292: The Arms Trader
Jul 8, 2005
The U.S. government spent two years on a sting operation trapping an Indian man named Hemant Lakhani, whom they suspected of being an illegal arms dealer. It's one of the few cases that has gone to trial in the War on Terror, and one the Justice Department has pointed to as one of their big successes. In the end, they got Lakhani, red-handed, delivering a missile to a terrorist in New Jersey. The only problem was, nothing in the sting was what it appeared to be. Including the missile.
- The government had an almost impossible task after the September 11th attacks: They had to try to stop terrorists before they did anything — in some cases, before they even committed a crime. Dr. William Banks, a law professor and head of Syracuse University's Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism, talks about the difficulties of this mandate. (3 minutes)


