store was bright enough to realize that this was something the authorities might want to know about, and he made a very welcome call. The rest, apparently, was traditional police work. The FBI tracked the terror cell until they thought it was getting ready to act, and then they rolled it up.
Way to go, G-men! And my thanks to that as-yet-identified clerk who made that call…
