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WATCH: FBI Director Warns Democrat Gun Control Measures Could ‘Blow’ Terror Investigations

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FBI Director James Comey has warned Democrats that their plans to ban individuals on terrorist watch lists from purchasing firearms threatens to damage FBI terror investigations.

Congressional Quarterly (Paywall) reports that a spokeswoman for the FBI said that “Comey does not take a position on the proposed gun amendment but … has told lawmakers he is focused on the operational side and the FBI does not endorse legislation.”

During a 2015 Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing, Director Comey said that stopping the sales of firearms could “blow our investigation”

“Well, senator, what we do now is if someone on the watch list purchases or attempts to purchase a firearm, an immediate alert is sent to the agents who are the source of the suspicion about that individual, so they can incorporate that information into their investigation,” Comey said.

“It’s a little bit challenging for us because known or suspected means it hasn’t been adjudicated in every case that somebody is a terrorist,” Comey said. “It’s somebody we’re investigating, so we don’t want to, obviously, blow our investigation. Sorry.”

Here’s video of the testimony:

(For more from the author of “WATCH: FBI Director Warns Democrat Gun Control Measures Could ‘Blow’ Terror Investigations” please click HERE)

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FBI Terror Watch List Can Have Little Impact, Experts Say

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Being on the FBI’s terror watch list doesn’t necessarily have a direct impact on an individual, experts say. This is why the Islamist-inspired gunman who murdered 49 people in Orlando was still able to purchase a firearm and work for one of the nation’s largest security firms.

The FBI twice investigated Omar Mateen, the Orlando mass murderer who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, but authorities say he doesn’t appear to have been directed by the Sunni militant group. The FBI won’t confirm whether Mateen was on the list.

If he was on a list, it likely would have been the Terrorist Screening Database, or TSDB, which is for domestic and foreign individuals reasonably believed to be involved in terrorism. This is typically referred to as the terrorist watch list. Broadly, being on the list may have few consequences, but being on a subset of the list could have significant ramifications.

“The Terrorist Screening Center does not publicly confirm nor deny whether any individual may be included in the U.S. Government’s Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB) or a subset list,” FBI Terrorist Screening Center spokesman Dave Joly said in an email to The Daily Signal. “Disclosure of an individual’s inclusion or non-inclusion in the TSDB or on the No-Fly List would significantly impair the government’s ability to investigate and counteract terrorism, and protect transportation security.”

Mateen was previously on the terror watch list, but was later taken off the list, the Los Angeles Times reported. The newspaper reported that remaining on the list would not have stopped him from buying a gun.

Joly sent a later message explaining, “an individual’s presence in the Terrorist Screening Database, in and of itself, is not a disqualifying factor pursuant to the Brady Act.”

An example of these subsets is the “Known and Suspected Terrorist,” also know as the KST file. Someone on this file would be flagged on the National Instant Criminal Background Check system when trying to purchase a firearm, said David Inserra, a policy analyst for homeland security and cyber policy for The Heritage Foundation. If a name were flagged, it would trigger an investigation, as anyone on the “known or suspected terrorist” file would be prohibited from buying a gun or explosives.

A widely known subset of the terror watch list is the “No-Fly List.”

“The criteria for the list is there has to be enough evidence for intelligence to raise a red flag,” Inserra told The Daily Signal. “An individual has to be nominated to the terrorist watch list. The No-Fly List has substantial criteria, above and beyond the TSDB.”

The specific criteria are confidential. According to the FBI, the “reasonable suspicion” standard must be based on credible information and intelligence by law enforcement, homeland security, and intelligence community agencies, as well as U.S. embassies and consulates, that an individual “knowingly engaged in conduct constituting, in preparation for, in aid of, or related to terrorism or terrorist activities.” The National Counterterrorism Center reviews the information gathered.

The State Department, the Defense Department, the Transportation and Security Administration, the FBI’s National Crime Information Center, and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection are the five federal agencies that screen the terror watch list.

Mateen reportedly purchased a gun in the last two weeks. He also worked as a security officer at G4S Secure Solutions since 2007.

