FBI Catches Heat After Discovery That Bureau Was Warned About Boston Bombing Suspect

 

Steve Neavling

The FBI investigated one of the Boston bombing suspects, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, two years ago after Russia warned about his shift toward Islamic extremism, CNN reports.

Now, some members of Congress are calling for an investigation to determine how Tsarnaev managed to convince the FBI that he wasn’t a threat, CNN wrote. 

The Senate Intelligence Committee plans to hold a closed-door hearing with the FBI.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed by police. His 19-year-old brother was charged with federal terrorism charges Monday.

Ex-Teacher Replaces bin Laden on FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List

By Allan Lengel

He ain’t exactly Osama bin Laden.
Still, the FBI on Tuesday announced a replacement for bin Laden for its Ten Most Wanted Fugitive List: Eric Justin Toth, 30, a former private-school teacher and camp counselor.

Toth is accused of possessing and producing child pornography.

In a press release, the FBi said that Toth, who also goes by the name David Bussone, has been on the run since warrants for his arrest were issued in Maryland and the District of Columbia in 2008. There is also reward of up to $100,000 for information leading to his arrest.

The FBI said a probe into Toth began in June 2008 after pornographic images were found on a camera in his possession at the private where he worked.

The FBI is still looking to add another fugitive to replace Boston mobster James “Whitey” Bulger, who was captured last year in California.

ACLU Says FBI Gathered Info on Legal Activities of Muslims

By Allan Lengel

The ACLU says FBI documents show that the San Francisco FBI gathered intelligence on American Muslim religious organizations on their “constitutionally protected beliefs and activities, without any suspicion of wrongdoing.

The ACLU said in a story posted on its website that the FBI gathered the info from 2004 through at least 2008 through its “mosque outreach” program.
The FBI documents “also show that the FBI categorized information about American Muslims’ First Amendment-protected and other entirely innocuous activities, as well as mosque locations, as ‘positive intelligence’ and disseminated it to agencies outside the FBI.”

The ACLU said the result was that the FBI cast a cloud of suspicion over innocent groups and individuals.

The lynching of Trayvon Martin

By now I suspect that you’ve heard about the murder of 17 year-old Trayvon Martin. But in case you haven’t here are the details.

17-year-old Florida teenager Trayvon Martin

From The Washington Post
Seventeen year-old Trayvon Martin, who was visiting relatives in a gated community in Sanford, Fla., on February 17 was on his way back to their house from 7-Eleven with an iced tea and a bag of Skittles. That’s when he caught the eye of (28 year-old) George Zimmerman, a crime watch volunteer who called 911.

“Hey, we’ve had some break-ins in my neighborhood and there’s a real suspicious guy,” Zimmerman tells police before giving the address of where he is. “This guy looks like he’s up to no good or he’s on drugs or something.”

“These [expletive], they always get away,” Zimmerman says before getting out of his car to pursue Trayvon.

“Are you following him?” the police ask.

“Yes,” Zimmerman says. The officer on the phone tells him, “We don’t need you to do that.” But he did. In another 911 call, you can hear screaming for help and the fatal gunshot. Zimmerman brought a 9 mm handgun to the altercation. A scuffle ensued. Trayvon was fatally shot in the chest. His mother told the Associated Press yesterday, “(Zimmerman) was chasing him, he was following him, and my son was afraid. He didn’t know who this stranger was.”

Murderer George Zimmerman

George Zimmerman murdered Trayvon Martin. But since the shooting the Sanford police department has interviewed Zimmerman at least three times and have declined to arrest him and the local DA has so far not charged him with any crime. And that’s what makes this more than simply a cold blooded murder, that makes it a lynching.

This Zimmerman apparently thought that a Black child walking in his neighborhood was suspicious. And now the police apparently are taking the side of Zimmerman. When a citizen kills another that’s murder but when law enforcement refuses to seek justice for the victim then it becomes a lynching.
And we all know that had Zimmerman been Black and Martin been a White teen, Zimmerman would be under the jail by now.

