So Elder Tsarniev was not only on the FBI counterterrorism watch list, was not only being monitored by Russian security, he had also been monitored and observed by the CIA.
It's sinful and it makes me feel like shit, but I almost feel like these scumbags did the United States a favor. They did Boston no favors, they did nothing good for the thousands directly impacted by the bombings, they killed an 8-year-old with a pressure cooker filled with nails and ball bearings and I doubt either one of them would be happy to hear the favor I'm accusing them of, but I'll accuse them of it anyway.
I hope the young one lives a long time. I hope we lock him away and drag him out regularly to remind people that terrorism looks a lot more like Lee Boyd Malvo than Osama Bin Laden. I hope we slowly learn to recognize that if having three intelligence agencies watch over our citizens doesn't prevent crime, then maybe we should value civil liberties a little more.
Definitely not criticizing your logic here, but my assumption is that the government, in all its infinite wisdom, will go in the exact opposite direction. "More information!" will doubtlessly be the battle cry here. Its the way unimaginative sorts always try to solve problems. After all, if you're not a communist, oops, I mean terrorist, then you don't have anything to worry about, right?I hope we slowly learn to recognize that if having three intelligence agencies watch over our citizens doesn't prevent crime, then maybe we should value civil liberties a little more.
You would think that, except for the fact that our problem is not data collection, it's data analysis. This was the argument against Total Information Awareness - a number of intelligence professionals observed that even before TIA, attempting to get useful data out of the available information was like trying to find a haystack in a haystack of haystacks. There's also the fact that the "warrantless wiretapping" we all found out about in 2005 wasn't so much a bunch of spooks eavesdropping. The NSA *literally* put a split on the sum total communications traffic in the United States and duped it.. That's all the traffic. ALL of it. Every bit of telecom going into or coming out of the United States. Every last bit. Every one, every zero. So - between 2002 and NOW the NSA has had every single bit of voice and data traffic in the United States. Are we safer? Is there anything left to grab? 'cuz if it can be put on copper or fiber, we've already got it. (*by the way, The Shadow Factory is a hell of a read*)
Good point. Maybe the NSA should start sponsoring graduate and postdoc fellowships for information processing and informatics research. I'm sure they could do it clandestinely through some shadow organization. Hell, maybe they already do. Obviously, having a bunch of data is useless if you don't know what to do with it (see Obama's BRAIN initiative for a great example of another policy of this sort).
Maybe the NSA should start sponsoring graduate and postdoc fellowships for information processing and informatics research.
Seems to me he was essentially only on TIDE, which sounds like basically a catch-all list (700000? come the fuck on, odds are someone on hubski knows someone on that list), because he was Chechen? I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks as though the only reason Tamerlan was on any watch lists initially was because the Russians were interested in him and he was Chechen. Later, his status got upgraded because he went home for a while. Frankly, I'm not seeing what else the CIA could have done in this situation. Deportation -- well, yeah, but without cause that's an argument for liberals in the other direction. Odd story.The first Russian request came in March 2011 through the F.B.I.’s office in the United States Embassy in Moscow. The one-page request said Mr. Tsarnaev “had changed drastically since 2010” and was preparing to travel to a part of Russia “to join unspecified underground groups.”
This is so fucking odd. Did we just choose not to believe the Russians because we assumed they had ulterior motives toward a Chechen national? I mean, I can understand that to an extent. They probably do.The agents concluded by June 2011 that they could not find any connections to extremists, and in August the results of the assessment were provided to the Russians, according to the United States official. At the time, F.B.I. agents requested additional information on Mr. Tsarnaev and asked to be informed of any further developments.
It seems to me that it's possible the guy just hadn't done anything worth throwing him out of the country for.
The whole point, as far as I'm concerned, is there are 700,000 people being inconvenienced (close friends of mine - she's Persian, he's Moroccan - are on that list and lemme tell ya, it's not a transparent thing), persecuted and otherwise hassled and the list isn't even good enough to flag someone for "hey maybe we ought to watch this guy more closely." If it can't do that, what is it doing, exactly? It's not like maintaining a database of three quarters of a million potential terrorists is free or easy. there's money and effort being spent there. What's the point? I thought if we had people on watch lists, they were being "watched." Now it appears that they're not "watch" lists but "black" lists, which in the case of an extremist who feels persecuted for his race or religious identity, can only fuel the fire. Terrorists aren't 3rd-worlders from Waziristan, they're educated and disaffected young men who grow up surrounded by privilege they can't partake in. In this case, that "watch" list isn't just useless, it's actually harmful.
