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  • Dzhokhar Tsarnaev charged with using weapon of mass destruction

    Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, was charged at his hospital bed on Monday with using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction, a count that carries a possible death penalty.

    The charges were announced a week after two devices exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring more than 180.

    A magistrate judge read the charges to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, the younger of two brothers suspected in the bombing, in a special session as he lay seriously injured in Beth Israel Deaconess hospital in Boston. According to the criminal complaint, he has gunshot wounds to the head, neck, legs and hand.

    A transcript of the extraordinary bedside court hearing shows that Tsarnaev was read his Miranda rights – the process in US law where a suspect is informed of his right not to incriminate himself. It appears that despite his injuries, Tsarnaev managed to speak one word: answering “no” to a question about whether he could afford a lawyer.

    Tsarnaev had escaped police on Thursday night after a frenzied shootout in the Boston suburb of Watertown in which his elder brother, Tamerlan, 26, was killed. He was eventually captured on Friday evening, bloody and wounded, hiding in a boat in a suburban backyard after a day in which Boston and surrounding areas were virtually locked down.

    “Although our investigation is ongoing, today’s charges bring a successful end to a tragic week for the city of Boston, and for our country,” said the US attorney general, Eric Holder. The US attorney for Massachusetts, Carmen Oritz, said the impact of the crimes had been “far-reaching, affecting a worldwide community that is looking for peace and justice”.

    Rick DesLauriers, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston division, said the events of the week had moved at “breakneck speed” and praised the “collective effort of our law enforcement and intelligence partners”.

    The charges include one count of using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction – an improvised explosive device or IED – against persons and property within the United States resulting in death, and one count of malicious destruction of property by means of an explosive device, resulting in death. US prosecutors did not announce whether they would seek the death penalty.

    Full article: http://www.guardian. … har-tsarnaev-charged

     


  • The Bill of Rights was written for Dzhokar Tsarnaev

    Not only did the militarized domestic law enforcement complex put the City of Boston under martial law, but nobody seems to have found it out of the ordinary, much less outrageous. Yes, a few journalists like libertarian Anthony Gregory raised a finger. But, for the most part, nobody seemed to mind that the entire city was under military siege, complete with paramilitary units in full battle gear, battlefield ordinance and tanks.

    via The Bill of Rights was written for Dzhokar Tsarnaev


  • Boston Tried a Police State and it Failed

    Yesterday a major US city – perhaps as many as 1 million people – was put under martial law. Business and universities were closed. Public transit and Amtrak were padlocked. Paramilitary cops from multiple states rolled down Boston’s residential neighborhoods in humvees with manned machine gun turrets on top. In full battle gear, these guys – they looked like soldiers – called people out of their homes. They then searched the homes. Boston became a ghost town and a police state for a day. And Bostonians cheered them for it. Some even called for a parade to honor the men who treated them like prisoners in their own homes.

    This grand show of force, which even the FBI admits is unprecedented, was carried out for the purpose of catching a suspected terrorist – a 19-year-old honor student – who stands accused of deploying pressure cooker bombs at the Boston Marathon. These bombs reportedly killed 3 people and injured 170.

    Think about that. Boston was turned into a giant prison for a day to catch a teenager with pressure cooker bombs.

    What does this mean?

    1. Terrorism “Works”

    For a maximum investment of perhaps $1 or $2 thousand dollars, ideologically-motivated individuals can cost the economy perhaps as much as $1 billion dollars in economic output. Nobody yet knows how much it costs to shut down down Boston for a day but $1 billion is about how much the city produces on a daily basis. The return on investment for an enterprising terrorist could be as much as 500,000%.

    The brothers Tsarnaev succeeded in gaining a lot of attention for themselves. Chechnya will benefit from this attention. People will want to travel there. People will want to understand what has been going on in Chechnya. We all want to understand why people do these kinds of things and people now want to understand these brothers.

    In short, the boys in blue created a tantalizing incentive for others to copy the Tsarnaevs. The Tsarnaevs’ terrorism “worked” but only because the Boston government helped them make it work. This is not a conspiracy theory. By overreacting, the governments at work here magnified the Tsarnaevs’ effectiveness. The Tsarnaevs didn’t shut down Boston. They didn’t put paramilitary troops on the streets of a major US city. The governments at work here did that.

    Full article: http://georgedonnell … -police-state-failed