One of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects was reportedly on the US government’s database of people it believes to be terrorists. The news raises questions of what federal agencies knew, and whether they could have done more to prevent the attack.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s listing in a number of terrorist databases
comes as many US politicians question whether a failure to share
intelligence was a contributing factor in last week’s deadly
bombings.
“There still seem to be serious problems with sharing
information, including critical investigative information…not only
among agencies but also within the same agency in one case,”
committee member Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said in a statement.
During a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Saxby
Chambliss (R-GA), the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence
Committee, said it did not appear that anyone “dropped the
ball.” He did, however, say that he was asking all federal
agencies for more information.
Tsarnaev’s details were entered into the Terrorist Identities
Datamart Environment (TIDE) list after the FBI spoke to him in 2011
while investigating a Russian tipoff that he had become a follower
of radical Islam. The list is managed by the National
Counterterrorism Center (NCTC).
The FBI found nothing to suggest he was an active threat, but
nevertheless placed his name on the list. The government agency has
not disclosed if it found other information on Tsarnaev.
After being put in the TIDE system, Tsarnaev’s name was entered in
another database maintained by the Homeland Security Department’s
Customs and Border Protection bureau. Tsarnaev was flagged on that
database when he left the US for Russia in January 2012, but no
alarm was raised.
When he returned from Russia six months later, he had been
automatically downgraded in the database, as there was no new
information requiring that he be placed under further scrutiny.
Although government agencies have declined to publicly discuss how
the watch list system handled Tsarnaev, Homeland Security Secretary
Janet Napolitano disclosed some details during a separate, open
hearing on immigration on Capitol Hill.
"Yes, the system pinged when he was leaving the United States.
By the time he returned, all investigations – the matter had been
closed," Napolitano told the Senate Judiciary Committee on
Tuesday.
One source also told Reuters that Tsarnaev was listed on the
Terrorist Screening Database – a declassified version of the highly
classified TIDE, with fewer details about terrorist suspects.
The TIDE database is only an archive of information on people who
Washington sees as a known, suspected or potential terrorist.
Because of its large size, US investigators do not routinely
monitor everyone registered on the list, sources close to the
investigation told Reuters.
Still, the newest details have led many to criticize the FBI for
failing to adequately monitor terror suspects.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said law enforcement should have
kept a closer eye on Tsarnaev after the FBI spoke to him two years
ago. The FBI should also have realized last week following the
bombings that he was in databases, Graham told reporters.
"After the bomb went off, don't you think one of the first
things the FBI would do is say, 'Have we interviewed anybody in the
Boston area that may fit the profile of doing this?' How could his
name not pop up, the older brother? And when you have the photo the
whole world is looking at, how could we not match that photo with
him already being in the system?" Graham said.
Bob Grenier, the former chief of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center,
has stood by the government’s actions. Unless authorities had
strong evidence against a suspect, they were not going to put
restrictions on people in a free society, he explained.
Tsarnaev was killed in a police shootout early Friday, while his
younger brother Dzhokhar was captured later that day. Prosecutors
said the brothers, who were ethnic Chechens, planted two bombs that
exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15.
The blasts killed three people and injured more than 200
others.