WhoWhatWhy has discovered that the FBI secretly flagged at least one of the "Boston Marathon bombers" as a terrorist threat in his immigration records, despite publicly denying it had done so.

This designation existed right up to the time the bombs went off at Boylston St. on April 15, 2013.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev's heavily redacted immigration records, known as an A-file (alien file), were released in February under the Freedom of Information Act and posted online by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). FOIA has a "frequently requested record" provision where multiple request for the same record triggers a "reading room" (posted online) treatment of the records. WhoWhatWhy was one of those requesters.

For context, it's important to note that soon after the bombing, uncomfortable questions were raised by WhoWhatWhy when it became clear the FBI had long been aware of Tsarnaev. Even some of the mainstream outlets, which almost uniformly have accepted the government's version of events, couldn't ignore this reality.

The Bureau steadfastly maintains that it determined the elder Tsarnaev (who died in an altercation with police three days after the bombing) was not any kind of a national security threat. It also denies ever having asked him to be an informant.

International Military Review - Syria & Iraq, May 11

"All Americans should be outraged at the idea that when we're killing large numbers of people in Muslim countries around the world without knowing who they are, that we somehow are not going to pay a price later?"

GOSZTOLA: What is the "assassination complex"? When we talk about the "assassination complex," are we talking about a much larger system that includes, for example, the explosion of watchlisting, where people are intimidated and harassed? Typically, they are predominantly Arab Americans, and they have this experience when they try to fly on airplanes. Should we see that as a byproduct of this "assassination complex"?

SCAHILL: What's interesting [...] is the statement by a whistleblower, who provided us with a copy of the 180-plus page of watchlisting guidance, which is really the government's rule book for watchlisting. And it basically maps out a system where individuals have their data and metadata, their names, the people they are in contact with poured into several government databases, one of which has more than 1 million people and growing by the day. Everyone who goes into that system is preemptively categorized as a known or suspected terrorist. [...]

[Y]ou can end up on a watchlist because your phone number was discovered in the phone of someone else they were monitoring or someone else, who's phone was in the phone of someone else they were monitoring. And no matter why you are in that database, you are designated as a "known or suspected terrorist," a KST. Now, that information can trickle all the way to foreign governments and to state and local law enforcement in the U.S. So, if someone gets pulled over by a police officer and they run a check on someone, who happens to be a known or suspected terrorist because their name is similar to someone else's or because their phone number was in the phone of someone that the U.S. government was monitoring, then they are in the situation where a local sheriff or a sheriff's deputy is seeing someone is a known or suspected terrorist, which sounds like an extremely frightening thing.

Once you're in that database, you are assigned what's called a TPN number, and it's basically like a "terrorist tracking number." Every single person who has ever been killed in a drone strike intentionally, meaning the intended targets, has been assigned a TPN number. One of the things that has not gotten a lot of attention that we reported on is that 16-year-old Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, of course the son of Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in a drone strike—This 16-year-old U.S. citizen kid was killed two weeks after his father while he was sitting, having a meal with his cousins, and one of the things that our source was able to provide us with was the fact that Abdulrahman al-Awlaki had a terror watchlisting number assigned to him.

Now, was it because they believed he was a terrorist or was it because his father was top on a U.S. hit list? We don't know the answer to that question, but every single person, every bit of innocuous information that gets put into that database results in you being labeled a known or suspected terrorist. Basically, what it is is that is the very first step of a process that can eventually lead to your death by a drone strike. But the vast majority in there are not people that are on the kill list.They are people who posted something on Facebook or Twitter, know people, have made phone calls abroad, or their data ends up in someone else's phone. So, the direct answer to your question is, yes, this explosion of watchlisting is directly related to the assassination program across the globe.

The European Commission will reportedly start sanctions procedures against Spain and Portugal for the first time, Euractiv says. The site has learned that the countries are being accused of not making "sufficient effort" to cut their deficits.


On Tuesday, the European Commissioners held a debate on what to do with the most troubled states under current EU fiscal rules. The rules had been introduced ahead of the euro launch in 1999 and punitive measures for their violation have been unprecedented.

EU rules say the fine could be up to 0.2 percent of GDP - €2.16 billion (US$2.97 billion) for Spain and €359 million ($410 million) for Portugal. However, Reuters reported in April the sanctions could be symbolic and the fine could be set at zero.

According to Euractiv, such recommendations will be published on May 18.

How the United States presumes to possess the authority to determine the fate of a sovereign nation thousands of miles from its own shores in the Middle East is never explained by US Secretary of State John Kerry when he recently announced a new ultimatum leveled at Damascus. Nor is it explained why Syria should capitulate to US demands to begin a political transition that has demonstrably left other nations across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) divided, destroyed, and safe-havens for state-sponsored terrorism years after "successful" US-backed regime change has been achieved - Libya most notably.

Yet despite all of this, according to the Associate Press (AP) in their article, "Kerry warns Assad to start transition by Aug. 1 or else," the United States fully expects Damascus to concede to a "political transition" engineered by Washington, leaving the nation in the hands of verified terrorists linked directly to the political and militant forces currently laying waste to Libya and those nations that put them into power.

