Tag Archives: Ray Kelly

Facebook a Better Spook than Ray Kelly

By:  Monday April 29, 2013 10:07 am

We have been discussing the FBI’s apparent inability to use the multiple images of the Tsarnaev brothers from the Boston Marathon to ID them using facial recognition software.

So I wanted to circle back to two things. First, point to the passage of BoGlo’s comprehensive account of the hunt for the brothers that pertains to this question.

Of note, it says photo analysts had isolated the video of Dzhokhar dropping his backpack by Wednesday morning.

When Alben, of the State Police, saw the results of the analysts’ work on Wednesday morning, he couldn’t believe it: they had captured an image of the young man in a white hat dropping a backpack outside the Forum restaurant and then walking away.

“There was a eureka moment . . . It was right there for you to see,” said the colonel. “It was quite clear to me we had a breakthrough in the case.”

They had faces. Now they needed names.

The account remains unclear about why the FBI was unable to match the images, relying on speculation about the quality of the images.

Even after authorities isolated the images of the two suspected bombers, they weren’t able to pinpoint the suspects’ identities — an essential puzzle piece that was still missing Wednesday.

The FBI has poured millions of dollars into facial recognition technology over the years so it can quickly cross-check an image against millions of other pictures in government databases.

In this case, both brothers were already in existing government databases, including the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles and federal immigration records. They were legal immigrants from the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan, in theory allowing the FBI to find their names.

But it’s not clear which databases the FBI checked. And it may not have mattered. The pictures, taken from surveillance cameras above street level, were likely far too grainy when zoomed in on the brothers’ faces. And the older brother was wearing sunglasses, making their task even harder.

In addition, unlike in a traditional mug shot, the camera wasn’t looking at their faces head-on.

Investigators worked feverishly Wednesday trying to identify the men, searching other photos and video, trying to find high-definition images.

“We still needed more clarity,” said Alben, of the State Police. “As good as the videos were, we needed more clarity.”

And in the middle of this account, BoGlo suggests that briefing Deval Patrick about being able to ID the face of the suspect led directly to the mistaken press reports — based on solid sources, the outlets insisted at the time — that authorities were ready to arrest a suspect.

Colonel Alben, the State Police chief, briefed Patrick on Wednesday about the key piece of video showing Dzhokhar abandoning his backpack. Alben described the clip and showed the governor photographs culled from the footage, information that Patrick called “chilling.”

“We have a break,” Patrick remembers him saying. “We think we have a face.”

If further proof was needed that the city was on edge, the anxiety soon spilled over into view. By 1 p.m., news reports began surfacing that a suspect had been not only identified but arrested, and was headed to the federal courthouse.

I’m still not satisfied with this explanation (and do hope Congress does some hearings on why facial recognition software failed to fulfill its promise, if in fact it did). But it does seem to suggest the FBI had solid images of the brothers for 18 hours before they released them to the public (a decision made by the FBI, the BoGlo reports) and set off the manhunt that shut down the city.

Also, remember our questions about Ray Kelly’s boast of having pictures of the Dzhokhar in Times Square, as the law enforcement community tried to use a half-baked plan to escape to New York and set off pressure cooker bombs in Times Square?

Continue reading →


Was There Even a BB Gun?

By:  Thursday April 25, 2013 7:53 am

Over the weekend, we heard the story that when Tamerlan Tsarnaev rushed the small group of cops who were trying to arrest him, he was strapped with a suicide vest. In addition, we were told, the brothers had two handguns, an M-4 rifle, and a BB gun. The brothers, we were told, were planning further attacks.

At this point, the support for the claim Tamerlan had a suicide vest has disappeared (as it should have as soon as his brother ran over him with the SUV, though that detail, too, may not be entirely true). Ray Kelly — who never met a fear he didn’t want to magnify — tells us the brothers were headed out not to conduct further attacks, but to party in NYC. And according to the AP, just one handgun was found at the site of the shootout, and none was found on Dzhokhar when he was arrested.

Officials also recovered a 9 mm handgun believed to have been used by Tamerlan from the site of an April 18 gunbattle that injured a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority officer, two U.S. officials said.

The officials told the AP that no gun was found in the boat where Dzhokhar was hiding. Boston police Commissioner Ed Davis said earlier that shots were fired from inside the boat.

Asked whether the suspect had a gun in the boat, Davis said, “I’m not going to talk about that.”

