The Case of the Liberty City Seven

The FRONTLINE Dispatch

GBH

News

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 16 September 2021

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dan Reed (“Leaving Neverland”) discusses his new FRONTLINE documentary, “In the Shadow of 9/11,” the story of how seven Black men from Miami were accused of planning an Al Qaeda plot to blow up American buildings.

Their indictment marked the federal government’s first major post-9/11 counterterrorism sting within the U.S. Yet the men, who came to be known as the Liberty City Seven, had no weapons and had never communicated with anyone from Al Qaeda.

Reed joins “The FRONTLINE Dispatch” to discuss why this was a story he wanted to tell; how he built trust with sources, including the accused men themselves and an FBI agent with a key role in the sting; and what the documentary reveals about the federal government's post-9/11 counterterrorism tactics — notably its use of informants and sting operations.

“It's a story that really needs to be told, because Americans … have the right to know what techniques have been used to keep the country safe after 9/11,” Reed tells FRONTLINE’s executive producer, Raney Aronson-Rath. “But it's just a very challenging story to tell. … I really think that FRONTLINE is the only place on American television that I could have done this.”

The feature-length documentary “In the Shadow of 9/11” is now streaming on FRONTLINE’s website, the PBS Video app and YouTube.

Transcript

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0:00.0	13 years ago, my face was all over the news media.
0:05.0	The FBI told me I was on Larry King Live today. I was arrested.
0:09.0	Lattice intended to recruit and supervise individuals to organize and train for a mission
0:14.1	of war against the United States.
0:16.0	Federal authorities described the group as radical black Muslims.
0:19.7	Their goal was simple to commit attacks against America.
0:24.0	In 2006, a group of seven men from Miami were indicted for the biggest alleged al-Qaeda
0:29.0	plot since the September 11 terrorist attacks.
0:32.0	Their trial marked the U.S. government's first major post-911 domestic counterterrorism
0:37.3	sting, but the men had no money, no weapons, and no connection to al-Qaeda.
0:43.0	OK, well, you're going to have to put somebody that's going to pretend to be OK in front of
0:48.0	them.
0:49.0	My name is Ilay Assad, a former undercover operative for the United States government.
0:54.0	In this episode, frontline filmmaker Dan Reed discusses his new documentary and the shadow
0:58.8	of 911.
0:59.8	In his foamy examines the domestic terrorism case of the Liberty City 7, I'm Rainy Ernst
1:06.0	and Wrath, and this is the frontline dispatch.
1:11.4	The frontline dispatch is made possible by the Abrams Foundation, committed to excellence
1:15.3	in journalism, and by the WGBH Catalyst Fund.
1:20.7	Every day, there's so much news, and it sometimes can feel like we're drowning in a sea of questions.
1:27.0	We need to separate fact from fiction.
1:30.6	That's where we come in.
	...

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