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Our coverage of boston marathon bombing

Russ Baker On The Security State, Hillary's Email Mess & Willie Nelson: Aug 13, 2015

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Russ Baker on the Security State and our State of Mind — 90 View article …

Russ Baker on the Security State and Our State of Mind -- 90 Minutes of Blunt Talk

WhoWhatWhy’s Russ Baker on “The Ripple Effect” Podcast. Russ talks about the mysterious crash that killed the investigative journalist Michael Hastings. He also presents his most detailed analysis yet of the Boston Marathon Bombing case. Even after Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to death, the questions and doubts about the case are thicker than ever. He explores the out-of-control American Homeland Security State —  the screwups,  the cover-ups, the recklessness, the hidden agendas; and the cowardice and laziness of the media in failing to pursue the real story. 90 minutes of blunt talk.

 

 

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Related front page panorama photo View article …

Boston Bomber's Backstory, Ghost Schools & The Surveillance State: July 9, 2015

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Marathon Bomber Appeals Conviction: Do His Lawyers Know Something We Don’t?
By James Henry
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s lawyers continue the legal formalities necessary to build a case for appeal, despite an unequivocal admission by the defendant of his own guilt. Is there anything to be gleaned from an appeals trial about the backstory of the Boston Marathon bombing? Something that may help the public understand the shadowy relationship between the national security apparatus and “domestic terrorists”?

WHO

Trump: ‘I Will Win the Latino Vote’
The Donald is a gold-mine for the media and late View article …

Marathon Bomber Appeals Conviction: Do His Lawyers Know Something We Don't?

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s lawyers opened the Boston Marathon Bombing trial with a surprising “it was him” soliloquy and ended with what looked like a categorical admission to all of the charges against him. But, in a motion filed on Monday, his lawyers are now requesting a new trial.

 

While the appeal itself is unsurprising—a lengthy and convoluted appeals process is standard in capital cases like this one—the defense’s claim of “evidentiary insufficiency” calls attention to what has been a seemingly strange defense strategy.

 

“Evidentiary insufficiency” is, in fact, an apt description of the evidence presented at the weeks-long trial. View article …

Looking for a Longer Jail Sentence? Cooperate with FBI!

To the mounting pile of oddities surrounding the Boston Marathon Bombing—the largest terrorist attack on domestic soil since 9/11—we add yet another: the wide disparities in the government’s treatment of the people associated with the accused bombers, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was convicted and given the death penalty, and his dead elder brother, Tamerlan.

 

Here’s the odd thing: the more that these people cooperated with the government, the harsher their punishment. Conversely, a few who failed to cooperate with the FBI escaped prosecution entirely.

 

Officials have made clear that the harsh sentences meted out to most of the Tsarnaev brothers’ former friends View article …

Robert S. Mueller

Missing Evidence of Prior FBI Relationship with Boston Bomber

Ever since the early days of the Boston Marathon bombing investigation, it’s been commonly understood that Tamerlan Tsarnaev first came to the attention of the FBI thanks to a March 2011 “warning” from the FSB, Russia’s security services.

 

We now know this to be false. In a little-noticed exchange during congressional testimony, the FBI’s then-director Robert Mueller admitted that the Bureau had an interest in the elder Tsarnaev before Russia’s warning. That crucial admission has somehow become buried over time, and the government has been only too happy to leave it out of sight.

 

What else is the Bureau hiding—and what View article …

Thought Police are Watching, Listening, Touching, and Sniffing—So Don’t Even Think About it

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Advertisers know what we want to buy. Google knows what we want to search. Will the state soon know—or think it knows—what we intend to do?

 

In Predicting and Preventing Crimes—Is Minority Report the Next Step? Jon L. Mills, a professor of law at the University of Florida, says that the era of pre-crime surveillance may soon be upon us. He documents the dangerous forays currently being made that could ensure a future reminiscent of the 2002 film Minority Report (based on the Philip K. Dick short story of the same View article …

The Boston Bombing Mystery Man, Clinton's Cashiering & Cyborgs‏: May 26, 2015

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Boston Bombing Core Mystery: Why are Feds Not Interested in this Man?
by Jill Vaglica
Viskhan Vakhabov received a phone call from the Tsarnaev brothers—one of whom is now dead, the other just sentenced to death—in two crucial moments in the immediate aftermath of the Boston Marathon Bombings. Why did the government fail to speak with him about his involvement?

WHO

Clinton Foundation Donors Got Weapons Deals From Hillary Clinton’s State Department
The International Business Times details the web of influence connecting 20 nations, their generous “gifts” to the Clinton View article …

Boston Bombing Core Mystery: Why are Feds Not Interested in this Man?

Now that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been sentenced to death for his involvement in the Boston Marathon Bombing, and the lengthy inevitable Death Row appeals process begins, the investigative work for conscientious journalists continues as well.

 

As readers of WhoWhatWhy know the case is chock full of unresolved issues, inconsistencies, and anomalies that cast doubt on whether we learned even the most basic truths of what happened on April 15, 2013, or why. Perhaps most troubling is the FBI’s successful effort to minimize its prior relationship with Tsarnaev’s dead older brother, Tamerlan—a relationship that demands focused View article …

Tsarnaev Case Judge: FBI Interview Reports Are Unreliable—And Cast in Stone

The Federal Bureau of Intimidation?

 

The presiding judge in the case against convicted marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev warned jurors last week against automatically assuming the reliability of FBI interview reports.

 

US District Court Judge George O’Toole’s admonition inadvertently bolstered long-standing criticisms of FBI interview practices—that the FBI creates its own “truth” by refusing to electronically record interviews, and then forcing witnesses to go along with it using threats of jail time under the federal “making false statements” statute.

 

His warning came after he took the unusual step of allowing Tsarnaev’s defense team to read aloud FBI witness interviews, known as “302 reports,” View article …

Classic WhoWhatWhy: Police State Gears Up

On May 18, 2015, President Obama made a surprising announcement: he ordered the federal government to reverse its standing practice of providing American police departments with surplus weapons and vehicles from the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq. Given declining confidence in police after a seemingly constant recent stream of fatalities involving black suspects, this newfound caution with heavy provisioning is understandable. But questions about the wisdom of militarizing police are not new. WhoWhatWhy first wrote about the issue in February, 2014. You View article …

Civil Liberties, Human Goldfish & The Late, Great B.B. King‏: May 15, 2015

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RadioWhoWhatWhy: Civil Unrest and the Violation of Civil Liberties
by Guillermo Jimenez
While covering the Baltimore riots, journalist Shawn Carrie was shot in the head by a police pepperball and held without being charged. These, however, are just two of the very many violations of civil liberties taking place in the wake of civil unrest.

Read Boston Jury’s Life or Death Form
by Russ Baker
This afternoon Boston Marathon Bombing handed down the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Click here to read the form the jury had to View article …