But Kurt Schwartz, director of the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, said a police officer was shot within half a mile of where Tsarnaev was captured, “and I know who shot him.”

Authorities had previously said Dzhokhar exchanged gunfire with them for more than an hour Friday night before they captured him inside a tarp-covered boat in a suburban Boston neighborhood backyard. But two U.S. officials said Wednesday that he was unarmed when captured, raising questions about the gunfire and how he was injured.

All that’s not to say the brothers weren’t dangerous. There is still the matter of the additional pressure cooker bomb thrown at the site of the shootout, and some pipe bombs thrown during the chase, some of which exploded. They had already shot a cop at point blank range, apparently in a failed attempt to get a second handgun (though, as the NYT version of this story makes clear, the video from that murder don’t even conclusively show that it was the brothers). The NYT even notes that Dzhokhar was not — as reported Friday — outside the search perimeter in Watertown, but within it.

But a number of the original details describing how dangerous the two were haven’t survived as the fog of the chase has lifted.

How much of that earlier picture arose from embarrassment that Dzhokhar escaped the police shootout, leading to the shutdown of all of Boston? How much of it arose from a long-cultivated image of what Islamic terrorists do, as distinct from what two disgruntled American immigrants might do?

Especially given Sean Collier’s murder, I’m not faulting the cops for being careful. But to what extent are we running from ghosts the terror industry has created over the last 10 years?


The Top Unmentioned Obama Replacement: Robert Mueller

By:  Thursday November 8, 2012 2:02 pm

A slew of second-term cabinet speculation articles have come out (National Journal, first posted before the election, and NYT and USAT today).

And while they seem to indicate Jack Lew is likely to replace TurboTaxTimmeh Geithner and Secretary of State will be the subject of active speculation for some time (with intriguing speculation that Howard Berman, who lost to Brad Sherman in CA, might be under consideration), one key role–albeit not of cabinet level–is missing:

FBI Director.

After all, Robert Mueller is already 2 years beyond his sell by date; Obama extended his term to get past the election (he said). And regardless of rank, the FBI Director is one of the most important figures in the increasingly powerful surveillance state.

And there have been some very troubling names mentioned in discussions to replace him, including NYPD’s Ray Kelly, who would really be the second incarnation of J Edgar Hoover’s abusive power. There had been speculation that Patrick Fitzgerald wanted the job, but his decision to join Skadden Arps just before the election suggests he knew he wasn’t going to get that job.

Particularly given Eric Holder’s apparent increasing doubt that he’ll stick around, we have the possibility of seeing something worse–all the capitulation we got from Holder in the first term, plus and FBI Director who has none of the claimed measure of Mueller (though I’ve always had my doubts about those claims).

A new FBI Director (which is guaranteed), particularly if it came with a new Attorney General, could either set a dramatic new course or harden in the old course. And I fear it is most likely to be the latter.


NYPD’s Search for Cafes in Which Terrorists Would Be Comfortable

By:  Tuesday August 21, 2012 6:15 pm

It’s bad enough that the NYPD continues its Muslim spying program in spite of their Intelligence Division Chief’s admission that they have not derived a single lead from it. But look more closely at the astoundingly stupid rationalizations that Thomas Galati gave in his deposition for the program.

Galati imagines that if NYPD were ever faced with an imminent terrorist threat, the demographic mapping they had already done would allow them to figure out right away where the terrorist might go.

When we are faced with a threat or we have information about a threat that is present and we need to go out and we need to try and mitigate that threat, we have to be able to, at our fingertips, find what is the most likely location that that terrorist is going to go to and hide out amongst other people from the same country.

Let’s consider how this worked in practice the single time it might have applied.

When the FBI alerted the NYPD that Najibullah Zazi was heading back to NYC with the intent to blow up some subways, the NYPD knew exactly who to go to. They called Zazi’s Imam, Ahmad Wais Afzali, who not only knew him but had taught him and some of his accomplices. So that part worked.

What didn’t work is that Afzali promptly tipped off Zazi and his father, making it more difficult to develop a case against Zazi’s accomplices.

Media reports quoting anonymous FBI officials have suggested the NYPD botched the case when it showed a picture of Najibullah Zazi, the Denver shuttle-bus driver at the heart of the investigation, to Ahmed Afzali, a Queens Imam and sometime police informant. Afzali, the reports say, first called Zazi’s father Mohammed, then Najibullah himself, alerting them to the probe. The FBI, which had been monitoring the calls, was then forced to move immediately to arrest the Zazis — much sooner than it had planned.

