Boston Marathon bombings.......

[Kobi]

Originally Posted by Kobi

Martin Richard was standing near the finish line, waiting for his father to complete the grueling Boston Marathon on Monday, when an explosion took his life.

He was 8 years old and in the third grade.

Neighbor Jane Sherman told WCVB that Martin was a typical little boy, who loved to ride his bike and play baseball.

Martin's mother, Denise, was hospitalized with "grievous injuries," The Times of London reported. She reportedly underwent surgery late Monday for an injury to her brain.

His 6-year-old sister, a first grader whose name was not made public, lost her leg in the blast, WHDH reported.

The status of his father, William, has not been released. A third child was reportedly unharmed in the explosion.

The Richard family hails from the Ashmont section of Dorchester, Mass.

The initial report of the circumstances surrounding Martin's death were erroneous. Now, it is being reported that the father was not running in the race this year. The family were spectators.

[Kobi]

Krystle Campbell, of Medford Ma, a 29-year-old restaurant manager has been identified as one of three people killed in the bombing at the Boston Marathon.

Her father says Campbell had gone with her best friend to take a picture of the friend’s boyfriend crossing the finish line on Monday afternoon.

[wahya]

Wanted to throw this out for all my local friends in New England..From my Church.
TOMORROW (Wednesday the 17th) @ 4:30 The Woo Church.

Interfaith Virgil of Peace at Worcester City Hall Plaza - join your neighbors and friends for this service of solidarity, memory and peace following the tragic events at the Boston Marathon yesterday.

[Corkey]

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...type=1&theater

FBI releases photo of suspected Boston bombers. If *you* have any info go to FBI.gov.

[Kobi]

BOSTON—A late-night police chase and shootout has left one marathon bombing suspect dead and another on the run, police here said, as residents of the still-grieving city were ordered by officials to "shelter in place" while the manhunt continues. One police officer was killed and another was seriously wounded during the violent spree.

The Associated Press identified the surviving Boston bomb suspect as Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, of Cambridge, Mass., and said that the suspects were brothers. The second bombing suspect is Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, according to NBC News, who was found with an IED on his body. The brothers are of Chechen origin, according to NBC, a volatile part of Russia's North Caucasus.

The suspects' uncle told the local CBS News station that the pair had lived in the country since 2001.

At sunrise, Gov. Deval Patrick ordered a shutdown of all public transit and residents on the edges of Boston to stay indoors as a massive manhunt for the second suspect was underway. The entire city in Boston was under a shelter in place order by late Friday morning.

“This is situation is grave and we are trying to protect the public safety,” said Massachusetts State Police Col. Timothy Alben, who ordered a lockdown of Watertown, Waltham, Belmont, Cambridge, Newton, Allston and Brighton. A no fly zone has been declared over Watertown.


http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/...064355149.html
----------------------------

[Wolfsong]

From one pair of Sox to another.......

Look this not reading him his Miranda rights thing is really bugging me. One of the most difficult things about the responsibility of freedom is living up to your own standards. Although we would prefer this kid's head on a stick, I am telling you that most of us are one color triangle or another away from a public safety exception.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is a suspect that has not been convicted of anything yet. As an American citizen he is entitled to a fair and impartial trail by a jury of his peers. Authorities have already withdrawn the charges of these brothers robbing the 7/11.


Although I am NOT in favor of letting someone who murdered Americans free....I do however support and defend the Constitution of the United States......that means the kid gets a fair trial. He is still a US citizen. We ought to live by what we fought for. If we don't what's it worth?

[Kobi]

Originally Posted by Wolfsong

From one pair of Sox to another.......

Look this not reading him his Miranda rights thing is really bugging me. One of the most difficult things about the responsibility of freedom is living up to your own standards. Although we would prefer this kid's head on a stick, I am telling you that most of us are one color triangle or another away from a public safety exception.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is a suspect that has not been convicted of anything yet. As an American citizen he is entitled to a fair and impartial trail by a jury of his peers. Authorities have already withdrawn the charges of these brothers robbing the 7/11.