My hope is that very soon the U.S. Justice Department will intervene and arrest Zimmerman. And if they don’t do it soon I can very easily see this situation getting seriously out of hand. People want justice and when the system denies them it they sometimes find other ways of getting justice.

Best Man at Militia Wedding Ended Up Being FBI Informant

Hutaree members/southern poverty law center photo

By Allan Lengel

DETROIT — Next time you might want to think twice before you have a guy named “Jersey Steve” as the best man at your wedding.

The Detroit Free Press reports that ring leader David Stone Sr. of the Hutaree militia in Michigan grew so fond of his friendship with a trucker named “Jersey Steve” that he named him the best man at his wedding.

On Monday, Jersey Steve, aka Steven Haug, who was an FBI informant, testified in the federal trial in downtown Detroit of Stone, his wife, two sons and three others, the Free Press reported.
The group is accused of plotting to overthrow the government with guns and bombs.
Defense attorneys have claimed there’s nothing to the charges.
To read more click here.

FBI Wants Google’s Help in Accessing Pimp’s Phone

By Allan Lengel

Technology is once again bumping up against law enforcement.

PC Magazine is reporting that the FBI has issued a warrant to get Google to give it a Gmail account and password and other info so it can tap into the Android cell phone of an alleged pimp suspected of playing a role in a human trafficking investigation.

PC reported that agents in the San Diego office seized a Samsung phone from suspected pimp Dante Dears on Jan. 17, but were unable to get past the lock on it.
To read more click here.

Woman Wore FBI Wire to Help Bring Down Ex-Ill. Gov Blago

Blagojevich/file photo

By Craig Wall

FOX Chicago News

 

CHICAGO — Pam Davis said convicted former governor Rod Blagojevich has lost his sense of reality.
“I feel a sense of vindication that justice has finally been served,” Davis said. “It’s taken more than eight years, but I do think truth prevailed.”

It has been a long journey for Davis, who has been waiting for this day, waiting for the end of what has been along road for her. She provided the evidence that lead to the FBI’s investigation of Blagojevich.

“The first couple of months I did not have suspicions that it went all the way up to the governor,” Davis said. “But shortly after the second month of working with the FBI, I began to get a sense that this was much more complex and that they tentacles from these individual that were scheming to make money off good works probably did go up to the governor.”
To read the full story click here.

FBI Kept File on Christopher Hitchens

By Allan Lengel

The FBI kept a file on the  late outspoken writer Christopher Hitchens, the website Historiographic Anarchy reports.

The website reported that the FBI released through the Freedom of Information Act, 19 pages on Hitchens, some which show he was the subject of an FBI Foreign Counterintelligence probe. He died in December at age 62 after a long fight with cancer.

The site reported that the first two pages involve a check requested by the Immigration and Naturalization in March 2005.

The next five pages reveal that he was the subject of a foreign counterintelligence probe and there is a discussion of his socialist-Trotskyist activities in Oxford and that he was traveling in the U.S. on a student scholarship.

Files also pertained to a Secret Service request for info in 1983 after Hitchens requested a White House press pass.
To read more click here.

LAPD and FBI Agent Killed Unarmed Suspect

By Allan Lengel

An investigation is underway in the fatal shooting of an unarmed double murder suspect, who was shot and killed last week by Los Angeles Police and an FBI agent, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Initially, authorities said the man was armed. On Wednesday, the LAPD and FBI clarified the matter, the Times reported.

The incident happened last Thursday when three LAPD cops and an FBI agent were serving an arrest warrant for Frank Martinez, 27, the LA Times reported.

The paper reported that authorities initially said that officers and residents claimed they saw Martinez fire a handgun, but a further investigation found he had no gun. Authorities shot him on the roof of his garage.

“These are very chaotic scenes and the officers all reported they believed they were being fired on,” LAPD Cmdr. Andrew Smith said, according to the Times “That’s why we have our Force Investigation Division, to sort through all the information, evidence and witnesses statements.”
To read more click here.

