Daniel McGowan

Daniel McGowan, a 38-year-old environmental activist from Queens, was released yesterday from prison in Terra Haute, Indiana. He served seven years in the prison's Communications Management Unit, largely cut off from society, after attempting to burn down two Oregon lumber companies, Superior Lumber and Jefferson Poplar Farms, in 2001.
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We knew the Wafels and Dinges truck was too good to be true!

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As New Yorkers mull over another FBI sting operation which netted an alleged would-be terrorist this week, a similar case is headed for an appellate hearing in federal court early next month.

An appeal filed by the so-called Newburgh Four, who were convicted last fall of a 2009 plot to shoot down military aircraft and blow up two synagogues in Riverdale, will be heard before the federal Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit Nov. 5.

The case has been controversial for many reasons. One of those is that the government's paid informant aggressively lobbied the men--four Newburgh N.Y. ex-cons who mainly spent their time getting high and playing video games, one of them borderline mentally disabled--to push the plot further. He supplied them with gifts, food, use of cars, and cash, and eventually, offered them $250,000 to plant the synagogue bombs. The informant, Shahed Hussain, was also a convicted felon who was repeatedly caught lying on the witness stand during trial.

Just like this week's arrest of 21-year-old Bangladeshi native Quazi Mohammad Nafis for a scheme to plant a bomb outside the Federal Reserve Bank, the government provided all of the equipment, the bombs [which were always inoperable], transportation and logistics, to the Newburgh quartet.

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Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis' possible co-conspirator was arrested yesterday in California.

The failed plot to blow up the Federal Reserve building in lower Manhattan yesterday just made the jump from terrifying to bizarre -- a man identified in federal court filings obtained by the Voice as a possible co-conspirator of 21-year-old Ahsan Nafis was arrested yesterday on kiddie-porn charges after authorities in San Diego reportedly found more than 1,000 images of child erotica on his computer.

But it gets even better.

Police also found a video of Nafis' possible cohort involved in some sort of sword-play. He apparently shot the video himself. On an iPhone. He's an adult -- who plays with swords.

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Federal authorities thwarted a plot to blow up the Federal Reserve building in lower Manhattan this morning, in a would-be attack that was "on behalf of Al-Qaeda," the U.S. Attorney's Office announced this afternoon.

(Read the federal criminal complaint below).

According to the feds, the failed bomber -- identified as 21-year-old Ahsan Nafis -- attempted to detonate a 1,000-pound bomb outside of the Reserve's headquarters on Liberty Street in lower Manhattan with a cell phone detonator. The bomb, however, never went off -- it was provided to him by members of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force, and was completely inoperable, officials say.

The feds say Nafis came to the U.S. from Bangladesh in January with the intention of "conducting a terrorist attack on U.S. soil."

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Khalid Shaikh Mohammed

The military tribunal -- where alleged 9-11 master-mind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other alleged 9-11 conspirators will be tried -- is expected to rule at a pre-trail hearing today on the government's request to censor testimony.

The government filed the motion back in April, requesting that the court implement a 40-second tape-delay in the audio-feed from which news reporters and select observers will listen to the proceedings. It argues that the tape delay will ensure that classified information, regarding the CIA's "enhanced interrogation" program at Guantanamo Bay, is not released to the public.

The ACLU and a coalition of 14 media organizations, including The New York Times, The Washington Post and Reuters, have filed separate motions to block the censorship.

Anytime the defendants mention their experiences in detainment, the 40-second delay will allow the court to mute the testimony. In its motion, the ACLU argued that the censorship was pointless because there's already tons of information available to the public that details specifically what the now illegal interrogation program consisted of.

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What's does an alleged terrorist have to do to get some attention in this city?

Abu Hamza al-Masri is set to stand trial for a terror-related kidnapping in Yemen, for spreading pro-jihadist teachings and for attempting to set up terrorist training camps within the U.S.

Apparently, that's not enough to cause much of an uproar in New York -- as al-Masri's extradition to the city from the U.K. Saturday incited very little outrage. The quiet reception of al-Masri stands in stark contrast to the outcry caused by plans announced in 2009 to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed in New York federal court.

"It really seems to show that this whole panic and screaming about not having terrorists tried in New York or anywhere else in this country is really red herring," Brigitte Nacos, a political science professor who specializes in terrorism and mass media at Columbia University, tells the Voice. "This guy is certainly not less dangerous than anyone else New York had to deal with."

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This is interesting: Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the guy believed to have produced the anti-Islam movie that apparently sparked the murder of a U.S. ambassador in Libya was a federal informant, The Smoking Gun reports.

Nakoula, 55, flipped and informed on Eiad Salameh, who was running a major check-fraud scheme, after he was arrested in connection with the fraud in 2009. Nakoula had been a runner in the scheme. The ring used stolen Social Security numbers and defrauded six banks of about $800,000.

The Smoking Gun website tracked down Nakoula's cooperation in court records, saying that he provided the feds with a lot of information about how the ring operated. He received a relatively light sentence of 21 months in federal prison in exchange. The Smoking Gun says it is unclear whether the feds nabbed Salameh.

Nakoula, who seems a natural for a character in the TV series Breaking Bad, also was arrested in 1997 for involvement in a ring making PCP.

Nakoula's video, The Innocence of Muslims, has sparked riots and protests across the Middle East, including the attack on the U.S. embassy in Libya that caused the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens.

A year ago, the Voice profiled a controversial 9/11 non-profit organization, known as the Gear-Up Foundation, and its also controversial president, Vincent Forras, a former South Salem, N.Y. firefighter who claims to have been trapped in the rubble at Ground Zero and saved himself after receiving a vision from God. At one time, Forras was constantly in the media, and was photographed with many high profile people, like former mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

In the Voice article, several former associates of Forras, including two New York City Fire Department commanders, disputed his story, and raised questions about where the money goes that he raises, and about the legitimacy of the uniform that Forras wears to 9/11 events. In a Voice interview, Forras vigorously disputed those contentions and insisted he was telling the truth.

Now, a new controversy over Forras has exploded on Facebook, and elsewhere about his dramatic story, which he has told and re-told many times, and about the finances of his organization. Posters also criticized the event Forras intends to hold today--a ceremony at Ground Zero, a flight to Hawaii, and second ceremony at Pearl Harbor, for which he had planned to charge participants $91.10 to $500, according to a Gear Up flyer. Some are calling for an investigation of Forras and Gear Up.

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www.humanevents.com

Huma Abedin is an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She also happens to be Muslim, which according to Minnesota maniac Michele Bachmann also makes her a terrorist.

As you may have heard, failed GOP presidential candidate/Minnesota Congresswoman/fagala-phobic madwoman Michele Bachmann has launched a McCarthy-esque witch hunt into several Muslim employees of the federal government whom she decided could potentially be working as spies for Islamist terrorist groups.

One of the targets of Bachmann's bat-shittery is Huma Abedin -- a longtime aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and wife of shamed former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner -- who happens to be Muslim.

Last week, just to get it on the record that Bachmann's a lunatic and that Abedin's not a terrorist, Arizona Senator John McCain gave a lengthy speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate in support of Abedin's patriotism, and criticizing Bachmann's being a fear-mongering nutjob.

Now, because McCain doesn't think that being Muslim necessarily means Abedin is a terrorist, a group of Tea Party sand-billies in McCain's home state is trying to get him booted from office.

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