Although I am NOT in favor of letting someone who murdered Americans free....I do however support and defend the Constitution of the United States......that means the kid gets a fair trial. He is still a US citizen. We ought to live by what we fought for. If we don't what's it worth?

I understand what you are saying. It just isn't that simple anymore. The Obama administration made the rules more flexible when it comes to terrorism suspects. They did it back in 2010.

From the WSJ:

Matthew Miller, a Justice Department spokesman, said the memo ensures that "law enforcement has the ability to question suspected terrorists without immediately providing Miranda warnings when the interrogation is reasonably prompted by immediate concern for the safety of the public or the agents." He said "the threat posed by terrorist organizations and the nature of their attacks—which can include multiple accomplices and interconnected plots—creates fundamentally different public safety concerns than traditional criminal cases."

Attorney General Eric Holder suggested changing the guidelines last year after dust-ups over Miranda's use in two major domestic-terror arrests. The suspect in the Christmas Day 2009 bombing, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was questioned by FBI agents for less than an hour before being read his rights. Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad was questioned for three hours.

In both cases, the administration said suspects provided valuable information to the FBI despite being advised of their rights. But the decision nonetheless provoked criticism from Republicans and some Democrats who said an opportunity to gain time-sensitive intelligence was lost.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...LEFTTopStories


And, from the NYT:

WASHINGTON — The Federal Bureau of Investigation has instructed agents to interrogate suspected “operational terrorists” about immediate threats to public safety without advising them of their Miranda rights to remain silent and to have an attorney present.

A three-page F.B.I. memorandum, dated Oct. 21, 2010, also encouraged agents to use a broad interpretation of public safety-related questions. It said that the “magnitude and complexity” of the terrorist threat justified “a significantly more extensive public safety interrogation without Miranda warnings than would be permissible in an ordinary criminal case.”

“Depending on the facts, such interrogation might include, for example, questions about possible impending or coordinated terrorist attacks; the location, nature and threat posed by weapons that might post an imminent danger to the public; and the identities, locations, and activities or intentions of accomplices who may be plotting additional imminent attacks,” the memo said.

In the Miranda case, the Supreme Court ruled that if prosecutors want to use statements made by the defendant while in custody against him, police must have warned him of his rights before those statements were made. The court later created an exception for answers to questions about immediate threats to public safety.


It is a slippery constitutional slope when one has to weigh protecting the public from imminent danger vs. the rights of one person. I don't usually use Star trek quotes in a serious matter but this fits. "Do needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one."

I don't know the answer.

If I am reading the articles correctly, any self incriminating evidence discovered prior to his Miranda rights can not be used against him in a court of law either. So, it potentially makes charging and prosecuting him a tad more difficult.

But, these are the implications that came with the Patriot Act and 9/11. Anyone, citizen or not, suspected of potential terrorist activities or who is thought to have information about such activities are potentially subject to the same actions. Our houses can be searched without our knowledge or a court order, we can be held without charges or an attorney, we can be questioned without the right to know our rights and without the benefits of an attorney etc.

It's disturbing. It was disturbing to see Boston on lockdown. It was disturbing to see armored vehicles and military/law enforcement people with semi automatic weapons flooding the streets of Watertown. It was disturbing to see a swarm of armed people doing house to house searches. It was disturbing to have shootouts in a residential area. It reminded me of something I have seen in footage from Iran/Iraq/Afghanistan.

Is this the price we pay for the illusion of safety? I dunno. Scary and unsettling shit.

This article was interesting and informative as well:

What rights should Dzhokhar Tsarnaev get and why does it matter?

[Wolfsong]

Originally Posted by Kobi

It is a slippery constitutional slope when one has to weigh protecting the public from imminent danger vs. the rights of one person. I don't usually use Star trek quotes in a serious matter but this fits. "Do needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one."

I don't know the answer.

If I am reading the articles correctly, any self incriminating evidence discovered prior to his Miranda rights can not be used against him in a court of law either. So, it potentially makes charging and prosecuting him a tad more difficult.

But, these are the implications that came with the Patriot Act and 9/11. Anyone, citizen or not, suspected of potential terrorist activities or who is thought to have information about such activities are potentially subject to the same actions. Our houses can be searched without our knowledge or a court order, we can be held without charges or an attorney, we can be questioned without the right to know our rights and without the benefits of an attorney etc.

