On the morning of January 13, the FBI was keeping a close eye on a cabin in Dutch Flat, about a half-hour north of Auburn. The government had the cabin and its four occupants--two men and two women--under 24-hour surveillance for nearly a week because the group was suspected of plotting acts of domestic terrorism in the name of the Earth Liberation Front.

The four left the cabin at around 10 a.m. in a 1997 maroon Chevy Lumina and traveled about 30 miles to a Kmart in Auburn. There were agents inside the store, watching them shop.

...Once all four reassembled in the parking lot, carrying bags full of household cleaning supplies and a Pyrex bowl--bomb-making materials, according to the government--members of the FBI, the SWAT team and the Joint Terrorism Task Force moved in.

It wasn't a violent takedown.

Three from the group were quietly handcuffed and loaded into patrol cars. Their shopping bags were inspected, quickly inventoried and loaded into the trunk of another. All but Anna were taken to the Sacramento County Jail and then charged with conspiracy to commit arson. The government alleged that the conspiracy was part of a planned terrorist bombing campaign targeting power stations in San Francisco, a forest-genetics research lab in Placerville and even the Nimbus Dam.

The three never saw Anna again. She had befriended them, brought them together, paid the rent on the Dutch Flat cabin and encouraged them every step of the way. She had been an FBI informant all along.

...but what I remember is a rather similar case, except the arrest was after some bomb attacks carried out, and it happened maybe two decades ago.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}