“It is a fairly high bar for restricting constitutional rights and rightly so,” said Jim Hanson, executive vice president of the Center for Security Policy, a national security think tank. “When you query a database, it’s more about connecting the dots than about stopping people.”

The watch list can seem ineffective, said Bill Roggio, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, an organization that conducts research on terrorism, noting that the culprits in the Boston Marathon bombing were also reportedly on the list.

“We don’t know all of what has been averted, but in this case the list clearly failed,” Roggio told The Daily Signal. “These lists can only do so much without trampling on constitutional rights. But at some point, as this happens more, people are going to ask what good are these lists if we are not protected?” (For more from the author of “FBI Terror Watch List Can Have Little Impact, Experts Say” please click HERE)

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FBI Counter-Terror Expert Sees Historic Islam Pivot

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The Muslim Brotherhood and its various offshoots have chosen 2016 as the year they will turn their focus away from the Middle East and toward the Western democracies seen as ripe for revolutionary activity, says a former FBI counter-terrorism specialist and Islam expert.

The revolutionary jihad movement that swept through the Middle East and North Africa as part of the “Arab Spring” is starting to take root in Europe with attacks already carried out on Paris and Brussels, said John Guandolo.

This movement will eventually spread to the United States, said Guandolo, a former Marine and instructor at the U.S. Army War College who now provides training to law enforcement agencies that want to learn more about the jihadist network in the U.S.

That network is operated, he said, by the International Muslim Brotherhood through its many front organizations. Among them are the Muslim-American Society, or MAS; Muslim Student Association, or MSA; Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR; Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA; and North American Islamic Trust, or NAIT.

Guandolo, author of the book “Raising a Jihadi Generation,” said the Muslim Brotherhood is teaming up with the Black Lives Matter movement to create violent events that will surprise many police agencies in cities across the U.S. (Read more from “FBI Counter-Terror Expert Sees Historic Islam Pivot” HERE)

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Huge: FBI Makes It Official, Hillary Is Under Investigation

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By Pete Williams. In a letter disclosed Monday in a federal court filing, the FBI confirms one of the world’s worst-kept secrets: It is looking into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.

Why say this at all, since it was widely known to be true? Because in August in response to a judge’s direction, the State Department asked the FBI for information about what it was up to. Sorry, the FBI said at the time, we can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any investigation.

Now, in a letter dated February 2 and filed in court Monday, the FBI’s general counsel, James Baker, notes that in public statements and congressional testimony, the FBI “has acknowledged generally that it is working on matters related to former Secretary Clinton’s use of a private email server.” (Read more from “Huge: FBI Makes It Official, Hillary Is Under Investigation” HERE)

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FBI Confirms Its ‘Ongoing’ Investigation Into Hillary Clinton’s Previous Use of a Private Email Server

By Associated Press. Attorney General Loretta Lynch is reaffirming that the FBI’s probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state is free of outside political influence.

She told The Associated Press on Monday that the FBI investigation is independent and is being conducted by career lawyers looking at the facts and evidence.

Republicans have been critical of Clinton’s use of personal email during her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. (Read more from “FBI Confirms Its ‘Ongoing’ Investigation Into Hillary Clinton’s Previous Use of a Private Email Server” HERE)

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Most Dangerous States in the US in 2015 According to the FBI

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The annual list of the most dangerous states in the United States has been released by Law Street, according to a Reboot Illinois piece on Tuesday. The list is compiled via Law Street’s Crime Team’s methodology which uses the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s four major violent crime categories in creating a standard measure of violent crimes-per-100,000 people among all cities reporting its crime data to the FBI that have at least 100,000 persons in its borders. Those four major violent crime categories are: murder, aggravated assault, robbery, and incidents of forcible rape . . .

The Top 10 Most Dangerous States in the United States in 2015

1. Alaska

2. New Mexico

3. Nevada

4. Tennessee

5. Louisiana

6. South Carolina

7. Delaware

8. Maryland

9. Florida

10. Arkansas

(Read more from “Most Dangerous States in the US in 2015 According to the FBI” HERE)

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Why Is the FBI Trying to Bury a Special Forces War Hero?