It's disturbing. It was disturbing to see Boston on lockdown. It was disturbing to see armored vehicles and military/law enforcement people with semi automatic weapons flooding the streets of Watertown. It was disturbing to see a swarm of armed people doing house to house searches. It was disturbing to have shootouts in a residential area. It reminded me of something I have seen in footage from Iran/Iraq/Afghanistan.

Is this the price we pay for the illusion of safety? I dunno. Scary and unsettling shit.

Good points all Kobi. I guess my line in the sand is this, and at any point the government takes a constitutional right away from a single person and justifies it under the guise of public safety my hackles raise a bit. All it takes is a single case to set a precedent.

Respectfully and carefully here.....I am going to point out a moment in history. The persecution of the Jews by Nazis did not start with concentration camps.

"Once in power, Hitler moved quickly to end German democracy. He convinced his cabinet to invoke emergency clauses of the constitution that permitted the suspension of individual freedoms of press, speech, and assembly. Special security forces—the Gestapo, the Storm Troopers (SA), and the SS--murdered or arrested leaders of opposition political parties (Communists, socialists, and liberals). The Enabling Act of March 23, 1933--forced through the Reichstag already purged of many political opponents--gave dictatorial powers to Hitler."

"In 1933, new German laws forced Jews out of their civil service jobs, university and law court positions, and other areas of public life. In April 1933, laws proclaimed at Nuremberg made Jews second-class citizens. These Nuremberg Laws defined Jews, not by their religion or by how they wanted to identify themselves, but by the religious affiliation of their grandparents. Between 1937 and 1939, new anti-Jewish regulations segregated Jews further and made daily life very difficult for them. Jews could not attend public schools; go to theaters, cinema, or vacation resorts; or reside or even walk in certain sections of German cities." (My Jewish Learning - 2013)

I am not saying that our government is anything like the Third Reich. I am saying that we as free citizens in a democracy need to be aware when boundaries are crossed, or about to be crossed, so that we don't find ourselves further down this path that anyone ever intended. I have been contemptuous of the Patriot Act since it was first conceived and that is about as close as I come to siding with the ideas of local militia groups. In my opinion it is dangerous to all of us.

[Kobi]

Massachusetts' welfare agency says public interest in case trumps privacy rights

BOSTON —Reversing course once again, Massachusetts' welfare agency made available new details Friday about state benefits received by the family of the Boston bombing suspects, saying public interest in the case trumped the privacy rights of Tamerlan and Dzokhar Tsarnaev.

Questions about the brothers' time on welfare began to surface Wednesday when the Boston Herald reported that they had received benefits and the state confirmed some of the details. But the next day, the department said it had made a mistake and should have refrained from releasing the benefits information because of state and federal privacy rules.

On Friday, however, a letter from the interim commissioner of the state Department of Transitional Assistance, Stacey Monahan, was released to the news media along with an explanation from her that she now believed "the public interest outweighs the privacy interests of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in this instance."

Read more: http://www.wcvb.com/news/local/metro...#ixzz2RbPJUCi1

--------------------------------------


I have seen a lot of bizarre things occur under the guise of national security but this has got to be one of most idiotic rationalizations I have ever seen.

[Kobi]

Former GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul has slammed US law enforcement for responding to the Boston Marathon bombing with “police state tactics.”

In a post on the website of libertarian activist Lew Rockwell, Mr. Paul said Monday that the governmental reaction to the tragic explosions was worse than the attack itself. The forced lockdown of much of the Boston area, police riding armored vehicles through the streets, and door-to-door searches without warrants were all reminiscent of a military coup or martial law, Paul added.

“The Boston bombing provided the opportunity for the government to turn what should have been a police investigation into a military-style occupation of an American city,” according to Paul.

Furthermore, this response did not result in the capture of suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Paul charged. He was discovered hiding in a boat by a private citizen, who called police.

“And he was identified not by government surveillance cameras, but by private citizens who willingly shared their photographs with the police,” Paul wrote on Lew Rockwell’s site.