The article reports:

Secretary of State John Kerry warned Syria's government and its backers in Moscow and Tehran on Tuesday that they face an August deadline for starting a political transition to move President Bashar Assad out, or they risk the consequences of a new U.S. approach toward ending the 5-year-old civil war.

After interviewing Hillary Clinton's top aides last week, the question now becomes whether or not the FBI will interview Clinton next as the investigation enters its final stages.

In an interview today with CBS' Face The Nation, Hillary said nobody had contacted her regarding an interview.

"No one has reached out to me yet, but last summer, I think last August, I made it clear I'm more than ready to talk to anybody, anytime."

Clinton also doubled down on her claims that she did nothing wrong.

"It's a security inquiry, I always took classified material seriously. There was never any material marked classified that was sent or received by me."

Of course, there's classified and then there's "classified", but we'll save that for another day.

As far as whether or not the FBI will eventually interview Clinton, although the FBI hasn't said Hillary is the target of the probe, many experts are saying that's how they see the situation unfolding.

Every day, in meetings at all levels of government, representatives of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), planning groups, and federal agents surround elected representatives and insist that their policies have nothing to do with international agendas. They regularly publish reports and rail against anyone even mentioning the names Agenda 21 or the new Agenda 2030. "No, no, no," they insist. "Those people are just crazy conspiracy theorists. Ours is just a local plan for our community."

Elected representatives are often confused. Issues and policies suddenly appear in front of them with sample, ready-made legislation. And then the unending pressure begins for them to pass it. There is confusion, uncertainty and there is the herd mentality to pass legislation. And it's passed without knowledge of its origins, its purpose, and especially a lack of understanding of its consequences. "Just do it," goes the mantra.

France is in the midst of its worst political crisis in decades with the country's beleaguered Socialist government to face a no-confidence vote on Thursday after it bypassed parliament to ram through controversial labor reforms.

The announcement that the labor bill would be pushed through the lower house without a vote triggered widespread protests against the government, with police firing tear gas and rubber pellets at demonstrators, who have since called for further protests.

Protesters described the move as "an insult to the people of this country" and the labor bill as an "unprecedented setback for workers' rights in France, a return to the 19th century."

After the first ever cabinet meeting in the Golan Heights, Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a speech on April 17, 2016 that the territory "will remain under Israel's sovereignty permanently." This elicited admonitions from some of Israel's greatest allies, the United States and Germany, and renewed attention on the issue.

The Golan Heights were opportunistically occupied by Israel after its victory in the 1967 six-day-war. A United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) has monitored the region since 1974, when Israel and Syria signed a ceasefire agreement, and it has been considered an occupied territory of the UN and the international community. In violation of this ceasefire, Israel effectively annexed the territory in 1981 by extending its laws and governmental apparatus over it. Most of the native population has been displaced and over 30 settlements have been constructed to house Jewish settlers. These settlements, like those in the West Bank, are illegal under international law.

The current escalation is really about oil. Since 2013, the Netanyahu government has granted exclusive oil and gas exploration rights to the oil company Afek Energy in a 153-square mile radius in the southern part of the Golan Heights. Afek Energy is an Israeli subsidiary of the US firm, Genie Energy. Afek's director is former Israeli Housing Minister Effie Eitam, who is an illegal settler in the Golan Heights himself and is responsible for the fatal beatings of numerous Palestinians. Genie Energy's strategy-advisory board includes former US Vice President Dick Cheney, media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, and former Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers. Other prominent names include Jacob Lord Rothschild, former CIA director and neocon James Woolsey, and former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson.

Given the clout that these figures wield in US politics, it is unlikely that the US is serious about its admonishments to Israel. Germany's Foreign Ministry has also criticized Israel´s move as being against international law, but both the US and Germany have declined to call for the Golan Heights to be returned to Syria, citing Syria's internal situation as a justification. If the US is indeed frustrated with Israel's behavior, as Vice President Biden recently said, it has a funny way of showing it: the Obama administration recently agreed to grant a $3.2 to $5 billion military-aid package to Israel, its largest ever. Germany is Israel's next largest donor and military trading partner, which suggest that the indignation is mostly symbolic.

The State Department says it cannot find emails to or from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's senior information technology staffer, Bryan Pagliano, dating from her tenure.

Pagliano, who set up and maintained Clinton's private server, is a key witness in the FBI inquiry into Clinton's handling of sensitive material on that server.

He was granted immunity by the Justice Department in exchange for his cooperation.

State Department spokesman Elizabeth Trudeau said in a press briefing Monday that "the Department has searched for Mr. Pagliano's email pst file and has not located one that covers the time period of Secretary Clinton's tenure."

"To be clear, the Department does have records related to Mr. Pagliano and we are working with Congress and FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] requesters to provide relevant material. The Department has located a pst from Mr. Pagliano's recent work at the Department as a contractor, but the files are from after Secretary Clinton left the Department," Trudeau added.