adminFederal authorities say a 21-year-old Midlothian, Texas man, John Michael Garza Jr., was arrested after a December 22 sting and has been federally charged with attempting to provide material support to ISIS. The complaint alleges he handed bomb-making components to what he believed was an ISIS associate and was taken into custody after the meeting. This is the sort of clear, present danger that should remind every American that terrorism isn’t some distant problem reserved for foreign shores.
According to the Department of Justice, Garza described how to mix explosive ingredients, offered to provide an instructional bomb-making video, and paid small amounts of cryptocurrency to what he thought were ISIS operatives. Law enforcement arrested him shortly after he left the December 22 meeting, ending a plot that could have cost innocent lives. The precision and bravery of the undercover operation deserve our gratitude, and they prove the value of boots-on-the-ground investigative work.
Investigators trace the plot back to social media, where an NYPD undercover officer first noticed the account in mid-October, after which exchanges showed Garza sending official ISIS media and professing adherence to the group’s ideology. He even transferred crypto in November and December believing he was funding terrorist activities, showing how modern technologies can be twisted into tools for evil. This digital grooming and radicalization pipeline is exactly the new front in the war on terror, and it exposes the casual complacency of tech platforms that allow extremist propaganda to flourish.
FBI Director Kash Patel praised agents for identifying and shutting down the threat, noting the bureau’s role in stopping what could have been a violent attack, while Attorney General Pamela Bondi lauded the collaborative work of federal and local partners. These are the people we should be supporting with resources, not scolding for doing their jobs under impossible constraints. If Washington truly cared about American safety, Congress would be rushing to give our counterterror teams clearer tools and more funding instead of endless investigations that hamstring them.
Let’s be blunt: Big Tech and Big Media have been negligent in policing violent extremist content, and left-leaning policymakers who romanticize so-called online expression have played with fire. Platforms that profit off attention should be forced to answer for the poison they spread, and lawmakers must stop protecting these companies with immunity and start demanding accountability. Free speech does not extend to tutorial videos for murder, and it’s past time we treat those who facilitate terrorism online like the criminals they are.
This case also should snap policymakers out of their complacency about encryption and anonymous payments used to fund terror, like the small cryptocurrency transfers in this matter. Law-abiding Americans want privacy, but intelligent oversight and targeted legal tools are needed so criminals and extremists can’t hide behind code and wallets. Republican leadership should push for pragmatic, constitutional solutions that give law enforcement the ability to track illicit funding and disrupt plots before they reach the point of no return.
We must celebrate the agents who stopped this threat and demand sustained vigilance from every level of government. Support for the men and women who put themselves between danger and our neighborhoods is not optional; it’s patriotic duty. Americans who love their families and their country should insist on tougher laws, better tech enforcement, and real consequences for anyone who tries to bring terror to our streets.
