Skyler Philippi, 24, of Columbia, Tennessee, was arrested by federal agents and charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to destroy an energy facility.
“As charged, Skyler Philippi believed he was moments away from launching an attack on a Nashville energy facility to further his violent white supremacist ideology – but the FBI had already compromised his plot,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “This case serves as yet another warning to those seeking to sow violence and chaos in the name of hatred by attacking our country’s critical infrastructure: the Justice Department will find you, we will disrupt your plot, and we will hold you accountable. I am grateful to the public servants of the FBI for their extraordinary work on this case and for the work they do every day to keep our country safe.”
“Those fueled by hate and inspired to violence by racial or ethnic bias pose a grave threat to our national security,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. “As alleged in today’s charges, Skyler Philippi, a man dedicated to white supremacist ideology and the destruction of our critical infrastructure, planned to attack Nashville’s power grid using a drone carrying an explosive device. Thanks to brave work by the FBI, his scheme was thwarted. We will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to identify, disrupt, and hold accountable those who seek to wage such hate-fueled violence, which has no place in America or anywhere else.”
a drone carrying an explosive device
Is that really what counts as a WMD these days?
Having nothing is a WMD since 2001.
drone carrying an explosive device.
Fuck, they’re learning.
Anybody who has paid any attention to the GWOT, Syrian Civil War, or Russo-Ukrainian War has seen more drones carrying explosives than is healthy.
The only learning needed is how to steer the drone and how to make a bomb that will blow up when you want it to and (and this is probably the most important detail, especially for the bomb maker) not when you don’t.
Quadcopter-mounted explosives are frighteningly simple. And with no physical trigger, they’re frighteningly safe to handle.
Or just a bunch of movies and TV shows have given them ideas.
And you can get drones and RC planes in toy stores for (relatively) cheap that can carry fairly decent loads. Especially if you don’t care about landing them safely.
Who wants to take bets on party affiliation?
What bets? The article said “white supremacist ideology”.
What a fucking loser.
In unrelated news the FBI gave a kid a drone, what he thought was a bomb, a list of targets, and twisted his arm for 6 months before he finally agreed to carry out “his” attack
I’m sure this guy’s a piece of shit, but I also assume this is what really happened every time the FBI “catches” one of these.
Let me take a different angle: good, the FBI found someone who is both stupid and willing to be stupid against other people. You know who doesn’t blow up infrastructure? Literally every sane person. The FBI did a service by catching this far right terrorist. The terrorist was stupid to accept flying bombs and then broadcast their intent to do stupid shit. They deserve to be arrested. The FBI can’t make a person act stupid, they just lay out the tools and let the idiots hurt themselves.
To be clear…I have no idea if the FBI entrapped this particular guy or actually caught him
But also if I know I’m dealing with mentally handicapped level of stupid, I’m not trying to trick them into doing something I can arrest them for, I’m trying to get them services and help. Again, this guy might have planned all this on his own without the FBI tricking him, in which case go ahead and throw the book at him
Wow what an insanely ignorant assumption to make “every time”
Eh… It’s happened enough times I think it should be a standard assumption until we know for sure… Could be you or someone you care about being entrapped one-day
I knew a guy who was friends with a bunch of muslim assholes who ended up in prison for planning a terrorist attack.
He kept arguing that the FBI informant encouraged them and it wasn’t their fault.
My counter was: if the FBI sent someone to me talking about doing a terrorist attack in order to “catch” me, it wouldn’t work because I’d report the guy to the police. You know, because I’m not a terrorist.
I also suggested if they were dumb enough to be caught by the FBIs nefarious plot (while being in the country illegally), then they were really too stupid to live and they were probably better off in prison having someone else do their thinking for them.
Jackasses like them are fucking things up for all the other undocumented immigrants who just want to do jobs we don’t want for slave wages.
Honestly, I might have had more sympathy for them if they had someone sympathetic to argue their side. The guy I knew was a pain in the ass.
Yeah… Sound dumb as rocks… But I still think these FBI entrapment cases are a waste of time and energy… Like, either catch people who are actually planning shit or find something useful to do… Turning someone who’s clearly dumb and vulnerable into a terrorist just so you can “catch” them is just such a waste of everyone’s time and resources.
I agree. Most of the security theater is a complete waste, or worse, an effort to numb us to the ever-increasing destruction of our rights.
Entrapment exists because people need a legal defense against law enforcement getting them to do a crime.
They don’t need to invent crimes. There’s plenty of stupid and crazy people out there as is.
You would think, and yet, they do it a lot