FBI Dir. Robert Mueller Continues to Bang the Drum About the Dangers of Terrorists and the Cyber World

Robert Mueller III

By Allan Lengel

There’s was nothing particularly shocking — or for that matter new — in FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III’s speech Thursday, but it was another reminder of the havoc and mischief we can expect via cyber attacks against business and government in the future.

 

Terrorism remains the FBI’s top priority,” Mueller told a crowd in San Francisco at the RSA Cyber Security Conference, according to the text of his speech. “But in the not too distant future, we anticipate that the cyber threat will pose the number one threat to our country.”

Mueller talked about how increasingly “cyber savvy” terrorist have become, citing as example, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which has produced a full-color, English-language online magazine.

“They are not only sharing ideas, they are soliciting information and inviting recruits to join al Qaeda. ”
“Al Shabaab—the al Qaeda affiliate in Somalia—has its own Twitter account. Al Shabaab uses it to taunt its enemies—in English—and to encourage terrorist activity, ” he said. “Extremists are not merely making use of the Internet for propaganda and recruitment. They are also using cyber space to conduct operations.”

“The individuals who planned the attempted Times Square bombing in May 2010 used public web cameras for reconnaissance. They used file-sharing sites to share sensitive operational details. They deployed remote conferencing software to communicate. They used a proxy server to avoid being tracked by an IP address. And they claimed responsibility for the attempted attack—on YouTube.”
To read the complete speech click here.

FBI Ditches “Anti-Muslim” Materials

By Danny Fenster

The FBI has tossed out more than 700 documents and 3o0 presentations related to Islam following complaints that the bureau was using training materials that were factually inaccurate or wrongly stereotyping the religion, reports the Detroit Free Press. The FBI plans to go public with new rules on how to vet future training materials as well.

Robert Mueller, director of the FBI, said he pulled the documents at a meeting with advocacy groups two weeks ago. “The steps taken by the FBI … are certainly welcomed,” Abed Ayoub, the national director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said Friday. He and members of six other religious or ethnic groups met with Mueller in to discuss the matter in Washington, D.C., expressing opposition to training materials they considered anti-Muslim.

To read more click here.

NYPD Monitored Muslim Students More Extensively than Thought

By Danny Fenster

New York Police monitored Muslim college students far broader than previously thought, reports the Associated Press. Further, the monitoring was conducted at schools far beyond city limits, including Rutgers University, Yale and the University of Pennsylvania. Officers even spoke with professors in Buffalo, 300 miles away from the city.

New York police even sent an agent undercover on a whitewater trip, according to the AP, “where he recorded students’ names and noted in police intelligence files how many times they prayed.”
Police spokesman Paul Browne offered a list of 12 people arrested or convicted on terrorism charges as members of Muslim student associations when asked about the monitoring.
To read more click here.

Chicago Cabbie Pleads Guilty to al Qaeda Support

By Danny Fenster

A Chicago cab driver pled guilty on Monday to giving money to a long-time acquaintance after learning that acquaintance was working for al Qaeda, the FBI said in a statement.

Raja Lahrasib Khan, Pakistani-born but naturalized as a US citizen in 1988, was arrested in March of 2010. On Monday he pled guilty to one count of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.  He remains in federal custody until sentencing, which has been set for May 30, 2011.
Khan, 58, of Chicago’s north side, never posed any imminent domestic danger, law enforcement officials said at the time of his arrest. He remains in federal custody while awaiting sentencing, which U.S. District Judge James Zagel scheduled for 2 p.m. on May 30. The plea deal calls for a sentence of between five and eight years, along with Khan’s future cooperation with the FBI.

Khan admitted to meeting with Ilyas Kashmiri, a leader of the Kashmir independence movement, twice within the last decade. On the second meeting, in 2008, Khan, having reason to believe Kashmiri was working with al Qaeda, gave Kashmiri between $200 and $250 worth of Pakistani rupees in his fight against India.