Yikes. This isn’t going to go down well in Watertown, is it? Citizens there applauded when police finally carted off Tsarnaev alive. The Boston police commissioner told his troops over the radio that “it’s a proud day to be a Boston police officer.” In the wake of the suspect’s capture the media have generally portrayed law enforcement officers as heroes.

But Paul’s contrarian take perhaps should not be surprising. After all, he’s a committed libertarian who at one point in the GOP presidential debates said that the border fence with Mexico might at some point be used to keep US citizens penned in.

And while Paul’s position here is, um, not in the majority, there are other public figures who charge that the Boston response was overkill. In some ways this is one of those points in the circle of American politics were conservative libertarianism and liberal progressivism meet.

The generally left-leaning Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald, for instance, told PBS host Bill Moyers over the weekend that the public lionization of police in the wake of the Boston bombing isn’t necessarily a good thing.

“The way in which Americans now related to their government, the way in which they get nationalistic pride is through the assertion of this massive military or police force, and very few other things produce that kind of pride,” Greenwald said. “I think [this] shows a lot about our value systems and what the government is failing to do. And that’s the way in which this culture becomes coarsened.”

However, state and local officials have continued to defend their decision to shut down much of Boston for the Tsarnaev manhunt. At the time they did not know whether the suspect had more explosives or fellow conspirators, and they did not want to risk another tragedy.

“I think we did what we should have done and were supposed to do with the always-imperfect information that you have at the time,” Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) said at a news conference last week.

And Paul in particular is now drawing criticism for the company he keeps. Lew Rockwell, Paul’s former congressional chief of staff, now heads the Ludwig von Mises Institute, a think tank with “deep ties to the neo-Confederate movement,” which believes the wrong side won the Civil War, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

As a Paul employee, Rockwell oversaw newsletters published under the former congressman’s name that contained controversial statements about race, homosexuality, and other hot-button topics.

Furthermore, Paul’s own new organization, the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, has an advisory board that contains a “bevy of conspiracy theorists, cranks, and apologists for some of the worst regimes on the planet,” according to Daily Beast writer James Kirchik.

These include Southwestern Law School professor Butler Shaffer, who has written a post for the Lew Rockwell website titled “9/11 was a conspiracy,” notes the Daily Beast.

http://news.yahoo.com/ron-paul-slams...170321289.html
----------------------


Controversial point of view but, in some respects, his opinion merits consideration.

[Wolfsong]

Originally Posted by Kobi

In a post on the website of libertarian activist Lew Rockwell, Mr. Paul said Monday that the governmental reaction to the tragic explosions was worse than the attack itself. The forced lockdown of much of the Boston area, police riding armored vehicles through the streets, and door-to-door searches without warrants were all reminiscent of a military coup or martial law, Paul added.

“The Boston bombing provided the opportunity for the government to turn what should have been a police investigation into a military-style occupation of an American city,” according to Paul.

Furthermore, this response did not result in the capture of suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Paul charged. He was discovered hiding in a boat by a private citizen, who called police.

“And he was identified not by government surveillance cameras, but by private citizens who willingly shared their photographs with the police,” Paul wrote on Lew Rockwell’s site.

Originally Posted by Kobi

“The way in which Americans now related to their government, the way in which they get nationalistic pride is through the assertion of this massive military or police force, and very few other things produce that kind of pride,” Greenwald said. “I think [this] shows a lot about our value systems and what the government is failing to do. And that’s the way in which this culture becomes coarsened.”

A couple of things about this bother me. This article sounds reasonable at first, and then throws in what fodder that will paint Paul a crackpot seems almost to be an effort to get people to write off what's being said. The problem is that on some of these points he is right. We can't be so eager to resolve something that we are willing to throw away the very essence of what makes us free people.

Who's heartstrings weren't tugged by the cop delivering a couple of gallons of milk to family that was "sheltering in place"? Who wasn't happy that these guys were caught really quickly? Nobody....and nobody should have been (unhappy that is). The thing is that I don't think people really realize that not only did they throw the 4th amendment right out the window in the process, but people applauded them doing so. People are saying "Well so what something needed to be done in the greater interest of the public." WTF really?

