Originally posted at Lowell Live Feed.
This American Life had a riveting story to tell this week, thanks to reporter Susan Zalkind.
Last May, a weird story made the news: the FBI killed a guy in Florida
who was loosely linked to the Boston Marathon bombings. He was shot
seven times in his living room by a federal agent. What really happened?
Why was the FBI even in that room with him? A reporter spent six months
looking into it, and she found that the FBI was doing a bunch of things
that never made the news.
In 2011, in Waltham, three men were killed in an apartment. Money was left there ($5,000), and there was marijuana spread over their bodies. Their throats were cut.
The FBI now believes these murders were committed by Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who would be a suspect in the marathon bombing if he was still alive, and Ibragim Todashev, a man killed in his own apartment, by FBI agents.
Allegedly, Todashev lost his temper and attacked agents who were questioning him. No one is even claiming he had a gun. One account says he had a broom. His father is quoted, asking whether the agents could have just wounded him.
The FBI says Todashev confessed to the Waltham murders.
So, to recap:
1. Both alleged perpetrators of the murders are dead.
2. One was about to confess, but there is no record of that.
3. One of the few known associates of Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in the course of the investigation of the bombings.
The Boston story is here.
“The individual is handicapped by coming face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists.” — Legendary FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (pictured)
From the transcript:
Effing scary $hit.
…I am currently reading “The Burglary” by Betty Medsger. This new book is about the break-in of a small FBI office in Media, PA in 1971 which led to revelations about the secret and extralegal FBI Hoover ran to quash any real dissent. I’ve never liked what I’ve heard about Hoover, but I had no idea how awful he really was, and given how significant the book makes out the Media episode to be I’m surprised I had not heard of it before.
So much of the event is in question. Did the police warn that there would be two explosions for testing purposes as some participants claim? Who were the guys in the semi-uniform of desert wear boots, khaki trousers, wraparound sunglasses, black jackets and matching backpacks? Why the firefight with the unarmed Tsarnaev in the boat? What of the confession written in blood in the boat; was it written days after Tsarnaev arrested? Was this an FBI or other agency’s entrapment scheme that went wrong? COINTELPRO still alive? Why do so many people look at the government’s case with a jaundiced eye?
“I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis upon the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement” –Calvin Coolidge
…I am now reading the part of the book that talks about investigations and reforms of the FBI. Seems there was quite a bit of reckoning, though not without resistance from Hoover loyalists.
…but vested projects go on forever. So, when Congress asks, “What happened to the XYZ project?”, the answer can truthfully be, “We don’t have that anymore.” The sad truth is that government agencies are not run for the people, or the Congress, but for the agencies themselves. Management cautiously pushes the envelope as to what they can get away with until they reach a limit, then work around that limit. Now that there is no downside for unlawful behavior, more pushing is getting through than ever before.
How much spying has yielded blackmail information on high ranking officials? Can we really expect people not to take advantage of technology that increases their power?
“More harm was done in the 20th century by faceless bureaucrats than tyrant dictators.” –Dennis Prager
Hoover was a master of it. I haven’t finished yet, so I’m not completely sure how everything turned out.
Herbert Hoover most certainly was a master, even a grandmaster, at the effective use (and misuse) of information.
He did more with his card collection (he used 3×5 and 5×7 cards, long before computers) than most mere mortals can imagine.
Elected at the wrong time (thanks for nothing, Cal) and then he stands accused of J. Edgar’s sins.
Jeesh, that’s what I get for trying to multi-task. I have a day-job now, so I can only grab a few moments now and then while I grab things off my printer.
Yes, of course I meant J. Edgar. Hoover. I wish we could edit our comments.
Of course, I’m not a fan of Herbert Hoover either, but he was not nearly the villain that J. Edgar Hoover was.
killing before the media did. Hope he’s still all right.
and I am so glad it was posted here for more people to have access to the Orwellian bizarro-chilling report of the web between the Boston Marathon and Waltham killings. It is scary…..and amazing story/reporting by Susan Zalkind……have to hear it…..including the interrogation in the Florida apartment.
I admit it is so shocking that I am in denial……not good.
When some of us argue about the imminent threats posed by NSA spying, by government overreach in response to perceived threats to “public safety”, and by the dramatic and excessive militarization of local police (as we saw displayed in the assault on Watertown in pursuit of the Tsarnaev brothers), this is the kind of thing we mean.
Pay attention as even Dianne Feinstein (no fan of civil liberties in the past) attacks the CIA for its heavy-handed, illegal, and unconstitutional assault on Congress.
These symptoms of an out-of-control government “security” apparatus are far more threatening to you and I than the “threat” they allege to protect us from.
Pay attention as we all order our priorities in this primary campaign season. These apparent crimes by the FBI didn’t happen to somebody else someplace else in the distant past. They happened to MASSACHUSETTS residents, in Waltham, in 2011 and since then. It increasingly appears that the rogue behavior of the FBI was not limited to the Whitey Bulger case, and not limited to just Boston.
Some of our candidates for Governor steadfastly and courageously oppose actions like these. One of our candidates has a long history of supporting the expansion of the very laws these government abuses exploit.
This issue is real and important, and this is one issue that DOES differentiate the five candidates.
These are absolutely related issues. We’re talking about a government that has failed to regulate itself.
On the bright side. Feinstein seems really serious about this. A glimmer of hope.
The only thing that would restore my faith in government at this point is the trial, conviction, and imprisonment of a large number of current and former high-ranking government officials. This type of stuff has gone on for far too long, and every “investigation” always fizzles out pathetically. It often seems that government at all levels is more corrupt and malicious than even the wildest paranoid Hollywood scenario could possibly portray, and that we will never know the truth about the most important events and situations in our contemporary world.
“Is Dianne Feinstein a whistleblower or a traitor?”
;o)
“Hypocrisy: prejudice with a halo” –Ambrose Bierce
When we found out last year y’all were reading the private documents of millions of ordinary citizens, that was fine. But now you’re spying on CONGRESS? Oh, hell no.
But given the urgency, I’m prepared to forgive (not forget) the hypocrisy.
By letter.
“Since knowledge is but sorrow’s spy, It is not safe to know” –William Davenant
read the Boston magazine article and listen to This American Life segment…and then call AG Coakley and DA Ryan and ask why there is such a lack of transparency (to the point of cover-up) regarding the MA State Police who were present in Florida in the apartment of the man who was killed while being interrogated?
It is so hard not to become discouraged and cynical when you see how the system “works”…or doesn’t.
Very well done by Ms. Zalkind. Thanks for this post.
. . .is that is all focused on the victim of the crime. The shooter, and the witness (or accomplices) are protected by anonymity.
I’d like to know who killed this guy–what’s his history? Does the shooter have an explosive temper, a history of abusing suspects?
Are the witnesses on leave? Are measures being taken to prevent them from colluding with each other on a cover story?
Instead even the most skeptical journalists are being forced to put together a narrative that excludes all these factors. Almost a year after this crime, we haven’t been give the names of the suspects.
Note the similarity to the killing of Wilfredo Justiniano last year. Within hours of his death, details of his mental history were put out by the local DA. The name of the trooper who shot him was withheld for months.