I would argue that we are not qualified to make that assumption but the FBI agents in question are.
There could have easily been a small fact or incident in the past with the author of the article that raised a red-flag for the agents. There could be a policy that says ALL tips must be followed up on and contacted.
I'm all for exposing and preventing abuses of power by law enforcement, but I see no evidence of that happening in this situation.
I would agree that we don't know the details in this particular case. OTOH, I think we hear about similar cases often enough to safely assume that at least a fair number of them wouldn't need to be taken as far if a little bit of common sense was utilized. (But maybe it's just that we don't hear about the ones where it was.)
There are crazy and evil people in the world who are determined to harm society and other innocent people, and part of the FBI's job is to help prevent this. The acceptable cost is debatable.
If the FBI investigates 500,000 people and prevents a single instance similar to the photo below, is it worth it?
Yeah. Crazy/evil people. Gotta keep an eye on 'em.
What I'm talking about is an 80 year old guy who is well documented for professionally photographing public art.
When they saw someone taking pictures of that piece there could be a couple reasons: A) he's scoping it out to come back later and lob an RPG at it, B) he's working on the second edition of his book you can buy on Amazon.
They don't need to talk to the guy to find out which one it is. That's what I'm saying.
I think everyone wants to imagine some reason for this man being contacted, but I would put forward a different view:
The FBI just aren't bright enough to do a cursory Google search, because they 'have all the info anyways'.
It's simpler than "Oh, but maybe they saw he was part of some obscure group in the 60s...". They probably just aren't very good at what they do, but with almost unlimited power it's hard for other people to see how shit you are at your job, as an organization and as a person.
There could have easily been a small fact or incident in the past with the author of the article that raised a red-flag for the agents. There could be a policy that says ALL tips must be followed up on and contacted.
I'm all for exposing and preventing abuses of power by law enforcement, but I see no evidence of that happening in this situation.