[Kobi]

Originally Posted by Wolfsong

A couple of things about this bother me. This article sounds reasonable at first, and then throws in what fodder that will paint Paul a crackpot seems almost to be an effort to get people to write off what's being said. The problem is that on some of these points he is right. We can't be so eager to resolve something that we are willing to throw away the very essence of what makes us free people.

Who's heartstrings weren't tugged by the cop delivering a couple of gallons of milk to family that was "sheltering in place"? Who wasn't happy that these guys were caught really quickly? Nobody....and nobody should have been (unhappy that is). The thing is that I don't think people really realize that not only did they throw the 4th amendment right out the window in the process, but people applauded them doing so. People are saying "Well so what something needed to be done in the greater interest of the public." WTF really?

I hear you and agree with you.

I'm glad Paul had the guts to buck the trend and ask the pertinent questions here. They need to be asked. We, as a people, need to articulate and struggle with these questions and more.

We need to struggle with our response to terrorist type acts and how we are willing to put the constitution aside to deal with them. We need to look at why we feel pride, relief, and have the need to clap when law enforcement, en masse, rolls into Boston with incredible speed and impressive military type equipment to combat a problem. (Pun intended)

We need to look at how we are becoming programmed to accept this culture of fear and the type of responses we are told are necessary to deal with real, potential, and imaged threats.

We also need to deal with what has our country done and what does our country continues to do to spur such hatred toward its citizens. Of course that would mean filtering through the decades of rhetoric to find the truth and be willing to face it. It would mean having to take off the rose colored glasses of how we can do no wrong, come to grips with being human beings with selfish agendas that pissed off other peoples who now have the audacity to fight back. WTF is up with that. (Yes Sheldon that was sarcasm.)

We also need to ask how Obama can reassure us this was not an intelligence error when stories are emerging to the contrary.

And, as an aside, we should ask why was it necessary to delve into how much and what kind of public assistance did this family receive at the time when Congress was debating the immigration bill. Coincidence or strategy?

Einstein said: “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

Seems to me that is exactly what we are trying to do.

[Wolfsong]

Originally Posted by Kobi

I hear you and agree with you.

I'm glad Paul had the guts to buck the trend and ask the pertinent questions here. They need to be asked. We, as a people, need to articulate and struggle with these questions and more.

We need to struggle with our response to terrorist type acts and how we are willing to put the constitution aside to deal with them. We need to look at why we feel pride, relief, and have the need to clap when law enforcement, en masse, rolls into Boston with incredible speed and impressive military type equipment to combat a problem. (Pun intended)

Originally Posted by Kobi

We need to look at how we are becoming programmed to accept this culture of fear and the type of responses we are told are necessary to deal with real, potential, and imaged threats.

Well, if we were to do anything I honestly believe that we need to treat terrorism as an adaptation to how war is conducted. Consider this.... for hundreds of years (from God knows when and even up to the American Civil War) combatants lined up across a field from each other and in very general terms whoever had the most guy to lose ends up the victor. During the Revolutionary War the British had fits because the colonists adapted Native American battle tactics (the Natives thought it a good trade off as they adapted the use of firearms). My 20th Century Military History professor asserted that this adaptation was one of the most significant events in the history of war. I'm not certain that I disagree. So now we are facing tactics that do not fit what we know to be the conduct of war. We are now the ones having fits because it is now not on soil thousands of miles away, but happening here in our own homes. We need to find best practices for fighting this war or we will continue to die. We can start by actually acknowledging that these are acts of war and not isolated incidents of nuts with bombs.

Originally Posted by Kobi

We also need to deal with what has our country done and what does our country continues to do to spur such hatred toward its citizens. Of course that would mean filtering through the decades of rhetoric to find the truth and be willing to face it. It would mean having to take off the rose colored glasses of how we can do no wrong, come to grips with being human beings with selfish agendas that pissed off other peoples who now have the audacity to fight back. WTF is up with that. (Yes Sheldon that was sarcasm.)

Bazinga. Although Kobi I have to stop right where you said "have the audacity to fight back." Fight back?

