In response to a string of FBI stings around the country involving terrorist suspects, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III on Wednesday defended the tactic, calling it “absolutely essential” to public safety, according to the Associated Press.
“We have been tremendously successful in thwarting attacks,” Mueller said at a news conference in Santa Ana, Calif, where he was attending the official opening of an FBI cyber crime lab that will examine data and files from cell phones, flash drives and computers for criminal cases, the AP reported.
“We are very careful in these investigations. … They are absolutely essential if we are to protect the community against terrorist attacks.”
“There has not been yet to my knowledge a defendant who has been acquitted in asserting the entrapment defense,” Mueller said.
The comments come in wake of some criticism that the stings amount to entrapment and create big-time terrorists out of lost souls who likely would have never committed an act of terrorism without the FBI.
In the past several months, the FBI has pulled off stings in Portland,Ore. and the Baltimore and Washington areas.
Attorney Gen. Eric Holder Jr. has also come out publicly defending the FBI tactics.
(To read about the new cyber crime lab click here)