Khan then sent about $930 worth of rupees from Chicago to a person in Pakistan on on Nov. 23, 2009, via Western Union, according to the FBI. He told the recipient to give Kashmiri about $300 of it. “Although Khan intended the funds to be used by Kashmiri to support attacks against India, he was also aware that Kashmiri was working with al Qaeda,” the FBI said in a statement.

Undercover agents contacted Khan seeking to send money to Kashmiri, “but only if Kashmiri was working with al Qaeda.” Khan agreed to send the $1,000 agents offered to Kashmiri, giving it to his son who was traveling to the UK, where he would later retrieve it. His son was searched and arrested at a UK airport upon arrival, where seven of the ten bills were found on him. Khan, hearing about his son, tried to plea with one of the undercover agents to let him out of the scheme, offering $800 back.

93-Page FBI File on Rapper Ol’ Dirty Bastard Released; Allegations Include Violent Crimes

By Danny Fenster

It appears some detectives in New York have been paying attention to their hip hop.

Newly released files on Wu-Tang Clan rapper Ol’ Dirty Bastard reveal a thick FBI profile of the Staten Island, New York MC. ‎”The detectives have documented, in their case files, that the [Wu Tang Clan] is heavily involved in the sale of drugs, illegal guns, weapons possession, murder, car jackings, and other types of violent crimes,” the files say. All of which might more or less be gleaned from listening to a Wu-Tang Clan album or two.

The 93-page file shows more than 15 arrests for the rapper, legally named Russell Tyrone Jones, with charges ranging from resisting arrest to assault, attempted police murder, refusal to pay child support and the illegal possession of body armor, the Guardian newspaper reports. The files connect Jones to at least two specific murders and an involvement with the Bloods street gang.

Rich Jones of the website Gun.io filed a FOIA request for the files, which was responded to within a week.
To read more click here. To read the file click here.

Missing Girl Found Dead, Babysitter Charged in Case FBI Was Involved In

By Danny Fenster

A missing 9-year-old girl has been found dead, the Associated Press reports, and the girl’s babysitter was arrested on murder charges Monday night. The FBI had been helping in the search.

Aliahna Lemmon’s body was found in northeast Indiana, near her family’s mobile home park, investigators say. They aren’t releasing where exactly the remains were found, sheriff’s spokesman Cpl. Jeremy Tinkel told the AP.

The babysitter, Mike Plumadore, was taken into custody after being interviewed by police late Monday. The 39-year-old, who was watching Lemmon and her sisters’ at the time of the disappearance, faces a murder charge.

“He was a trusted family friend,” the girl’s step-grandfather, David Story, told the AP.
To read more click here.

Ex-FBI Agent Denies Klan Leader Had Mole Inside FBI

Early Days of KKK ./ fbi via national archive

By Allan Lengel

An ex-FBI agent is dismissing allegations by an informant that former  Mississippi Ku Klux Klan leader Sam Bowers said he had a tipster inside the FBI during the civil rights movement, who disclosed which Klansmen were talking to the bureau, according to Jackson Clarion-Ledger.

The paper reported that, according to FBI documents, an informant told the FBI in the fall of 1964 of the allegations.

But the paper reported that former FBI agent Jay Cochran, who was there at time laughed and said: “That’s a new one on me. I don’t think there’s even a remote possibility of that.”

But the paper reported that the Klan may have gotten help from state troopers. A Jan. 5, 1965, FBI memo stated that a highway patrolman told a Klansman there was an FBI informant in Lincoln County getting paid $500 a month.

The paper reported that statements were included in 40,000 pages of FBI documents related to the investigation of the Klan’s June 21, 1964, killings of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner.

Ex-Atty. Gen. Ashcroft Dodges Bullet; Supreme Court Tosses Lawsuit Against Him

John Ashcroft/doj photo

By Allan Lengel

WASHINGTON — Ex-Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft is off the hook.
In an 8-0 ruling, the Supreme Court tossed out a lawsuit against Ashcroft. It overturned a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision, saying the former Attorney General under President Bush  enjoyed “qualified immunity” from a lawsuit filed by Abdullah al Kidd, a former University of Idaho football player who converted to Islam.

