| Home |
| Archives |
| Subscribe |
| About Us |
| Contact Us |
| Links |
| Submissions |
| Our Founding Documents |
|
Declaration of Independence |
| Constitution |
| Bill of Rights |
| Amendments |
| Federalist Papers |
 |
Do We Need an Intelligence Overhaul?By Brent Smith February 26, 2018 No, I’m not talking about the Democrat Party. I think it’s too late for that bunch. I’m of course referring to our federal intelligence services which have become highly politicized, appearing to only be interested in protecting the aforementioned Democrats, and it seems have become less competent since they’ve become politicized. The Sandy Hook massacre not withstanding, three of the latest most high profile mass-shootings/bombings have the FBI’s bungling fingerprints all over them. The Sandy Hook, Adam Lanza, school shooting was bungled by local authorities. They were warned of Lanza’s behavior and threats, and failed to pass it off to the FBI, or similar authority. Locals are not equipped or adept at investigating potential situations prior to them happening. However, there appears to be a pattern forming in the FBI’s ability or want to follow leads prior to the tragedies occurring. The FBI failed to keep track of the Boston bomber, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, after they suspected he had become radicalized. The FBI interviewed him in 2011 as a person with terrorist ties, thanks to a tip from Russian intelligence, but never followed up, even after he had several times visited a known radical Islamic Mosque in Dagestan. Dagestan is known to have Islamist training camps. According to a local police official, a case file on Tsarnaev was then handed over to the FBI along with a request for further information. However, the FBI never replied. Michael McCaul, the chair of House Homeland Security Committee said that, "If he [Tamerlan Tsarnaev] was on the radar and they [FBI] let him go, if he was on the Russians' radar, why wasn't a flag put on him, some sort of customs flag?" After all, “One of the first things he does [upon his return] is puts up a YouTube website throwing out a lot of jihadist rhetoric.” Forward two years to 2015, and it appeared the FBI botched it again. Syed Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik kill 14 and wound another 21 in San Bernardino, California. A former chief of CIA counterterrorism operations in Pakistan said that, “One of the shooters, Syed Farook, was ‘in contact’ with terrorism suspects, but the FBI now admits that it did nothing about it. Indeed, a spokesman said that the contact was ‘soft,’ meaning that it wasn't frequent. The implication is that Americans aren't supposed to worry when somebody is in direct contact with a terrorist suspect overseas. It's not important enough for the FBI to follow up on." And he said this is not the first time they haven’t “followed up” on intelligence. He said he was part of a team that raided the Taliban embassy in Peshawar that year. “As part of our ‘haul,’ we confiscated a set of file folders that contained more than a year's worth of the embassy's phone bills. Those bills showed hundreds of calls from the Taliban to phone numbers all across the United States -- Buffalo, Kansas City, Sacramento, Tampa, Detroit, and elsewhere. Those calls ended abruptly on September 10, 2001, and then started up again on September 16.” He said he contacted CIA Headquarters and was told it was handed off to the FBI. He found later, on two separate occasions, that the Bureau had done nothing about the calls. And now here we are, with another massacre, and The Hill is reporting that the FBI botched another one. “The FBI said Friday that it failed to follow ‘protocols’ when it received a tip earlier this year about the teenager accused of killing 17 in a mass shooting at a South Florida high school. In January, a person close to the accused shooter, 19-year old Nikolas Cruz, called the FBI's public tipline and raised concerns about his gun ownership and a desire to kill, and warned of a possible school shooting. But the FBI never reported the tip, nor the informant, to its Miami field office…and no further investigation was conducted at that time.” But rest assured, the FBI is looking into why they dropped the ball, according to FBI Director Christopher Wray. So the FBI is investigating how and why the FBI screwed up yet another investigation. Great idea.
| ||||
 Brent Smith, "The Common Constitutionalist," offers not just conservative commentary and analysis, but a blend of politics, history, arts, science, and humor. Whoever said conservatives aren’t funny? Yeah, I know…most people. Brent is a contributing writer for numerous online publications. When he is not burning the midnight oil writing his insightful commentaries, he is raising his two teenage sons to be patriots and Conservatives.Visit Brent Smith's website at www.commonconstitutionalist.com
|