XPost: ba.politics, dc.media, soc.penpals   
   XPost: alt.burningman   
   From: criminal-democrats@dont-email.me   
      
   When the American president is a filthy muslim himself,   
   prosecutions won't be happening.   
      
   Of the dozens of Americans who traveled to war-torn Syria or   
   Iraq and then returned home, only a "small group" of them fought   
   with a terrorist group and might be inclined to launch an attack   
   back in the U.S., federal counterterrorism officials have   
   determined.   
      
   Putting potentially dangerous returnees like that behind bars,   
   however, has been a slow and painstaking process.   
      
   In the past 16 months, not a single returnee has been arrested -   
   even secretly - on charges of allegedly supporting terrorists or   
   committing any other direct form of terrorism overseas, though   
   "a couple" have been quietly implicated in lesser offenses such   
   as lying on travel forms, a federal source told ABC News.   
      
   By contrast, in that time, the FBI and Justice Department have   
   arrested at least nine people in the United States who allegedly   
   tried to join terrorists in Syria or Iraq, where more than   
   12,000 foreign fighters have converged.   
      
   And just last month, an upstate New York man was nabbed for   
   allegedly trying to recruit two more Americans to join the   
   Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, the Iraq-based group   
   that has been wreaking havoc in the region and inspiring attacks   
   around the world.   
      
   "People aren't saying, 'Hey, I just got back from fighting with   
   ISIL, here's my ticket [proving it],'" a federal source quipped   
   about the challenges in bringing cases against returnees.   
      
   In fact, U.S. law sets a "high bar" to prosecute an American for   
   joining a group like ISIS, especially given the "complicated   
   dynamic" and "limited visibility" on the ground in Syria and   
   Iraq, and the reluctance to present classified sources and   
   methods in open court, according to current and former federal   
   officials.   
      
   "The problem is some of the guys we ... know traveled, but we   
   didn't know about it until they came back," one federal source   
   said. "So how do we find out what they did?"   
      
   The FBI has spent much of the past two years trying to figure   
   that out.   
      
   Over that time, at least 40 Americans have returned from Syria   
   or Iraq, and at one recent point about half of them were under   
   "full investigation," indicating the FBI had come across some   
   bit of information - even "single-source" information -   
   suggesting those suspects posed a possible threat, ABC News was   
   told.   
      
   FBI agents across the country have conducted electronic   
   surveillance, scrutinized travel records and passenger   
   databases, reviewed messages and posts on social media,   
   interviewed family and friends, and in some cases approached the   
   suspects directly.   
      
   "We worked very hard to sort out who are the ones" to worry   
   about, FBI Director James Comey said last month.   
      
   Through that work, the FBI has cataloged a recent "shift" in   
   returnees and other so-called "travelers," with an increasingly   
   younger crop of American jihadists replacing those focused on   
   providing humanitarian assistance or "nationalistic support,"   
   according to federal sources.   
      
   Many of the investigations into the "early travelers" - who the   
   FBI determined never fought with or supported a terrorist group -   
    have since been "closed out," one federal source said.   
      
   So the FBI is now focusing its efforts on that small group of   
   returnees it "assesses" pose an "actual" and "significant threat   
   to the homeland," as the federal source put it.   
      
   "There are several cases in the pipeline" at "various stages,"   
   the federal source said.   
      
   The targets of those investigations are likely under daily FBI   
   surveillance, according to what Comey and Attorney General Eric   
   Holder recently told ABC News.   
      
   Arresting suspects for lower-level offenses would take them off   
   the streets at least for a short time. But to put returnees   
   behind bars for longer, the Justice Department "relies" on a law   
   that prohibits someone from providing "material support" to   
   terrorist organizations or even trying to do so, Holder recently   
   said.   
      
   And under that law, federal investigators need to prove suspects   
   linked up with a group officially designated a terrorist   
   organization by the U.S. government, and that they did it   
   "knowingly" - meaning they didn't end up there through chance or   
   misfortune.   
      
   "Traveling to Syria and engaging in combat there is not enough,"   
   one federal source said.   
      
   Syria and Iraq are home to several U.S.-designated terrorist   
   organizations, such as ISIS and the Al Nusrah Front. However,   
   there are also countless rag-tag rebel groups there that have   
   not been outlawed by the U.S. State Department.   
      
   In fact, some of those rebel groups attracting Americans have   
   received direct help from the U.S. government to topple Syrian   
   president Bashar al-Assad's brutal regime, making it complicated   
   to prosecute someone for engaging in activity akin to the U.S.   
   government's own actions, according to sources.   
      
   "Once [Americans] get into that melting pot, sorting out who   
   belongs to which group... who they're exposed to ... [and] what   
   skills they gathered ... is where the complicated dynamic comes   
   into this," one federal source said.   
      
   That complicated dynamic can undermine a federal prosecution, as   
   illustrated last year when FBI agents in Virginia arrested a   
   former U.S. Army soldier for fighting with militants in Syria.   
      
   Eric Harroun, 30, had appeared in online videos with many of   
   those militants, and he repeatedly told FBI agents he was   
   fighting with the Al Nusrah Front as part of its "RPG Team." He   
   even posted photos and messages about it on his Facebook page.   
      
   Federal prosecutors indicted him for providing material support   
   to a terrorist organization, calling their case "extremely   
   strong." He faced life in prison.   
      
   But within months the case dramatically changed course, with   
   further investigation revealing Harroun had not been fighting   
   with the Al Nusrah Front after all. He wanted to fight with them   
   and thought he had found them, but he actually fought "with a   
   different violent extremist group" not designated a terrorist   
   organization by the U.S. government, one federal law enforcement   
   official said.   
      
   In a deal with prosecutors, Harroun pleaded guilty to an obscure   
   weapons-related violation. He was released from prison six   
   months after his arrest, sentenced to time already served.   
      
   "Until we have more of an ability to collect and gather evidence   
   and support these prosecutions, they're going to present   
   challenges," said John Cohen, a former Los Angeles-area police   
   officer and Naval Intelligence investigator who until recently   
   was a top counterterrorism coordinator at the U.S. Department of   
   Homeland Security. "We're going to have to look at different   
   ways to mitigate the threat or to neutralize the threat."   
      
   Cohen predicted the FBI will now be looking to make cases   
   against returnees "based on what they do in this country" rather   
   than what they did previously overseas.   
      
   Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles built such a case last year   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)