Since before its formal inception, the FBI has served as the US government’s political police and have engaged in campaigns of low-intensity, counter-insurgent warfare against dissidents, often with the help of irregular forces – even operatives of foreign governments – and the backing of civilian financiers and their front organizations.
In addition, the FBI maintains a network of informants. Senate investigatory committees have previously found the number of paid informants had gone from roughly 1,500 in 1975, to 2,800 in 1980, to over 6,000 in 1986. A budget request presented in 2008 asked for $12.7 million to fund its informant network.

Today, years into an era of eroded civil and human rights in the name of a “war on terrorism,” it is even easier for the FBI and their allies in localized law enforcement to entrap unwitting citizens in fantasy plots they concoct, and convince juries that they have foiled a terrorist action. Unlike the 1970s, when many people understood that the government and police were not on their side, many people now seem to be incapable of seeing through such entrapment schemes, and it is only judges who challenge their narrative. But only if they choose to. Many judges are, of course, just there to send people to prison, for any or no reason. Especially people who are not white.