When good terror investigations go bad

Up in a sleepy little corner of Upstate New York, a man named Danian Terzi is on his way to prison for more than 3 years. But lest you be misled by the title of this post, Mr. Terzi is not a terrorist. (Not that we know of, in any event.) No, Danian is a fibber. Normally you won't find Federal judges handing down those sorts of sentences for bending the truth, but this case is different. And it has some larger implications for the rest of us.

To set the tone of this report early on, we're not talking about some sort of Saint here, or hero of American freedom. Neither, apparently, are we observing the actions of a potential rocket scientist gone astray. When these events began to unfold in Dec. of 2004, Danian was in the local jail on a charge of purse snatching. Understandably concerned about his immediate prospects, he decided to see if he could cut a deal with the police by giving up information on another crime. This, of course, is a time honored tradition and will often allow a suspect to get off with a lighter sentence. Unfortunately, ratting out other purse snatchers or assorted petty thieves isn't the type of news that's likely to get the local District Attorney up out of his recliner off hours in the middle of CSI. (Which, in all fairness, was a new episode I believe.)

Mr. Terzi, however, had bigger fish to fry. He wasn't talking about two bit local criminals. Instead, he began to relate a stunning story of an international terrorist plot to detonate a bomb in New York City, complete with locations, sketches of components for the explosive device and partial names of a number of co-conspirators.

Terzi cited actual hotels in New York City where a meeting was supposed to take place, [prosecuting attorney Thomas] Walsh said. He used partial names and nicknames of alleged conspirators, drew intricate drawings of the bomb components and described how the fictitious terrorists planned to get past security.

There was only one problem. Did you catch the word "fictitious" in the last sentence? That's right. He made the whole thing up. Unfortunately, the story was bought hook, line and sinker - not just by the locals, but by the FBI and the New York City Police Department, who immediately sprang into action. In fact, just by making up nicknames and partial names, the New York City authorities were able to dredge up enough suspects who fit the supposed profiles that they were ready to launch a massive strike against the terrorists in question. They had a jet fueled up at the local airport ready to take Danian down to the Big Apple to identify and testify against the bombers before they could put their deadly plan into action.

That's when, sensing that the whole thing was about to come crashing down around his ears, Danian confessed to having fabricated the whole story.

This is a serious thing, no doubt, and it cost taxpayers thousands of dollars and wasted the valuable time of investigators and intelligence agents. No doubt Mr. Terzi deserves to be punished. But let's also look at what almost happened here.

A group of people in New York were under surveillance and about to be arrested by the FBI and/or Homeland Security agents, possibly to be whisked away to some undisclosed Federal facility as "enemy combatants" without a trial. And it was all on the word of some deranged purse snatcher in a backwater town out in the boondocks.

How did it get to that point? I mean, given the nature of the original crime, Terzi was likely looking at nothing more than a slap on the wrist. He probably would have been released on his own recognizance, shown up in court and gotten a fine, some community service hours... possibly a short stay in the local lockup. Is this really the sort of crime and threatened punishment which would prompt a terrorist to give up an international conspiracy of that magnitude? Shouldn't that have set off a few alarms in the minds of the investigators?

We're living in a state of panic which dates back to 9/11. Mistakes are inevitable in any intelligence operation, but we seem to be operating on a hair trigger where anyone tarred with the possible taint of "terrorist" will be presumed guilty until proven innocent. Had Terzi not come clean with his confession when he did, yet another group of people could have been sitting in Gitmo today, wondering what the hell happened and why they couldn't even talk to a lawyer. We need to protect the nation... there's no doubt of that. But we also need to be on guard against the dangers of paranoia and the sacrifice of fundamental liberties. Mr. Terzi's case should be a warning to us all on that score.