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AAdS5m0Lieutenant Colonel Jason Amerine was one of the first U.S. soldiers into Afghanistan. He landed there with an Army Special Forces A-Team in late October 2001, when everyone agreed the war would be brief and the objectives were clear: Avenge the terror of the 9/11 attacks, depose the Taliban and leave. Nearly 14 years later, he went to Capitol Hill to explain why he’s still fighting his way out.

Until this past January, Amerine worked at the Pentagon, where he led an Army team ordered to bring home Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, a mission that was expanded to include several civilian hostages held by Taliban-aligned militants in Pakistan. Bergdahl had been captive for nearly four years by the time Amerine got involved, making him the longest-held prisoner of war since Vietnam and a key to any end-of-war negotiations. In 2013, Amerine lured the Taliban to a series of secret talks that identified a solution, but then hit a wall in Washington’s bureaucratic maze. As he wrangled more with federal agencies in D.C. than with the Quetta Shura in Pakistan, Amerine reached out to Representative Duncan Hunter, a Marine veteran and Republican member of the House Armed Services Committee.

Hunter wrote letters to then–Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and President Barack Obama pleading that someone cut through the interagency squabbling between the Army, the State Department, the FBI, the intelligence community and the Department of Defense. When Bergdahl was finally released last year in a trade for five Taliban prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Hunter complained that a far better deal brokered by Amerine was ignored. Worse still, six Western civilians, including two Canadians and a newborn child, were left behind, held by terrorist groups protected by the Pakistani government, a pivotal U.S. ally in the global war on terror.

This January, the day after an errant CIA drone missile killed one of those hostages, international aid worker Warren Weinstein, Amerine was abruptly escorted out of the Pentagon. The Army informed him that its Criminal Investigation Command (CID) had opened a case against him. His pay was halted, and his retirement was put on hold. Hunter says this was a hit job by the FBI, payback for infringing on the bureau’s hostage-recovery turf. The CID would not comment on the case for Newsweek, and the FBI redirected questions back to the Defense Department. Meanwhile, the hostages remain in Pakistan, the investigation of Amerine drags on, and an internal Pentagon investigation is investigating the CID’s investigation.

Testifying in June at a Senate hearing with the contorted title, “Blowing the Whistle on Retaliation: Accounts of Current and Former Federal Agency Whistleblowers,” Amerine did not relish his rebel status. “I am labeled a whistleblower, a term both radioactive and derogatory,” he said. “I am before you because I did my duty, and you need to ensure all in uniform can go on doing their duty without fear of reprisal.” (Read more from “Why Is the FBI Trying to Bury a Special Forces War Hero?” HERE)

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Fourth of July Terror Warning Issued by FBI, Homeland Security

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Federal authorities have warned local law enforcement officials across the country about a heightened concern involving possible terror attacks targeting the July 4th holiday, a U.S. law enforcement official said.

While there was no specific or credible threat of attack, the official said the intelligence bulletin prepared by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI alerted local colleagues to the ongoing threats posed by the Islamic State and other homegrown extremists. The official was not authorized to comment publicly.

The bulletins are frequently issued in advance of major U.S. holidays out of an abundance of caution and concern that operatives may exploit the timing to generate greater attention.

The warning comes as federal investigators have worked to disrupt a number of Islamic State-inspired plots, including a planned assault earlier this month on police officers in Boston. In that case, authorities fatally shot Usaamah Rahim as he allegedly planned to attack police with military-style knives . . .

In a statement Friday following attacks in Tunisia, France and Kuwait, DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson said local law enforcement was being encouraged to be “vigilant and prepared” in preparation for July 4th celebrations. (Read more from “Fourth of July Terror Warning Issued by FBI, Homeland Security” HERE)

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FBI Rounding up Islamic State Suspects

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The FBI has been rounding up more potential “lone wolf” terrorists, Congressional leaders and the Justice Department say, in response to the perception of a mounting threat of domestic attacks inspired by the Islamic State.

Since the thwarted attack on a “Draw Muhammad” conference in Garland, Texas, on May 3, the Justice Department has announced the arrests of 10 individuals it says were inspired by and supporting the Islamic State. The lawmakers say there have been more arrests that have not yet been announced.

