First, let's start with, what were your initial thoughts as all of this was unfolding?

But it's certainly very concerning, that it's frightening, that I am glad that if this is a plot of

international terrorism, that it was thwarted in advance. You know, the FBI has a phrase for that.

They refer to it as left of boom. That is, if you do to imagine a timeline where a deadly

attack is called boom because a bomb has gone off, you want to be left of that moment. That is before

that moment in time. And so that is what the FBI strategy is typically all about trying to disrupt

plots before they occur. It seems based on their

statements that that's what has happened here. Now, Barb, there's still a lot we don't know about

this case. And I know there's discussion about an online chat room that involves some of the

suspects. So how do conversations like that even end up getting tracked and how crucial are

they to investigations such as this? Well, what happens most often is that somebody who is online reports to law enforcement,

maybe their local police department, that they saw someone saying something that was deeply

disturbing to them, perhaps ideas about a plot, planning to kill people, something disturbing.

And then oftentimes what happens is the FBI will introduce an undercover person to join

the chat.

They may be silent and just listening in, or they may say the goal is innocuous things like,

tell me more about your ideas, just to find out what

the person is up to. At some point, if it turns into evidence of a conspiracy or of an

attempt to actually commit a crime at that stage, then someone could be arrested and charged

with a crime. And so, you know, the facts here are very, very sketchy.

We don't know what this is all about, but it could be an attempt or a conspiracy to commit

some serious crime.

...