Federal authorities have conducted undercover investigations and arrested men in California, Texas, New York, New Jersey, and Ohio who were allegedly trying to travel to territory held by the Islamic State, and that’s just in the last month. But the feds’ approach to snaring potential terrorists with surveillance and aggressive informants—many of them using tactics bordering on entrapment—began well before ISIS emerged as a top concern last year.

Yet the informant kept pushing Hassoun to come up with more ideas for attacks and other criminal activity; at one point, he told Hassoun that he could teach him how to deal heroin—which prompted FBI agents to chastise the informant about engaging in entrapment.

Daoud spent much of his free time online in his parents’ basement. In 2011, when he was 17, the FBI began keeping tabs on him after he posted and emailed comments about violent jihad and al-Qaeda. Two undercover informants began communicating with him a few months later.

In the time since, Daoud’s lawyers have battled prosecutors over access to evidence against him that was collected under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which gives the government broad powers to gather electronic data without warrants. But in June 2014 the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Daoud’s attorneys would not get to see all of the evidence because “there are indeed compelling reasons of national security for their being classified.”

He was told that his faith was “ultimate” and asked if he was willing to follow it even to martyrdom, or shahada. “With that in mind, brother Abdullah, we ask if you are willing to be a shaheed if the will of Allah comes upon you to be one?” Tounisi responded: “If the opportunity is given to me to attain shahada I will take it.” A week later he booked a flight to Turkey, and soon after that his contact e-mailed him a bus ticket from Istanbul to Gaziantep, a city near the Syrian border.

Federal authorities have brought terrorism charges against several Chicago-area men in recent years. Below are the criminal complaints against three defendants still in court and the plea agreement of Sami Hassoun, who is serving a 23-year sentence on attempted bombing charges.

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Plea agreement of Sami Hassoun

Complaint brought against Adel Daoud

Complaint brought against Mohammed Hamzah Khan

Complaint brought against Abdella Ahmad Tounisi