The court ruled that Ashcroft did not clearly violate the 4th Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures.

FBI agents arrested Kidd in 2003 at Dulles Airport and detained him for 16 days in three different states as a material witness supposedly for a pending case. He was never charged and never called as a witness.
Kidd claimed Ashcroft abused his power by detaining him as a material witness. He also alleged the arrest was part of a bigger plan by the Bush administration to round up Muslims, regardless if whether they had ties to terrorism.

But the Supreme Court, in a ruling written by Justice Antonin Scalia, wrote: “The affidavit accompanying the warrant application (as al-Kidd concedes) gave individualized reasons to believe that he was a material witness and that he would soon disappear.”

“Qualified immunity gives government officials breathing room to make reasonable but mistaken judgments about open legal questions. When properly applied, it protects ‘all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law’,” the court wrote.

”We hold that an objectively reasonable arrest and detention of a material witness pursuant to a validly obtained warrant cannot be challenged as unconstitutional on the basis of allegations that the arresting authority had an improper motive. Because Ashcroft did not violate clearly established law, we need not address the more difficult question whether he enjoys absolute immunity.”

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor voted to overturn the lower court ruling, but conceded that the law in this area is not completely clear. Justice Elena Kagan did not participate.

Read Opinion

Justice Dept. Not Budging: Won’t Pay for $750,000 Car FBI Agent Smashed

Latest model of Ferrari F50

By Allan Lengel

 

DETROIT -- A Michigan insurance company insists it’s still not getting justice from the Justice Department.

The Associated Press reports that the Justice Department is still refusing to pay $750,000 to a Michigan insurance company for a stolen Ferrari F50 that was recovered, but then was wrecked while being driven by an FBI agent in Kentucky. The Justice Department has refused to release many documents to the insurance company about the incident involving the car that was stolen from a dealership in Rosemont, Pa.
A hearing on the matter is set for June 13 in Detroit.

The Justice Department claimed in a lawsuit filed by the Southfield, Mi. insurance company, Motors Insurance,  that it was immune to tort claims when law enforcement possesses certain goods, AP reported.

The rare car was stolen in 2003 and recovered five years later in Kentucky, AP reported. It became evidence in an ongoing probe.

In May 2009, FBI agent Fred Kingston was moving the car when he lost control and crashed into a curb.

Earl Albert Moore: Suspect In Columbine Mall Bombing Attempt

“The FBI identified a 65-year-old man with a raft of aliases as the suspect in the attempted bombing of a suburban shopping mall on the anniversary of the Columbine massacre and issued a nationwide alert Sunday, warning that he is probably armed and dangerous.

Earl Albert Moore is the lone suspect in the case, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said. It listed five aliases for him and said he had an ‘extensive’ criminal background.”
READ MORE

Investigators Looking For Who Planted Pipe Bomb at Colorado Mall

Investigators are searching for whoever planted a pipe bomb among propane gas tanks at the Southwest Plaza Mall in Littleton, Colorado shopping mall on the 12th anniversary of the Columbine massacre.


  The bomb and propane tanks were discovered after the fire department responded to a small fire at the mall. The bomb squad was called to defuse the bomb. The FBI has identified a person of interest, based on surveillance video:

The FBI has released these surveillance pictures of the man they are looking for. The subject is describe as a white male, with graying hair, a silver mustache, wearing a dark colored cap with a light colored logo on the front, gray and white horizontally striped shirt, dark jacket with silver buttons, blue jeans, and dark colored shoes.

Anyone with information about this man is asked to call Jefferson County Sheriff's Office tipline at (303) 271-5615.

Members of the Jefferson County Bomb Squad found two propane tanks and a pipe bomb inside the mall after a fire broke out near the food court. The mall is expected to remain closed until Thursday.

The fire started at about 11:50 a.m. Wednesday. By 11:59 firefighters had extinguished the fire. Firefighters found a suspicious device at the origin of the fire, including two propane tanks and what was later revealed to be a pipe bomb.

Posted by lawhawk