Listen I'm not so steeped in American patriotism that I fail to recognize that some horrific things have happened and that those things have caused people to suffer needlessly. We've also participated in things that were really none of our business. Take the 1953 coup and U.S. support for the shah of Iran, and then the reversal later in supporting Iraq against Iran for example. That was all about the oil and nothing to do with human rights or preservation of freedom.

Originally Posted by Kobi

We also need to ask how Obama can reassure us this was not an intelligence error when stories are emerging to the contrary.

He can't. Obama is in an interesting position now. Short of finding something to impeach him for, he's basically untouchable. Although I am certain someone somewhere will find a reason that it is his fault. Oh hey what the hell.....a lot of people blamed the Titanic's sinking on Bruce Ismay right? It had nothing to do with the jokers actually driving the ship or the radio operators taking allowing rich passengers to overburden the system so that actual important messages are delayed in being delivered right?

I find it embarrassing and an unfortunate state of affairs that some Republicans would rather vote no on something that would better us as a people (like some of the current gun control measures - background checks) than vote yes for something that would be historically viewed as a presidential win. (Some actually admitted to this as revealed recently and aired on CNN yesterday) I think every one of those SOBs should be fired right now, just take their office key and tell them to kick rocks.

Originally Posted by Kobi

And, as an aside, we should ask why was it necessary to delve into how much and what kind of public assistance did this family receive at the time when Congress was debating the immigration bill. Coincidence or strategy?

No, that was on purpose

[Kobi]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Homeland Security Department ordered its border agents ‘‘effective immediately’’ to verify that every international student who arrives in the U.S. has a valid student visa, according to an internal memorandum obtained Friday by The Associated Press. The new procedure is the government’s first security change directly related to the Boston bombings.

The order from a senior official at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, David J. Murphy, was circulated Thursday and came one day after the Obama administration acknowledged that a student from Kazakhstan accused of hiding evidence for one of the Boston bombing suspects was allowed to return to the U.S. in January without a valid student visa.

The student visa for Azamat Tazhayakov had been terminated when he arrived in New York on Jan. 20. But the border agent in the airport did not have access to the information about it in the Homeland Security Department’s Student and Exchange Visitor Information System.

A spokesman for the department, Peter Boogaard, said earlier this week that the government was working to fix the problem, which allowed Tazhayakov to be admitted into the country when he returned to the U.S.

Tazhayakov and a second Kazakh student were arrested this week on federal charges of obstruction of justice. They were accused of helping to get rid of a backpack containing fireworks owned by bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. A third student was also arrested and accused of lying to authorities.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/mas...k4M/story.html

[Wolfsong]

Originally Posted by Kobi

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Homeland Security Department ordered its border agents ‘‘effective immediately’’ to verify that every international student who arrives in the U.S. has a valid student visa, according to an internal memorandum obtained Friday by The Associated Press. The new procedure is the government’s first security change directly related to the Boston bombings.

The order from a senior official at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, David J. Murphy, was circulated Thursday and came one day after the Obama administration acknowledged that a student from Kazakhstan accused of hiding evidence for one of the Boston bombing suspects was allowed to return to the U.S. in January without a valid student visa.

The student visa for Azamat Tazhayakov had been terminated when he arrived in New York on Jan. 20. But the border agent in the airport did not have access to the information about it in the Homeland Security Department’s Student and Exchange Visitor Information System.

A spokesman for the department, Peter Boogaard, said earlier this week that the government was working to fix the problem, which allowed Tazhayakov to be admitted into the country when he returned to the U.S.

Tazhayakov and a second Kazakh student were arrested this week on federal charges of obstruction of justice. They were accused of helping to get rid of a backpack containing fireworks owned by bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. A third student was also arrested and accused of lying to authorities.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/mas...k4M/story.html

..... What happened here? The kid just said to the TSA agent......"I have no visa I am student......here is bottle of vodka for politsiya .....have good day....." and strolled on through?

[Kobi]

Originally Posted by Wolfsong

..... What happened here? The kid just said to the TSA agent......"I have no visa I am student......here is bottle of vodka for politsiya .....have good day....." and strolled on through?

The student visa for Azamat Tazhayakov had been terminated when he arrived in New York on Jan. 20. But the border agent in the airport did not have access to the information in the Homeland Security Department's Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, called SEVIS.

