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

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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.

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Boston Bomb Suspect Linked to Unsolved Triple Murder in 2011

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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.

Former FBI Agent Predicts More Attacks in Muslim Jihad

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The Boston Marathon bombings are a continuation of a Muslim jihad against the United States dating back before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, says a former FBI agent dedicated to warning America about the Islamist threat.

John Guandolo, a former counterterrorism agent, posted a Web report over the weekend pointing out that the Boston Marathon attack is not an aberration but one in a string of foiled and executed assaults on American soil by self-described jihadists.

More attacks are to be expected, he said, even as the mainstream media and President Obama say they are having trouble explaining why two Muslim brothers carried out the twin bombings that killed three and injured more than 170.

“It is truly astounding to watch newscasters continue to ask the question ‘WHY?’” wrote Mr. Guandolo, who runs the website Understanding the Threat to America.

“Why did they do this? What will it take for the U.S. media and American leadership to face the reality of the imposing danger breathing down our necks the global Islamic Movement,” Mr. Guandolo wrote. “These men did this because they are commanded to. The global jihad is on.”

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FBI Releases Images of Suspects in Boston Marathon Bombing (+video)

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Photo Credit: FBI

The FBI today released images of two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing the bureau still considers to be “armed and extremely dangerous.”

At a press conference, FBI special agent in charge Richard DesLauriers referred to the two men as Suspect 1 and Suspect 2 and said Suspect 2 was spotted dropping a bag before a bomb exploded at the second bomb site. The two men appear to be “associated,” DesLauriers said.

DesLauriers asked the public for their help identifying the suspects, but asked the public not to approach them. Though the men are considered armed and dangerous, the FBI said they still do not believe there is an imminent danger in the area.

A few hours later, an FBI official cited a large volume of calls as a result of the photos and DesLauriers’ appeal for help.

A source close to the investigation told ABC News authorities have “good confidence” that the men in the photos perpetrated the crime. The degree of confidence, the source said, comes from a “revealing” reaction Suspect 2 had to the detonation of the first bomb, which was captured on surveillance video.

Watch video here:

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Feds Admit that FBI Warrantless Cellphone Tracking, Eavesdropping ‘Very Common’

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Photo Credit: Free Patriot

FBI investigators for at least five years have routinely used a sophisticated cellphone tracking tool that can pinpoint callers’ locations and listen to their conversations — all without getting a warrant for it, a federal court was told this week.

The use of the “Stingray,” as the tool is called, “is a very common practice” by federal investigators, Justice Department attorneys told the U.S. District Court for Arizona Thursday, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Installed in an unmarked van, Stingray mimics a cellphone tower, so it can pinpoint the precise location of any mobile device in range and intercept conversations and data, said Linda Lye, staff attorney at the ACLU of Northern California in a blog post about the case.

In a rare public discussion of federal electronic surveillance capabilities and authorities, Justice Department lawyers told the court hearing that, instead of a warrant, the FBI operates Stingray and other cellphone-mimicking technology under the authority of “pen register” orders. These court orders, also known as “tap and trace” orders, are generally issued to allow investigators to collect only so-called “metadata” — like all phone numbers calling to or called from a particular number.

But Stingray collects much more than just phone numbers and also “sweep[s] up the data of innocent people who happen to be nearby,” according to the ACLU filing.

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FBI Plans to Spend $100 Million on Ammo

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The magnitude of the federal government’s ammunition buildup has been making headlines over the last few weeks, as members of the military, police departments and consumers are finding shelves bare when they want to buy ammunition. Alarms over the situation have developed just as the Obama administration is pushing hard on its agenda of gun control.

But the full impact may not yet have developed, as WND has uncovered plans by the FBI to spend up to $100 million over five years on millions of rounds for its machine guns and pistols.

According to a solicitation revised and released March 25 that WND discovered during routine database research, the FBI is gathering this ammo “to be carried and fired [by FBI Special Agents] in defense of life” as well as for training purposes.

The ammunition includes a combination of field-ready Glock 9mm rounds as well as reduced-lead training ammo. Weapons specifically listed in the Statement of Work, or SOW, are Glock Model 17, Glock Model 19, Glock Model 26, SIG Sauer P226, SIG Sauer P228, Heckler and Koch MP5 9mm submachine gun (K, A2, A3, SF and SD versions).