They say the FBI has shifted its approach toward arrests rather than keeping suspects under surveillance, and is also targeting individuals thought to be planning attacks in the U.S., unlike the bureau’s past focus on volunteers preparing to join ISIS’s fight abroad.

“Lately, we have seen an uptick in the number of arrests of ISIL followers who were planning violent acts in our homeland,” said John Carlin, the assistant attorney general for national security. “ISIL, differing from some other foreign terrorist organizations, has demonstrated that they see value in mobilizing sympathizers anywhere in the world.”

The spate of arrests comes in response to what Congressional leaders and the Justice Department say is a mounting threat that radicalized Americans will attempt low-tech, lone wolf attacks in the near future. Lawmakers see the changes as necessary because the Islamic State uses social media so effectively to radicalize Americans and because the group is getting better at using encryption to shield its communications with new recruits. (Read more from “FBI Rounding up Islamic State Suspects” HERE)

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FBI Admits No Major Cases Cracked With Patriot Act Snooping Powers

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Photo Credit: Cliff Owen FBI agents can’t point to any major terrorism cases they’ve cracked thanks to the key snooping powers in the Patriot Act, the Justice Department’s inspector general said in a report Thursday that could complicate efforts to keep key parts of the law operating.

Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz said that between 2004 and 2009, the FBI tripled its use of bulk collection under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows government agents to compel businesses to turn over records and documents, and increasingly scooped up records of Americans who had no ties to official terrorism investigations.

The FBI did finally come up with procedures to try to minimize the information it was gathering on nontargets, but it took far too long, Mr. Horowitz said in the 77-page report, which comes just as Congress is trying to decide whether to extend, rewrite or entirely nix Section 215.

Backers say the Patriot Act powers are critical and must be kept intact, particularly with the spread of the threat from terrorists. But opponents have doubted the efficacy of Section 215, particularly when it’s used to justify bulk data collection such as in the case of the National Security Agency’s phone metadata program, revealed in leaks from former government contractor Edward Snowden.

The new report adds ammunition to those opponents, with the inspector general concluding that no major cases have been broken by use of the Patriot Act’s records-snooping provisions. (Read more from “FBI Admits No Major Cases Cracked With Patriot Act Snooping Powers” HERE)

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The Amtrak Crash: Why the FBI Lied and Why It Is No Freak Accident Lending the Possibility of a Terror Attack [+video]

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Photo Credit: Shoebat When the tragic Amtrak crash happened, initially, the media and the FBI reported that foul play or terrorism was ruled out. When this misinformation came out on the 13th of this month, Shoebat.com reported [that]:

. . .Two trains, separate incidents within three minutes from each other and both incidents caused damage on the engineer’s window (one confirmed due to a projectile) which now some photos surfaced of the Amtrak crash also showing signs of engineer’s window shatter. Whether this is another projectile or was caused by the crash is unknown, but what is known is that both incidents were either coordinated around the same time with damage to the engineer’s window. Were these simply due to accidents? One is not. But this new revelation begins to lessen the possibility that chance was involved and that foul play becomes a possibility. . .

Such concentrated shatter holes are not easily formed by flying debris. Train driver windows are 223 Type 1 standard windows which have “minimum requirements for glazing materials in order to protect railroad employees and railroad passengers from injury as a result of objects striking the windows of locomotives”.

The driver’s window are not the same as the side windows of passenger trains which must meet Type II standards. According to federal standards, the driver windows need to have glazing that will withstand a 40 grain .22 caliber bullet travelling at 960 feet per second, or a 24 lb cinderblock travelling at 44 feet per second. . .

Karl Edler, a retired engineer who drove the line hundreds of times, said an impact could help explain the wreck. When a train pulls out of the North Philadelphia station, the engineer usually twists the throttle “up to notch eight, which is engineer-speak for wide open,” he said. . .

“Usually, you just leave the throttle open until you get up to 80 miles per hour, then put on the brake for the curve,” he said. “Seems reasonable that something happened right about that time he would have started slowing down that kept him from taking the throttle off. He was startled by the impact or whatever. And by the time he realized it, it was too late.” (Please read more from “The Amtrak Crash: Why the FBI Lied and Why It Is No Freak Accident Lending the Possibility of a Terror Attack” HERE)

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