[snip]

When Zazi traveled to New York ahead of the anniversary of 9/11, the FBI as a precaution alerted the NYPD. That’s when officers from the NYPD’s intelligence unit consulted Afzali. “It looks like they did this on their own initiative — they really trusted this Imam,” says the law-enforcement official. “But if they’d consulted with the bureau first, they’d have been told not to talk to anybody.”

So far Galati’s logic works if you want to make sure terrorists are tipped off by their close associates.

But it gets worse.

Central to the Galati’s explanation for the NYPD’s retention of the content of conversations about events–such as a Quran-burning, in the passage below (or, presumably, opposition to a drone strike)–is that it provides insight into whether a terrorist would be “comfortable in” a particularly environment.

Q I think you’ve told me that the fact that at this particular location where there are Pakistanis speaking Urdu, the Zone Assessment Unit heard two men complaining about the [redacted-Quran burning] That fact alone, their complaint expressed to each other doesn’t make it more likely that this is a place where a terrorist would go?

A It doesn’t make it more likely or less likely. It’s a tool for us to look for that person that we’re looking for that has that same characteristic that’s going to hide or recruit within a place that he or she is comfortable in.

Continue reading →


If FBI Believes NYPD Spying Violates Americans’ Rights, Why Not Stop It?

By:  Wednesday August 1, 2012 5:03 pm

It has long been clear that the AP series on the NYPD’s spying on NYC’s Muslims relied, in part, on FBI sources who believed the program to be problematic. Now a new edition of Ronald Kessler’s book on the voices that belief explicitly.

“What never came out is that the FBI considers the NYPD’s intelligence gathering practices since 9/11 not only a waste of money but a violation of Americans’ rights,” wrote Kessler, who in April broke news of Colombian sexcapades by Secret Service agents doing advance work for President Obama.

“We will not be a party to it,” an FBI source told Kessler.

This anonymous leaking comes not from some ACLU hippies–it comes from the FBI. So why don’t these leakers go arrest Ray Kelly?

Aside from the endorsement of the program Robert Mueller and John Brennan have given, I mean?

The White House added its stamp of approval a month later when President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser John Brennan visited police headquarters.

“I have full confidence that the NYPD is doing things consistent with the law, and it’s something that again has been responsible for keeping this city safe over the past decade,” he said.

Remember, Brennan–who was Deputy Executive Director of CIA when CIA helped to set up the CIA-on-the-Hudson–has boasted of intimate familiarity with the program.

Speaking of John Brennan, today is the 10 year anniversary of the torture memos. You know, torture? Another abuse that has never been prosecuted under Obama?


Did NYPD Manufacture a Murder Tie to Occupy Wall Street because Its Terror Myth Is Dying?

By:  Wednesday July 11, 2012 6:10 pm

Let’s start with this. NYPD got its ass handed to it yesterday.

Specifically, Justin Elliott provided the definitive debunking of Mike Bloomberg and Ray Kelly’s repeated claims that their multimillion dollar Muslim profiling program has done anything to thwart the 14–or rather 3–terrorist attacks on NY since 9/11.

That wasn’t the end of the ass-handing, though. After Elliott’s piece, NYPD’s spokesperson Paul Browne started trolling Elliott’s comments, pretending the NYPD hadn’t repeatedly claimed to have stopped 14–or rather 3–terrorist attacks with their vast counterterrroism apparatus.

Elliott debunked that, too.

Mayor Mike, meanwhile, was backtracking–or perhaps forwardtracking–wildly, in another attempt to pretend the NYPD’s core terror myth wasn’t a carefully crafted myth.

And Ray Kelly? He hasn’t been seen to ask him about this ass-handing; maybe he was crying in a bar somewhere?

Meanwhile, last night, during the All Star Game, a new myth started.

Murder! DNA! Occupy Wall Street!

Starting with NBC, followed by a slew of other predominantly NY outlets, the press reported a flimsy story–sourced to law enforcement–claiming that DNA found on a chain left at an Occupy-related protest earlier this year matched DNA found at the site of a murder of a Pretty White Woman. Continue reading →


NYPD’s Counterterrorism Strengths: Bigfooting, Entrapping, and Overselling

By:  Tuesday July 10, 2012 4:36 pm

Justin Elliott takes the debunking I did here one step further: a claim by claim debunking of the NYPD’s claims to have thwarted 14 attacks against the city. He helpfully groups his debunkery into three groups:

Real attacks the NYPD had no role in or even undermined but for which they claim credit.