“The FBI is the federal government’s principal agency responsible for investigating violations of more than 260 federal statutes,” the SOW points out. “As the investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Justice, FBI Special Agents (SA), in the pursuit of duty, may be involved in high threat assignments where deadly force may be used in the face of violent confrontations.”

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FBI Investigating Multiple NASA Centers To Counter Growing Space Espionage Threat

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Photo Credit: AP

Federal law enforcement officials are mounting anti-espionage investigations at multiple NASA facilities to counter what FBI Director Robert Mueller believes is a growing threat against U.S. space technology.

“If anything, I would say that the threat is – is more substantial than perhaps it was 10, 15 years ago,” Mueller said yesterday during a hearing of a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee that oversees both NASA and the FBI.

The subcommittee’s chairman if Rep. Frank Wolf, R-VA. Mueller told Wolf’s panel that foreign nationals targeting NASA for espionage purposes are a “significant threat,” and disclosed for the first time that the bureau has “a number of investigations ongoing” at several facilities within the space agency.

He declined to identify the NASA facilities involved or to say how many investigations are being conducted. Mueller’s comments followed the weekend arrest by FBI agents at Dulles Airport of Bo Jiang, a Chinese National who was trying to board a one-way flight to China.

Jiang was employed as a scientist by the National Institute for Aerospace, a contractor at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. Jiang was arraigned Tuesday in federal court.

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FBI Arrests NASA Contractor Employee Trying To Flee To China

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Bo Jiang, the Chinese national scientist employed by a NASA contractor for work at the space agency’s Langley Research Center, was arrested Sunday by the FBI at Dulles International Airport as he tried to flee to China, according to Rep. Frank Wolf, R-VA.

Wolf said during a Capitol Hill news conference today that Jiang’s work at the NASA facility had given him access to information that “would be of the greatest interest to foreign spies, including China.”

Wolf is chairman of a House Appropriations Committee subcommittee that has budget oversight authority for NASA.

He made Jiang’s name public for the first time last week during a subcommittee hearing where he also charged that Jiang had taken “voluminous sensitive” NASA documents back to China on a trip in 2012.

Jiang was employed by the National Institute of Aerospace, a Hampton, VA-based NASA contractor. The position afforded Jiang virtually unlimited, unescorted access to the NASA Langley facility, which is the location for classified research programs related to U.S. space defense technologies.

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Google: FBI Spying On Thousands Of Users

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Photo Credit: dannysullivanIn a Google report released Tuesday, the tech giant revealed that thousands of inquiries have been made by the Federal Bureau of Investigation into the personal information of its users.

The document, entitled “Transparency Report: Shedding more light on National Security Letters,” was posted by Richard Salgado, the legal director of law enforcement and information security at Google.

“The FBI can seek the ‘name, address, length of service, and local and long distance toll billing records’ of a subscriber to a wire or electronic communications service” by filing a National Security Letter (NSL), the report said. Google has received as many as 4,000 NSLs since 2009, requesting information for as many as 10,000 accounts.

In a 2010 report by the Congressional Research Service, NSLs were described as “comparable to administrative subpoenas,” and could also be directed toward credit agencies, in addition to “communications providers [and] financial institutions.” The report said the applicable scenarios for filing NSLs were broadened under the Patriot Act.

According to the Google report, for information to be released, the NSL must be “relevant to an authorized investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.”

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Wolf Says NASA Prompted Hiring Of Person Linked To Chinese Espionage; May Be Dozens More In Agency

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Photo Credit: APOfficials at NASA’s Langley Research Center permitted a contractor to hire a Chinese national affiliated with an organization designated by U.S. national security agencies as an “entity of concern,” and then allowed the individual access to classified information, according to Rep. Frank Wolf.

The as-yet unidentified individual was permitted to take that information back home to China, according to Wolf, the Virginia Republican who is chairman of a House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees NASA.

Wolf said during a Capitol Hill news conference today that “at least several dozen other Chinese nationals,” are employed at Langley, and he charged that they are employed in a manner to “circumvent” congressional bans on Chinese involvement at NASA facilities.

Wolf said he has talked with FBI Director Robert Mueller and the Neil H. MacBride, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia about the alleged national security violations at Langley, which is located in Hampton, Virginia.

He said he first heard the allegations from numerous whistleblowers who were career NASA employes and met with them about two weeks ago. He said he turned over information and documents to the FBI.

Read more from this story HERE.