Russia contacted US goverment ‘multiple’ times on concerns about alleged Boston Marathon bomber

[avaistheone1]

Source: boston.com

WASHINGTON -- Russian authorities alerted the US government not once but "multiple’’ times over their concerns about Tamerlan Tsarnaev -- including a second time nearly a year after he was first interviewed by FBI agents in Boston -- raising new questions about whether the FBI should have focused more attention on the suspected Boston Marathon bomber, according to US senators briefed on the probe Tuesday.

The FBI has previously said it interviewed Tsarnaev in early 2011 after it was initially contacted by the Russians. After that review, the FBI has said, it determined he did not pose a threat.

In a closed briefing on Tuesday, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee learned that Russia alerted the United States about Tsarnaev in "multiple contacts’’ -- including "at least once since October 2011,’’ said Richard Burr, a Republican of North Carolina, speaking with reporters afterward.

Senators said the briefing also revealed failures among federal agencies to share vital information about Tsarnaev, indicating, they said, that the US government still has not established a strong system to "connect the dots’’ about would-be terrorists residing in America more than a decade after 9/11.

Read more: http://www.boston.com/politicalintelligence/2013/04/23/russia-contacted-fbi-multiple-times-concerns-about-alleged-boston-marathon-bomber/NXGbfiW7hyYeRpdryaK3mN/story.html

[Tx4obama]

1. "... the database, which holds more than half a million names ..."

Boston Bomb Suspect's Name Was on Classified Government Watch Lists

-snip-

"... the database, which holds more than half a million names ..."

-snip-

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014464354

There is no way to keep track of over half a million people.

[eggplant]

2. Google does... n/t

[Maedhros]

10. This is the problem with "Total Information Awareness"

When searching the database for suspicious people/activity, as the number of entries in the database gets very large the number of false positive matches overwhelms the analysis. All of the analyst's time and effort is spent disproving the false matches leaving no time to prove a legitimate match. (At least, that's how it was explained by my buddy with Ph.Ds in Statistics and Game Theory.)

[Cali_Democrat]

3. THIS IS EXTREMELY DISTURBING

The government has a secret classified "watch list" of over half a million names?



http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014464354

[DallasNE]

4. They Need A Good Database Design Expert

When the FBI and CIA collect homeland security/terrorist data they need to spin that off and forward it to DHS to process and distribute to both the FBI and CIA, regardless of the agency that collected the data. That way all 3 departments would have standardized and unified data. Obviously, when DHS collects their own data they would distribute that to both the FBI and CIA as well. Yes, that would result in some redundancy so depending on how much it might be necessary for only a summary to be carried on the FBI and CIA database with read access to DHS data on a need to know basis for the complete picture. That is my read at least, meaning it is not a "stovepipe" problem as much as it is a database design problem. DHS probably assumed that since they had the data on the Russia trip that so did the FBI -- a bad assumption. My design would eliminate that problem. Oh, I would have no problem with keeping a source code so when a plot gets discovered that the proper department can receive the credit and ego can be rewarded.

[KoKo]

7. DHS was created to deal with the problem of FBI and CIA not sharing information

about the "9/11" suspects. So, if DHS didn't have the information from the FBI then that raises a question about DHS's very existence. Either the FBI and CIA are not sharing the information with DHS or they are giving DHS the info but as you say the DHS doesn't have a proper data base to sort and flag those who might be potential problems.

DHS might be an agency that isn't any more effective than what we had before "9/11."
Hope there's an investigation of this to find what went wrong because saying they have to many names they can't possible sort out who could warrant further scrutiny seems kind of lame since it's their job to have a system that sorts and flags.

Maybe you should give them a call. We taxpayers are paying for these agencies and putting up with many aggravations and losses to our personal "freedom" so that they can prevent these incidents. Not that every single even can be stopped, but these two and their parents were traveling back and forth and with the FBI warning about them it would seem that there was enough information there for them to be more closely watched before an event as large and publicized as Boston Marathon.

[DallasNE]

9. DHS Had Data On His Travel To Russia

The FBI did not because the name was misspelled. Well, it was misspelled for DHS too so they used Soundex logic and so they knew about the trip but it is the FBI that has the enforcement responsibility. Had the data only been processed by DHS and then distributed to FBI and CIA all 3 would have known about the Russia trip.

[avaistheone1]

17. A couple questions then

(TheBlaze/AP) -- Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Tuesday during the third Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on immigration reform that her agency knew of alleged Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev's trip to Russia last year, even though his name was misspelled on a travel document.

This came as news to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who told the secretary that it contradicted what he'd been told by the FBI. He even stated yesterday on "Fox and Friends": "The reason we didn't know he went over to Russia is because his name was misspelled."

"They told me that they had no knowledge of him leaving or coming back so I would like to talk to you more about this case," Graham told Napolitano today as she testified on sweeping immigration legislation.

