Classified Terror Watch List of Potential Terrorists Too Vast to Surveil – Tamerlan Was On It – Judge Showed Up – Mirandized Dzho, FBI Not Ready

April 25, 2013

Four quick hits: 1) Tamerlan Tsarnaev's name was on a "classified government watch list." Of what use is a "classified" watch list, and more specifically, a classified watch list that is too big to surveil? 2) Fox News reported tonight at about 11:30 pm CDT that the FBI doesn't know who called the judge to Mirandize Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and the intimation was that they were not ready for the Mirandizing, 3) The FBI says in 2011 Tamerlan sent a text message to his mother saying he was "willing to die for Islam," 4) More than a year ago, the CIA reportedly asked the "main U.S. counterterrorism agency" to add Tamerlan's name to a "watch list." What's happening in the U.S. when the CIA has to submit a name and then has no control or sway over what happens with that name. The answer is…Janet Napolitano happened.

Courtesy of Foreign Policy Blog (click to visit)

The mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, may be planning to come to the U.S. with her husband, from whom she is divorced, to claim the body of her son, who she says is not dead. The mother, a "devout Muslim" likely fled the U.S. after being charged with stealing almost $2000 in clothing from a Lord & Taylor. There is a warrant for her arrest in this country. My bet: she stays home.

About that federal "classified government watch list (you'll love this):

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was listed on the U.S. government's highly classified central database of people it views as potential terrorists. But the list is so vast that this did not mean authorities automatically kept close tabs on him, sources close to the bombing investigation said on Tuesday.
The sources said Tamerlan Tsarnaev's details were entered into TIDE, a database maintained by the National Counterterrorism Center, because the FBI spoke to him in 2011 while investigating a Russian tip-off that he had become a follower of radical Islamists.
As of 2008, TIDE contained more than 540,000 names, although they represented about 450,000 actual people, because some of the entries are aliases or different name spellings for the same person. Fewer than 5 percent of the TIDE entries were U.S. citizens or legal residents, according to a description of the database on the NCTC website.
The TIDE database is one of many federal security databases set up after the September 11, 2001, attacks. The database system has been criticized in the past for being too cumbersome, especially in light of an attempted attack on a plane in 2009. Intelligence and security agencies acknowledged in Congress that they had missed clues to the Detroit "underpants bomber" Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Officials said after the incident that he had been listed in the TIDE database. Source: Fox News

TIDE = Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment. Is that not the stupidest acronym you can think of for a list of potential terrorists.

Here's more: Tamerlan was also on a declassified terror watch list, and we still couldn't stop him.

Judge Marianne Bowler Mirandized Dzhokhar Tsarnaev:

The FBI filed a federal criminal complaint against the 19-year-old on Sunday, and federal District Court Judge Marianne Bowler arrived at the hospital where he is being treated to preside over his initial hearing Monday, when she read him his Miranda rights.
But Fox News' sources say there was confusion about Bowler's timing, with some voicing concerns that investigators were not given enough time to question Dzhokhar under the "public safety exception" invoked by the Justice Department.
Two officials with knowledge of the FBI briefing on Capitol Hill said the FBI was against stopping the investigators' questioning and was stunned that the judge, Justice Department prosecutors and public defenders showed up, feeling valuable intelligence may have been sacrificed as a result.
The FBI had been questioning Tsarnaev for 16 hours before the judge called a start to the court proceeding, officials familiar with the Capitol Hill briefing told Fox News.

Rep. Peter King (R-NY) is on with Greta Van Susteran this minute saying the FBI were questioning Dzhokhar when a U.S. Attorney and the magistrate judge showed up and Mirandized Suspect No. 2 – the one who killed at least one, Martin Richard and gravely wounded the little sister and mother, and no doubt numerous others.

"Highly classified" watch list of "potential terrorists" – just doesn't make sense. Umar Faroud Abdulmutallab the Underwear Bomber was also on the list. And who sent that magistrate judge to the hospital?

Thursday, April 25, 2013