It’s difficult to find out where this information came from but it’s all over the news that the FBI spent three months investigating Tamerlan Tsarnaev. It’d be nice if we could see the reports about what was done by whom and when, but dealing with the FBI we can’t expect to be told anything. No one tells the FBI what to do unlike with any other police force in America that is responsible to someone else such as a mayor, board of selectmen, governor, or even like a sheriff, the electorate.
Here are the facts that we’ve learned about the initial investigation of Tamerlan Tsarnaev from the FBI as set forth in its recent statement: “The Tsarnaev assessment was thorough, comprehensive, and fully compliant with law and policy.” Who needs facts when conclusions will do.
But it didn’t end there, the Boston FBI SAC Richard DesLauriers assured us that “By their very nature, and in accordance with U.S. constitutional restrictions, JTTF [which includes the FBI] members are limited in the types of investigative methods that can be utilized in an assessment.” Yesterday I underlined that statement so that you could remember it when I talked about it today.
I’ve noticed that the FBI has been putting out the idea that it did all it could under the Constitution and somehow was forced after exhausting all investigative techniques to close out the Tamerlan matter.
I don’t suppose many of you recall the name Jill Kelley. Maybe if I add to that the names David Petraeus and General John Allen. Maybe you’ll recall the investigation the FBI did back then when there was no evidence of a crime. That investigation of no crime started in the spring and it continued well into the fall. Since when is there some “time limit” on an FBI investigation.
In fact, as I noted last August,
“Right after 9/11 it eased rules on surveillance. It was given power to issue national security letters and it abused it. Last year it was reported that it planned to give the 14,000 agents the ability to act proactively and look for crimes.”
I went on: “These most recent changes in rules relate to an investigative category created in 2008 called an “assessment”. This allows agents to begin investigating people and organizations without firm evidence and without making any record of it. They can examine databases, administer lie detector tests, search people’s trash and surveil people using FBI teams for up to five times. This would be bad enough if the FBI followed its own rules but if the Connolly case which opened the door to its secret world demonstrated anything, as shown in Don’t Embarrass The Family, it is that the FBI doesn’t follow its own rules.
Why no record of what they are doing? Valerie E. Caproni, the F.B.I. general counsel said “it was too cumbersome to require agents to open formal inquiries before running quick checks.” All it involves is making a record of it like writing a name down on a piece of paper and giving it to a secretary! Why is that cumbersome when it comes to allowing an agent to use databases to mine for information on an American citizen?”
You see the truth is there is no limitation on what the FBI can do. The reason for this is that no one is watching it. It is free to do anything it wants. Remember in the 1950s and 1960s it had no problem opening the mail of Americans that came from overseas; in the 1950s and 1960s it also broke into the homes and offices of people to plant listening devices; in the late 1960s and thereafter it created a program that is still active today called the Top Echelon Informant program whereby it teams up with some top criminals to protect them and keep them safe so that it can get evidence against other criminals.
There are many other instances where it ignored the US Constitution when it felt the need to do so. To suggest that somehow there was a three month limit on its ability to investigate a foreign national who was identified as a potential terrorist is outrageous. It did not do a thorough and comprehensive assessment. Until we see otherwise, it looked like it did nothing but drop the ball.
I always was concerned in this topic and still am, thank you for putting up.
Sounds like Todarev had a quick jump. His arrest record indicates he probably enjoyed practicing it on people. That agent might of just been lucky to get a round off. Backed into a corner, these folks go down fighting.
Khalid:
Todashev seemed like a violent guy. Yet, the encounter seemed strange. I’d like to know more about it – don’t like the idea of a team going down from DC to look into this before it goes public – you know getting the ducks in order.
A more nuanced perspective on the mind and motives of Tamerlan Tsarnaev has begun to emerge. The recent, and, most perplexing, demise of his associate in Florida, at the hands of the FBI, raises a number of interesting questions. What was the extent of Tsarnaev’s activity in the illegal drug business? Was Brendan Mess part of Tamerlan’s distribution network? Did Brendan Mess provide information to the police concerning Tamerlan’s drug dealing operation?
Perhaps, a cultural investigation can help untie some of the riddle. To which Chechen clan does the Tsarnaev family belong? With which tribal association of Chechen clans does the Tsarnaev clan affiliate? Do Mr.,and, Mrs. Tsarnaev, Tamerlan’s parents, belong to a criminal sub-culture in the Chechen immigrant community?
Wallahi! The plot is thickening.
Khalid:
There’s a lot going on that does not make sense. A knife or no knife? How many people questioning the victim. It’ll be interesting to see what we learn. I see the Herald is already reporting the deceased was a violent many. That does not mean you can shoot him.
Why no record of what they are doing?
Matt,
All I can say is that I have a personal experience that may answer the above question. I have posted on nhjustice.net a series of communications that I had with the Boston FBI beginning around 1994 and ending sometime in 1997. I received a phone call from one of the agents with whom I had been communicating. He told me all my files had been shredded. This was in 1997, and believe at that time is when Judge Wolf learned that Whitey Bulger was a TEI.
I asked for an investigation. I am still asking. There has been no response. Incorporated in those communications was my statement that I believed the person who had extorted me in 1989, and then disappeared, using the name of John Iuele was none other than Whitey Bulger. Other circumstantial evidence would allow for this conjecture.
If my conjecture was not accurate, why could not the FBI just come out and say I was barking up the wrong tree? Instead when the AUSA from the Organized Crime Task Force in Eastern Pennsylvania in USA v Rennert requested to extend the investigation into John Iuele and Gene Phillips it was shut down. I was given no reason except that the decision came from FBI HQ. And, then based upon that conjecture, among other statements about Enron’s Kenneth Lay, the State of New Hampshire diagnosed me as ‘not competent’, and the Laconia District Court affirmed and Order it so.
So when you write, “You see the truth is there is no limitation on what the FBI can do. The reason for this is that no one is watching it. It is free to do anything it wants.” I can associate with that statement. It has been true in my family’s experience.
Jean:
That has been true for a lot of Americans, the FBI does what it wants to do. There’s not much any of us can do about it.