Posts

Man Linked to Boston Bombing Shot Dead During Interview With Two FBI Agents

/13 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: APBy Fox News. Ibragim Todashev, who was shot and killed early Wednesday during a shooting at an apartment complex near Universal Studios in Orlando, knew Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older of the two brothers behind the April 15 bombing attack. Todashev was shot while being questioned about an unsolved 2011 triple homicide in Waltham, Mass., in which one victim was a onetime associate of Tsarnaev, two law enforcement officials with knowledge of the investigation and the FBI told the Boston Globe.

“The agent, along with other law enforcement personnel, were interviewing an individual in connection with the Boston Marathon bombing investigation when a violent confrontation was initiated by the subject,” FBI Agent Dave Couvertier said in a statement obtained by FoxNews.com. “During the confrontation, the individual was killed and the agent sustained non-life threatening injuries. As this incident is under review, we have no further details at this time.”

Three law enforcement officials told The Associated Press that Todashev lunged at the FBI agent with a knife before he was shot. However, two of those officials said later Wednesday it was no longer clear whether Todashev lunged at the agent with a knife. Read more from this story HERE.

_______________________________________________________

Florida man killed by FBI agent reportedly had link to Boston Marathon bomber, triple murder

By Susan Candiotti, Ashleigh Banfield, Deborah Feyerick, and Carol Cratty. [A friend named Taramov] said Todashev was not a radical. “He was just a Muslim. That was his mistake, I guess.”

Taramov said his friend had told him he had a bad feeling about the direction the investigation was heading.

“He felt like there’s going to be a setup … bad setup against him. Because he told me, ‘They are making up such crazy stuff, I don’t know … why they doing it. OK, I’m answering the questions, but they are still making up some, like, connections, some crazy stuff. I don’t know why they are doing it.’ ”

Before meeting with the FBI for a 7:30 p.m. interview Tuesday, Taramov said, his friend asked him to take his parents’ telephone numbers. “He just told me, ‘Take the numbers, in case something happens, if I get locked up, or whatever, call them.’ You know what I mean?

“We were expecting to get him locked up, but not getting him killed. I can’t believe it.” Read more from this story HERE.

Gov’t Out-of-Control: FBI Tracked, Followed Fox Reporter, Got Parent’s Phone Records, Too

/4 Comments/in , /by

Newly uncovered court documents reveal the Justice Department seized records of several Fox News phone lines as part of a leak investigation — even listing a number that, according to one source, matches the home phone number of a reporter’s parents.

The seizure was ordered in addition to a court-approved search warrant for Fox News correspondent James Rosen’s personal emails. In the affidavit seeking that warrant, an FBI agent called Rosen a likely criminal “co-conspirator,” citing a wartime law called the Espionage Act.

Rosen was not charged, but his movements and conversations were tracked. A source close to the leak investigation confirmed to Fox News that the government obtained phone records for several numbers that match Fox News numbers out of the Washington bureau.

Further, the source confirmed to Fox News that one number listed matched the number for Rosen’s parents in Staten Island.

Rosen’s father, attorney Myron Rosen, told FoxNews.com he found the records seizure to be “downright ludicrous.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Boston: FBI Failed to Warn, Could Have Prevented Bombings

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: APBoston authorities could have prevented last month’s deadly Boston Marathon bombings if federal law enforcement agencies had adequately shared information and followed through on warnings about accused bombers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, witnesses told Congress Thursday.

“I believe that though it would not have been easy, it was possible to have prevented the terrorist attacks in Boston,” former Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., told the House Homeland Security Committee. “In a literal sense, the homeland security system we must acknowledge that we built after 9-11 to protect the American people from terrorist attacks failed to stop the Tsarnaev brothers.”

In the first congressional hearing into the April 15 bombing that killed three and injured more than 200, Lieberman and other witnesses testified about a lack of information sharing between federal agencies and between federal authorities and local police. Republicans and Democrats alike joined in the criticisms.

“We cannot ignore that once again it has taken a tragedy to reveal problems in our vast, varied and numerous federal databases,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson, of Mississippi, the committee’s top Democrat.

Witnesses told the committee that Boston authorities were never told prior to the bombing that Russia had warned the FBI about the older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the bombings’ alleged mastermind who also had posted radical jihadist videos on the internet.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Admin. Poised to Back FBI’s Demand For Wiretap Access to Online Communications

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Christopher GregoryThe Obama administration, resolving years of internal debate, is on the verge of backing a Federal Bureau of Investigation plan for a sweeping overhaul of surveillance laws that would make it easier to wiretap people who communicate using the Internet rather than by traditional phone services, according to officials familiar with the deliberations.

