Investigations
The JTTF was assisted in the investigation of the plot on Fort Dix. However critics such as David Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University questioned the use of paid informants enabling aspiring terrorists. "It makes sense in general —but when you're pressing people to undertake conduct they would have never undertaken without an informant pushing them along, there is a real question if you're creating crime, not preventing crime."
In the 2009 Little Rock recruiting office shooting, suspect Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad was warned while he was in a Yemen jail by the FBI that he would be monitored by the US government, and he was investigated by the JTTF upon his return to the United States after he was deported by the Yemen government. Months after his return, he was arrested for shooting Army soldiers at a recruiting office, killing one, telling authorities after his arrest that his motive was that he was a Muslim angry about the killing of Muslims by American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has since changed his plea to guilty of participating in a jihadi attack on behalf of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
On October 2009, Tarek Mehanna was charged in a complaint with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. the complaint affidavit alleges that Mehanna and coconspirators discussed their desire to participate in violent jihad against American interests and that they would talk about fighting jihad and their desire to die on the battlefield. The case was investigated by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) members: Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, Massachusetts State Police and the Lowell Police Department, in addition to other members.
In the Fort Hood shooting, suspect Nidal Malik Hasan was first brought to the attention of the FBI by internet postings which justified suicide bombings as military operations, but they were not judged to be a threat. Then in December 2008, the National Security Agency intercepted communications from an Army officer with a suspected terrorist, Anwar al-Awlaki. After examination by a JTTF, the e-mails which asked if Islam permitted the killing of soldiers who were to be sent to combat against Muslims, and how to send money to support Awlaki's causes could be sent without reporting to the government were judged to be consistent with research he had presented in a presentation which had warned of "adverse events" if Muslims were forced to fight other Muslims.
The FBI was also notified of large amounts of money that Hasan had wired to charities in Pakistan, but the FBI determined that the money "went to people not related to terrorism," On November 9, 2009, the FBI said that investigators believed Hasan had apparently acted alone. They disclosed that they had reviewed evidence which included the 2008 e-mail conversations but said they did not find any evidence that Hasan had direct help or outside orders in the shootings. According to a November 11 press release, after preliminary examination of Hasan’s computers and internet activity, they had found no information to indicate he had any co-conspirators or was part of a broader terrorist plot "at this point". Although this was what they stressed were the "early stages" of the review, no contrary conclusions had been reached even after reports that the US government believed that Awlaki had been the target of airstrikes in Yemen, and that on December 26, 2009, investigators said that the suspect of the Northwest Airlines Flight 253 bombing admitted that he had attended camps in Yemen where al-Qaeda members including Anwar al-Awlaki had instructed him, blessed the attack, and provided the bomb.
On the morning of September 24, 2010, several homes of people active in campaigns against US military intervention and Palestine and Columbia Solidarity were raided by FBI agents part of JTTFs. Four houses in Minneapolis were raided (including people involved with the 2008 Republican National Convention protests in Saint Paul), along with houses in Michigan, North Carolina, and Chicago. The search warrants focused on obtaining information from computers and other sources of alleged "facilitation of other individuals in the US to travel to Colombia, Palestine and any other foreign location in support of foreign terrorist organizations including but not limited to FARC, PFLP and Hezbollah." No arrests were made, but agents subpoenaed activists to testify before a grand jury in Chicago in October, with reference to “material aid to terrorist organizations.”
Read more about this topic: Joint Terrorism Task Force