Here's the thing about this Boston situation, though -- as far as I can tell the CIA really didn't have any reason to put Tsarnaev on a black list except that the Russians had an eye on him, which if he's Chechen barely means anything. He should have been on a watch list, probably (although putting people on watch solely for their nationality is a hazy path that ends in internment camps). So yes, the watch list is a dangerous joke and it's good that this issue put some light on it and so on. But with regard to Tsarnaev, I don't think there's much blame to be put on them. It's just one of those things that happens.Now it appears that they're not "watch" lists but "black" lists
Exactly, and I'm sorry for your friends. I have some close Pakistani friends with family ties to the their government who go home every few years; I'm 100 percent sure they're on that list.
To clarify - I'm not blaming anyone (other than the Tsarnaev brothers). It is my studied opinion that idealistic terrorism is invariably the actions of lone players or small groups of disconnected individuals united by ideology. I'm arguing that the approach of "watch everybody" is a demonstrable failure and should therefore be retired in order to focus on approaches less Orwellian in nature. I suspect that if you asked the average rank'n'file law enforcement officer, they would tell you that "watch everybody" is impossible, is expensive, is inconvenient, and tends to force "data-driven" investigation rather than "lead-driven" investigation.
Okay, yeah. I agree (although I can see the similar argument that "watch every place" is impossible in the offing). To me, it's all about selectivity on both counts. It's something I'm becoming increasingly interested in. Anyway, as far as alternative solutions go, "lead-driven" investigation is a bit of an oversimplification, don't you think? Some leads come from surveillance, few as they may be. If "watch everybody" doesn't work, it's our responsibility to make sure we have a better idea before we scrap the Orwellian approach.
Not really. Warrants are not difficult to get. "We want to watch this guy because he talked to a guy who talked to a guy who blew up a bus in tel aviv." "We want to watch this guy because he petitioned his cable company to carry Al Jazeera." "We want to watch this guy because his cousin is Osama Bin Laden." What we've got now is "we want to watch the following 700,000 people because." If you start from what you know and work your way in, you get very different results if you start with a statistical analysis and work your way out. Not everyone named Moammar who lives in Detroit and speaks ill of the Invasion of Iraq is worthy of monitoring, which is why they get added to a list.Anyway, as far as alternative solutions go, "lead-driven" investigation is a bit of an oversimplification, don't you think?
"We want to watch this guy because he's from Chechnya"? Dangerous territory. I can't shake the feeling that a lot of these guys, especially ones who commit deliberate acts of terror, are trained to keep their heads down. Sure, you've got the ones that spout off on message boards, but that can't be the majority, can it? And what about all the shooters whose families say afterward, "this is insane, how could this have been my nice level-headed nephew" etc? There are a lot of holes in your solution, and a lot of holes in our current system.
A while back Hasan Elahi stopped by Hubski and talked a bit about his experience being on the watch list. As you may already know, his response was to start a site that gives 24/7 updates on where he is, what he buys and eats etc so that the FBI need not hassle him. It's a great commentary on the ridiculousness of the situation. I think b_b said it well in the comments "Its simultaneous mocking and capitulating to the New World Order." Care to elaborate on some of the inconveniences your friends have experienced? I dont doubt that they occur, im genuinely curious as to what they amount to. My guess is they are mostly travel related.
Entirely travel-related. Here's where things went completely around the bend with the TSA... We won't even get started on the piano.
At least they're in good company, Donnie Darko was a great film.
I think the problem is that it contains almost 700,000 names.That database, the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or TIDE, contains about 700,000 names. It is the main repository from which other government watch lists are drawn, including the F.B.I.’s Terrorist Screening Database and the Transportation Security Administration’s “no fly” list.
srsly? And you would be okay with the government collecting all that information on you? Also google ads are relevant but they are easy for them to figure out. If someone is googling for powertools start showing them ads for that. Do you want the government to start arresting people based on google searches? I also fairly often get google ads in my gmail that are in Chinese because I have a friend who sends me random chinese IMs that I don't understand.