The F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, has argued that the bureau’s ability to carry out court-approved eavesdropping on suspects is “going dark” as communications technology evolves, and since 2010 has pushed for a legal mandate requiring companies like Facebook and Google to build into their instant-messaging and other such systems a capacity to comply with wiretap orders. That proposal, however, bogged down amid concerns by other agencies, like the Commerce Department, about quashing Silicon Valley innovation.

While the F.B.I.’s original proposal would have required Internet communications services to each build in a wiretapping capacity, the revised one, which must now be reviewed by the White House, focuses on fining companies that do not comply with wiretap orders. The difference, officials say, means that start-ups with a small number of users would have fewer worries about wiretapping issues unless the companies became popular enough to come to the Justice Department’s attention.

Still, the plan is likely to set off a debate over the future of the Internet if the White House submits it to Congress, according to lawyers for technology companies and advocates of Internet privacy and freedom.

“I think the F.B.I.’s proposal would render Internet communications less secure and more vulnerable to hackers and identity thieves,” said Gregory T. Nojeim of the Center for Democracy and Technology. “It would also mean that innovators who want to avoid new and expensive mandates will take their innovations abroad and develop them there, where there aren’t the same mandates.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Mother of Bomb Suspects Eyed in Radicalizing Son; was on Terrorism Database

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Reuters The mother of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects is a “person of interest” to federal authorities seeking to learn who radicalized one or both of her sons, according to lawmakers, and a separate report said she was on a federal terrorism database some 18 months before the attack.

Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, who had reportedly become more militant in her Muslim faith around the same time as her son, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was added to the classified intelligence database known by the acronym TIDE at the CIA’s request. Two key lawmakers said authorities now want to know if she helped put her son, who died a week ago following a shootout with police in Massachusetts, on the road to radicalism.

“She is a person of interest that we’re looking at to see if she helped radicalize her son, or had contacts with other people or other terrorist groups,” Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told reporters.

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, also pointed to Zubeidat as someone who may have led Tamerlan down the path toward Islamic extremism.

“The mother in my judgment has a role in his radicalization process in terms of her influence over him (and) fundamental views of Islam,” McCaul said.

Read more from this story HERE.

With Ricin Case Crumbling, FBI Finds a New Target, Former GOP Candidate (+video)

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Smoking Gun Paul Kevin Curtis, 45, was arrested last week for allegedly sending the threatening letters to Obama, U.S. Senator Roger Wicker, and a Mississippi county judge. But Curtis has been released from custody amid signs that the case against him has collapsed.

During a court hearing yesterday, lawyers for Curtis contended that he had been framed and pointed investigators toward James Everett Dutschke, a 41-year-old Tupelo man with whom Curtis has feuded. Like Curtis, Dutschke is a martial arts expert, a musician, and a Mensa member.

Dutschke was arrested in January on a child molestation charge in connection with the alleged assault of a seven-year-old girl at the tae kwon do studio he operates. In March, he was named in a three-count felony indictment accusing him of fondling a victim under the age of 16 (each count carries a maximum 15-year prison term). Dutschke, now free on bond, has previously been convicted of indecent exposure…

In 2007, Dutschke was the unsuccessful Republican candidate against Stephen Holland, the incumbent Democratic state representative from the Tupelo area. Holland’s mother Sadie is the judge to whom one of the ricin-tainted letters was sent.

Read more from this story HERE.

Steyn: There Ain't Nobody Here but Us Chechens

/1 Comment/in , /by

As is now traditional in these stories, we’re now being told that the Brothers Tsarnaev are merely the latest card-carrying members of Local 473 of the Amalgamated Union of Lone Wolves. No broader pattern can be discerned, or should be discerned. All jihad is local. Nobody could have seen this coming:

Boston bombing suspects Tamerlan, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev appeared to lead normal lives

If by “normal lives”, you mean reported to the US Government by a major foreign power as possible terrorists, interviewed by the FBI, had your citizenship application put on hold, and cheerily posting a series of videos to YouTube as part of your “Terrorists” playlist. No doubt millions of people in America lead lives that “normal”.

