In an era of mass surveillance, and increasingly broad rules of engagement given to law enforcement, you would think that the FBI wouldn't need to carefully manufacture cases against ordinary citizens to show that they're winning the so-called "war on terror." But that would be forgetting that in addition to maintaing the security of the nation, FBI officials are also concerned with their public image (hello Twitter), as well as their presentation in the mainstream press. In a 24 hour news cycle, you are only as effective as your last headline, and the documentary "The Newburgh Sting" paints a troubling portrait of an agency more concerned with their perception than with justice, all as part of a mission that broadly targets a religious group, rather than individuals whose fanaticism finds them both as outsiders at their mosques and society in general. Directed by Kate Davis and David Heilbroner, the doc tells...
- 7/21/2014
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
Documentary The Newburgh Sting attempts to rehabilitate the reputation of four Newburgh, New York, terrorists who were convicted of trying to blow up Jewish synagogues and military planes (the latter via stinger missiles) in 2009. The film argues that these alleged conspirators were merely casualties of an unjust FBI sting. That operation, the film contends, involved a shady undercover agent who preyed upon, and entrapped, poor black men whose participation in the scheme was driven not by belief in a jihadist cause but by desperate financial concerns. Directors David Heilbroner and Kate Davis’ trump card is a wealth of covert FBI surveillance footage of the FBI’s agent recruiting his cohorts and then helping them plan their plot – material that c...
- 4/23/2014
- Village Voice
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