The (monetary) costs of informant use
On Wednesday, FBI Special Agent Robert Fuller testified that the US government paid informant Shahed Hussain about $100 per day and $52,000 total for his work in helping to plan a fake plot to bomb a New York City synagogue. The four individuals that he worked with are currently on trial for their roles in the plot. In Florida, Tampa police and the FBI paid an informant approximately $2,400 per month to set up twelve alleged gang members. On its own, neither rate is extraordinary. But now in the Florida case, some of the twelve accused gang members have filed suit against the FBI, the city of Tampa, and individual officers, claiming malicious prosecution and civil rights violations. The criminal cases against alleged gang members were thrown out after a state court judge found egregious misconduct by the informant in the case. Even if the civil case is unsuccessful, the cost to the taxpayers of defending it will be significant and will certainly dwarf the money originally paid to the informant. These legal costs are an inevitable part of a system that thrives on minimal oversight and self-enforced guidelines.
Comments
Yet further evidence that US law enforcement needs to do more about enforcing policy and procedure surrounding the use of confidential informants! Without real laws to manage this sort of thing (such as the United Kingdom's Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000), the same problems will continue to occur. As you suggest, the cost to the tax payer of poor informant management is significant.
Undoubtedly US law enforcement could do with much more robust informant management but I am unclear as to what point is being raised here..the fact that it is wrong to pay informants some of whom will be criminals or the fact that in some cases the money is not effectively used. It is widely reported that law enforcement in Toronto paid Ca$ 4 million in relation to the activities of 18 terrorists. Is this money well spent? well you consider it was your city they were going to bomb or your child they were going to murder. There are no angels in hell so if you want to fight the devil you are going to end up working with a few demons. and paying them well for it.
Pikers.
The informant - actually much closer to agent provocateur - in United States v. Abdel-Rahman et al (half-assed "plot" to bomb NYC landmarks in which the lead defendant became known as the "Blind Sheikh") was a former Egyptian army colonel named Emad Salem. Without him, the rest of the motley crew would have ranted in mosque basements until they died of old age. DOJ paid him a cool $1,000,000 (plus expenses).
'Course, the entry for "predisposition" in the lastest edition of Black's contains little photos of these guys.