The beatification of the pre-Marathon Tsarnaevs obscures a very disquieting pattern. As Michael Mukasey writes: “Tamerlan Tsarnaev is the fifth person since 9/11 who has participated in terror attacks after questioning by the FBI. He was preceded by [Fort Hood “workplace violence” facilitator] Nidal Hasan; drone casualty Anwar al Awlaki; Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad (born Carlos Leon Bledsoe), who murdered an Army recruit in Little Rock in June 2009; and David Coleman Headley, who provided intelligence to the perpetrators of the Mumbai massacre in 2008. That doesn’t count [Detroit’s incoming Pantybomber] Abdulmutallab, who was the subject of warnings to the CIA that he was a potential terrorist.”

That’s quite a high failure rate, with quite a cumulative death count.

Read more from this story HERE.

FBI May Have the Wrong Man: No Ricin Evidence Found in Home, Computer or Car of Suspect

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Dave Robinette

Investigators haven’t found any ricin in the house of Mississippi man accused of mailing poisoned letters to President Barack Obama, a U.S. senator and a local judge, according to testimony Monday from an FBI agent.

Agent Brandon Grant said that a search of Paul Kevin Curtis’ vehicle and house in Corinth, Miss., on Friday did not turn up ricin or ingredients for the poison. A search of Curtis’ computers has found no evidence so far that he researched making ricin.

“There was no apparent ricin, castor beans or any material there that could be used for the manufacturing, like a blender or something,” Grant testified. He speculated that Curtis could have thrown away the processor. Grant said computer technicians are now doing a “deep dive” on the suspect’s computers after initially finding no “dirty words” indicating Curtis had searched for information on ricin.

Through his lawyer, Curtis has denied involvement in letters sent to Obama, Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker, and a Lee County, Miss., judge. The letters, bearing a Memphis, Tenn., postmark, were detected beginning April 15.

Curtis’ lawyer said in court that someone may have framed Curtis, suggesting that a former co-worker with whom Curtis had an extended exchange of angry emails may have set him up.

Read more from this story HERE.

FBI Not Alerted to Suspected Boston Bomber's Russia Trip Because of Misspelling

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

The FBI did not know that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older Boston Marathon bombing suspect, took a six-month trip to Russia because his name was misspelled, according to a key Republican senator on national-security issues.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, said Monday that he had spoken to an assistant director at the FBI about the agency’s failure to monitor Tsarnaev after interviewing him in 2011 following a tip from the Russian government that he could be dangerous. Late Friday, the FBI said it found nothing “derogatory” after that initial questioning.

“He went over to Russia, but apparently when he got on the airplane, they misspelled his name, so it never went into the system that he actually went to Russia,” Mr. Graham said.

Tsarnaev, 26, died early Friday morning after a gunfight with police in Watertown, Mass. Younger brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was taken into custody Friday night and is in as hospital being treated for gunshot wounds.

The revelation that the FBI looked into Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s possible link to terrorist groups but gave him a clean bill of health, has drawn several days of criticism from lawmakers and now the promise of congressional probes.

Read more from this story HERE.

Boston Bomb Suspect Linked to Unsolved Triple Murder in 2011

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Barcroft Media

By Tim McLaughlin and Aaron Pressman. Authorities are investigating whether the Boston Marathon bombing suspect who died after a shootout with police had any connection to an unsolved triple homicide in suburban Boston in 2011, a spokeswoman for prosecutors said on Monday.

The 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, identified by the FBI as one of two brothers suspected in last Monday’s blasts, was a close friend of one of three men who were stabbed in the neck in an apartment in Waltham, Massachusetts in September, 2011.

At the time, the Middlesex County District Attorney’s office said it appeared that the victims knew their assailant or assailants and that the attacks were not random.

Tsarnaev’s potential connection to the case surfaced after the website Buzzfeed.com reported that some of his former associates suspect he may have been involved in the murder. Read more from this story HERE.

Did Boston bomber murder his ‘only American friend’ in horrific triple killing in 2011?

By SIMON TOMLINSON and JAMES NYE. Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev may have murdered his ‘only American friend’ in an unsolved triple killing two years ago, it emerged today.

Brendan Mess had his ‘throat slit’ alongside two other men in a Massachusetts apartment in 2011 in what police described as a ‘very graphic crime scene’.

Former associates of the Chechan immigrant didn’t initially suspect him of carrying out the gruesome attack, but thought it was strange he didn’t attend his friend’s funeral.

Now one man who knew Tamerlan through the gym where they trained said some of their social circle ‘without even speaking about it beforehand have all been thinking’ he could be involved.

The friend, who gave his name only as Ray, told BuzzFeed Politics: ‘At the time, none of us would have thought it was Tam. Read more from this story HERE.