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Boston Bombing Investigation Exposed Successes, Failures of Surveillance Tech

Despite multiple photos and surveillance video images of two suspects involved in the Boston Marathon bombings last month, as well as state-of-the-art facial-recognition software and two government databases, investigators were unable to identify the two suspected perpetrators, even after releasing several of the images to the public.

It was only after one suspect was shot in a showdown with police and was fingerprinted on his way to the hospital that authorities finally had a name to go with a face — Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a Chechen youth who was already on two U.S. terrorist watch lists after Russian authorities warned the U.S. that he had become “radicalized.”

The watch lists were supposed to alert authorities if Tsarnaev attempted to travel overseas, but they failed as well, even after he returned last year from a six-month trip to Russia. The databases contained a misspelling of the suspect’s name — “Tsarnayev” instead of Tsarnaev — and two incorrect dates of birth.

The facial-recognition system failed because none of the images captured of the suspects at the bombing site were full-frontal shots that the system’s algorithms could recognize.

These are two of the technology failures discussed in a new documentary about the bombing manhunt produced by NOVA and airing on PBS stations tonight.

05/29/2013 · Comments Off on Boston Bombing Investigation Exposed Successes, Failures of Surveillance Tech Continue Reading →

Rise of Al-Qaida Sahara Terrorist

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — After years of trying to discipline him, the leaders of al-Qaida’s North African branch sent one final letter to their most difficult employee. In page after scathing page, they described how he didn’t answer his phone when they called, failed to turn in his expense reports, ignored meetings and refused time and again to carry out orders.

Most of all, they claimed he had failed to carry out a single spectacular operation, despite the resources at his disposal.

The employee, international terrorist Moktar Belmoktar, responded the way talented employees with bruised egos have in corporations the world over: He quit and formed his own competing group. And within months, he carried out two lethal operations that killed 101 people in all: one of the largest hostage-takings in history at a BP-operated gas plant in Algeria in January, and simultaneous bombings at a military base and a French uranium mine in Niger just last week.

The al-Qaida letter, found by The Associated Press inside a building formerly occupied by their fighters in Mali, is an intimate window into the ascent of an extremely ambitious terrorist leader, who split off from regional command because he wanted to be directly in touch with al-Qaida central. It’s a glimpse into both the inner workings of a highly structured terrorist organization that requires its commanders to file monthly expense reports, and the internal dissent that led to his rise. And it foreshadows a terrorism landscape where charismatic jihadists can carry out attacks directly in al-Qaida’s name, regardless of whether they are under its command.

05/28/2013 · Comments Off on Rise of Al-Qaida Sahara Terrorist Continue Reading →

The Spy Novelist Who Knows Too Much

Last June, a pulp-fiction thriller was published in Paris under the title “Le Chemin de Damas.” Its lurid green-and-black cover featured a busty woman clutching a pistol, and its plot included the requisite car chases, explosions and sexual conquests. Unlike most paperbacks, though, this one attracted the attention of intelligence officers and diplomats on three continents. Set in the midst of Syria’s civil war, the book offered vivid character sketches of that country’s embattled ruler, Bashar al-Assad, and his brother Maher, along with several little-known lieutenants and allies. It detailed a botched coup attempt secretly supported by the American and Israeli intelligence agencies. And most striking of all, it described an attack on one of the Syrian regime’s command centers, near the presidential palace in Damascus, a month before an attack in the same place killed several of the regime’s top figures. “It was prophetic,” I was told by one veteran Middle East analyst who knows Syria well and preferred to remain nameless. “It really gave you a sense of the atmosphere inside the regime, of the way these people operate, in a way I hadn’t seen before.”

01/30/2013 · Comments Off on The Spy Novelist Who Knows Too Much Continue Reading →

Media Ethics

On Sunday, Billl Roggio reported the kidnapping of New York Times correspondent Stephen Farrell, who was freed today by a NATO operation. Farrell’s driver/interpreter Sultan Munadi was also kidnapped, and lost his life in the raid along with a British soldier. Editors at the Times had been trying to keep the abduction quiet, as they did for 7 months in the case of reporter David Rohde.

Roggio received several private and public appeals in to remove the news. The reason was often presented as a conclusion that “should be self-evident to any apparently decent human being:” a report could get the hostages killed. But this charge, and the ethical issues involved in reporting the kidnapping, merit a closer examination.

The case made by those asking to keep the story quiet revolves around the idea that the information would endanger the reporter, presumably by making his paid release or public execution more valuable. The quick justification given by the Times in the previous case of Rohdes’ abduction was the following:

09/09/2009 · Comments Off on Media Ethics Continue Reading →
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