Tazhayakov was a friend and classmate of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Tazhayakov left the U.S. in December and returned Jan. 20. But in early January, his student-visa status was terminated because he was academically dismissed from the university.

A spokesman for the department, Peter Boogaard, said earlier this week that the government was working to fix the problem, which allowed Tazhayakov to be admitted into the country when he returned to the U.S.

Under existing procedures, border agents could verify a student's status in SEVIS only when the person was referred to a second officer for additional inspection or questioning. Tazhayakov was not sent to a second officer when he arrived, because, Boogaard said, there was no information to indicate Tazhayakov was a national security threat. Under the new procedures, all border agents were expected to be able to access SEVIS by next week.

The government for years has recognized as a problem the inability of border agents at primary inspection stations to directly review student-visa information. The Homeland Security Department was working before the bombings to resolve the problem, but the new memo outlined interim procedures until the situation was corrected.

Under the new procedures, border agents will verify a student's visa status before the person arrives in the U.S. using information provided in flight manifests. If that information is unavailable, border agents will check the visa status manually with the agency's national targeting data center.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/...#ixzz2SKNjABIy
--------------------

What is interesting is how Homeland Security knew this was an issue for years and was "working on a solution". Amazing how they managed to find a "solution" so quickly, after the fact, only when the issue found its way to the light of day and was connected to a terrorist incident.

The illusion of safety? An immigration issue? A convenient excuse to link immigration to terrorism? An example of how the rhetoric we are fed doesn't fit the reality?

[Kobi]

The search is on for a cemetery to bury Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev as protesters picket the funeral home holding his body.

Four cemeteries in three states have refused to accept the battered corpse of Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, said the Massachusetts funeral director tasked with finding his final resting place.

Peter Stefan, funeral director and owner of Graham Putnam & Mahoney Funeral Parlors in Worcester, Mass., tried to find a plot for Tsarnaev in New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts — but nobody wants to bury the Russian-born terrorist on their land, he said.

Protesters had picketed a North Attleborough funeral home to which it was brought initially, after which Mr Stefan's business received it, in the face of a new demonstration.

"Everyone deserves a burial," Mr Stefan told Reuters news agency by telephone.

"It doesn't matter who it is. I can't pick and choose."

Speaking to AP news agency, Mr Stefan said: "My problem here is trying to find a gravesite. A lot of people don't want to do it. They don't want to be involved with this."

Arguing that everyone deserved a dignified burial, he added: "I keep bringing up the point of Lee Harvey Oswald, Timothy McVeigh or Ted Bundy. Somebody had to do those, too."

Dozens of protesters rallied near Mr Stefan's funeral home on Friday

-----------------------

The funeral director has been accused of "honoring a terrorist"....just for doing his job.

Did people protest outside the hospitals where the brothers were brought for treatment? Were the doctors and nurses, just doing their jobs, honoring a terrorist? Did people protest outside the medical examiners office? Were the people inside, just doing their jobs, honoring a terrorist?

The war on terror has produced some funky paradoxes for Americans. And, it makes me ask, is this who we are?

[Wolfsong]

Originally Posted by Kobi

The funeral director has been accused of "honoring a terrorist"....just for doing his job.

Did people protest outside the hospitals where the brothers were brought for treatment? Were the doctors and nurses, just doing their jobs, honoring a terrorist? Did people protest outside the medical examiners office? Were the people inside, just doing their jobs, honoring a terrorist?

The war on terror has produced some funky paradoxes for Americans. And, it makes me ask, is this who we are?

How about send him back to Chechnya?

Look bad people have been executed or died since before time. Hitler wasn't buried for long. The Russians dug him up, destroyed what was left of the body, and threw it in the river to prevent it from becoming a shrine to the Neo Nazis. Bin Laden buried at sea for the same reasons. John Wayne Gacy is assumed buried in his parents plot in Niles, IL, but nobody has ever been able to confirm either him or his parents location.

I don't think people are getting stranger, I just think they are becoming less conscience of inside/outside voices. Remember, there was a time when people actualy had respect for one another. Does not seem to be so anymore.