  • Faisal Shahzad
  • Najibullah Zazi
  • Liquids Plot

Those marginally credible plots involving government informants.

  • Newburgh Four
  • Herald Square
  • JFK Airport

Those plots deemed not credible by (usually anonymous) experts or never developed.

  • Jose Pimental
  • Ahmed Ferhani and Mohamed Mamdouh
  • Iyman Faris
  • PATH Train
  • Subway Cyanide
  • NYSE/Citi
  • Uzair Paracha
  • Bryant Neal Vinas/LIRR

That’s it. The “threats” the NYPD is using to justify profiling the city’s (and suburbs’) Muslims were either missed by the NYPD, created in large by them, or never really developed.

I’d add just two things. First, as I have noted, for two of three actual attacks here, the NYPD actually got close but missed (or even hindered) the developing plots. These near misses suggest the NYPD may well have picked a few worthwhile investigation targets, but its actions are failing to reveal any real, rather than manufactured, threat.

There’s one more thing Elliot’s piece made me realize. Several of these–including Uzair Paracha, Iyman Faris, and the NYSE/Citi plot–can be traced back to KSM. As Elliott notes–and I’ve noted before–some of his evidence against Paracha, at least, was collected during his worst period of torture. Not only does that suggest I should add “exploiting torture-induced testimony” to my title.

But it makes me wonder whether one of the problems with trying KSM in NY, for Ray Kelly, was the possibility that KSM would expose the fraud at the heart of Kelly’s counterterrorism scam.


NYPD Stopped 351,739 People Last Year for “Furtive Movements”

By:  Monday May 14, 2012 2:11 pm

There’s been a good deal of reporting on this report the NYCLU released last week, but the report itself must be read to fully understand the gravity of the stop-and-frisk abuse in NYC.

Consider this chart, for example, showing that Mike Bloomberg has had even more success inflating stop-and-frisk numbers than he ever had inflating the stock market.

Then there’s the stat that shows more young black men were stopped last year (168,126 stops of young black men) than reside in the city over all (158,406 total)–statistically, at least, every single young black man has been stopped.

Finally, though, there’s the list of reasons cops gave for having stopped someone in the first place–with “furtive movements” accounting for over half the stops, and “clothes commonly used in a crime” (does this mean hoodies?) cited in 31,555. Continue reading →


Peter King Makes It More Clear He’s Targeting the AP, Not Leakers

By:  Thursday May 10, 2012 8:29 am

A real member of Congress might worry that the government is using double agents to expand wars in other countries without briefing the Gang of Eight, as required by law.

Not Peter King. He wants to investigate the AP’s sources–but not, apparently, ABC’s–to find out how the press learned something that had not been briefed properly.

Also: Peter King doesn’t believe in scaring the American people. Just ginning up fear about one religion or ethnic group.


John Brennan Praises the Object of His Own Intimate Knowledge

By:  Friday April 20, 2012 4:51 pm

John Brennan, the guy whose role in torture and illegal wiretapping the Obama Administration continues to protect by looking relentlessly forward, also once admitted to having intimate knowledge of the NYPD’s spy program.

President Barack Obama’s homeland security adviser, John Brennan, who was the deputy executive director the CIA when the NYPD intelligence programs began, said he was intimately familiar with the CIA-NYPD partnership. He said that agency knew what the rules were and did not cross any lines.

Curiously, Brennan picked the day after Najibullah Zazi testified to praise the NYPD for its role in identifying terrorists (and proclaim, again, that he and the CIA and the NYPD hadn’t done anything illegal).

John Brennan said Friday at an NYPD event that the federal government can’t identify terrorists and stop attacks without help from local agencies.

He said the NYPD’s work has been responsible for keeping the city safe and that the department has done nothing illegal.

It doesn’t inspire great confidence that Brennan seems so unaware that the NYPD pointedly did not find Zazi and his accomplices, in spite of the fact that the NYPD believed Zazi’s imam was cooperating fully with the NYPD.

Is it possible that Obama’s top Homeland Security Advisor doesn’t even know that the NYPD’s spy program failed to find the most serious Islamic threats to NYC in recent years?