Napolitano said that even though Tsarnaev's name was misspelled, redundancies in the system allowed his departure to be captured by U.S. authorities in January 2012. But she said that by the time he came back six months later, an FBI alert on him had expired and so his re-entry was not noted.

"The system pinged when he was leaving the United States. By the time he returned all investigations had been closed," Napolitano said.

http://news.yahoo.com/napolitano-says-system-pinged-tsarnaev-went-russia-contradicting-202624837.html



I wonder why the FBI alert on Tsarnaev expired after only 6 months? Also what good is DHS' Soundex logic if they don't take action based on the information it provides, and DHS does not share information about misspellings and redundancies etc with other agencies?

[DallasNE]

18. Much Is Speculation Based On Various Tidbits

The FBI has operational responsibility and that is why Graham went to them and why DHS did not take action. With the volume of data they process I can understand why they might move all but the file key data to an inactive file that then gets put back on the active file when they have a ping. Even then you have to eventually purge data -- would 2 years be a reasonable cutoff? Until they can rework their databases DHS should alert the agencies when the system detects data errors like misspellings. Without knowing the volume of data it is hard to determine the best database design. Perhaps the volume is a mismatch for the original estimates so decisions were made to keep the system from crashing on volume, which is necessary short term, but it should not replace a redesign capable of handling the volume.

[brett_jv]

13. No need to worry ...

We can absolutely DEPEND on congressional Republicans to clamor for (and receive) multiple high-profile, in-depth House and Senate investigations. They'll make as much political hay over this failure as they possibly can.

And Obama won't be given over a YEAR to clean up all evidence of failure like the Bush administration was given after 9/11 (by many of these same Rethugs).

Nor will Obama be allowed to dictate exactly which of his family bagmen will be most useful in directing the investigation, like BushCo was.

Nor will he be allowed to decide what 'theories' are 'off the table', like BushCo was.

IOW, in THIS case, with 3 dead, unlike what we saw with 9/11, with over 3000 dead and (and Billion$ in property damage), Congress will absolutely get down to EXACTLY where the failure lies.

And you can be certain that in the end, it will be determined to have been ... surprise, surprise ... All Obama's Fault.

Their solution will no doubt be do everything they can to destabilize his Presidency, so that he has to focus more on defending himself than actually protecting the Country. And then when something ELSE goes wrong, it'll be his fault for being distracted by THEIR attacks.

IOW, prepare to live through the Post-Lewinsky Clinton Presidency v2.0.

Edit:
Here's another thing that'll be really neat about how this goes down ... soon, EVERYONE in the USA will be aware that FBI was warned about Tamerlan 'multiple times!!!'. But go around and ask people if they knew that the USA had gotten multiple warnings from a half-dozen country's intel agencies about the imminent attack that turned out to be 9/11 ... and 90% of them will stare at you completely blankly.

We're about to see the effectiveness of the right-wing echo chamber in FULL effect ... frankly, I don't think we should be indulging in more of the same here on DU, but ... to each their own I suppose.

[KoKo]

14. I hear where you are coming from for Defense of Obama...yet..

we need to think about Who Obama Serves...and so far it's not who WE who voted for him...elected him to serve.

If he is just a "tool" as you seem to feel that the RW Repugs can TAKE DOWN with what you are implying...then he's no better than Clinto who Deregulated, Nafta us down the Road to where we are today.

To say that we are at total "Whims" of Repuglican Control and that Obama (The Good One) will have the fate of Clinton (That the RW THREW EVERYING to INVESTIGATING...while he was Deregulating and serving as PROXY for Bob Rubin and Wall Street and the Petersens and the rest) is sort of tarring Obama with Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Obama.

You would be correct on some of it. But...on SOCIAL ISSUES...the DEMS RULE!

[Volaris]

15. Unless they are willing to begin impeachment proceedings,

this President (as far as CONGRESS is concerned) doesn't have to "defend" himself from a goddamned thing. He isn't running for re-election, so unless they try to actually have him impeached, they can bitch all they want, it doesn't amount to a hill of beans. And IF they were to be dumb enough to attack him on this, they will only end up demonstrating the near-total LACK of effectiveness (and therefore, usefulness) for the DHS as a Federal umbrella agency.

[Lurks Often]

8. Minor flaw with your idea

which is that you believe that the various intelligence agencies WANT to cooperate with each other.

Everyone of the agencies is is extremely reluctant to play well with the others, they are all bureaucratic empires and the more responsibilities they get, the more funding they get and the bigger their empire gets. One of those agencies is not going to give up $50 million or more in funding and let another agency get the credit.

This isn't new, it's been going on for decades, probably all the way back to WWII

[tanyev]

5. I wonder if Glenn Beck is kicking himself for going all in on the Saudi national conspiracy angle?

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. It's probably time for Mueller to step down

This is a failure.

[El Progreso]

11. Weak article by the Boston Globe

Russia alerted the US of what exactly? It does not say. We are left guessing.

[FreeBC]

12. Too bad they didn't download music

That might have made the FBI notice them.

[Volaris]

16. HA! you win the thread.