Boston Marathon bombings.......

[Wolfsong]

Originally Posted by Kobi

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Homeland Security Department ordered its border agents ‘‘effective immediately’’ to verify that every international student who arrives in the U.S. has a valid student visa, according to an internal memorandum obtained Friday by The Associated Press. The new procedure is the government’s first security change directly related to the Boston bombings.

The order from a senior official at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, David J. Murphy, was circulated Thursday and came one day after the Obama administration acknowledged that a student from Kazakhstan accused of hiding evidence for one of the Boston bombing suspects was allowed to return to the U.S. in January without a valid student visa.

The student visa for Azamat Tazhayakov had been terminated when he arrived in New York on Jan. 20. But the border agent in the airport did not have access to the information about it in the Homeland Security Department’s Student and Exchange Visitor Information System.

A spokesman for the department, Peter Boogaard, said earlier this week that the government was working to fix the problem, which allowed Tazhayakov to be admitted into the country when he returned to the U.S.

Tazhayakov and a second Kazakh student were arrested this week on federal charges of obstruction of justice. They were accused of helping to get rid of a backpack containing fireworks owned by bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. A third student was also arrested and accused of lying to authorities.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/mas...k4M/story.html

..... What happened here? The kid just said to the TSA agent......"I have no visa I am student......here is bottle of vodka for politsiya .....have good day....." and strolled on through?

[Kobi]

Originally Posted by Wolfsong

..... What happened here? The kid just said to the TSA agent......"I have no visa I am student......here is bottle of vodka for politsiya .....have good day....." and strolled on through?

The student visa for Azamat Tazhayakov had been terminated when he arrived in New York on Jan. 20. But the border agent in the airport did not have access to the information in the Homeland Security Department's Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, called SEVIS.

Tazhayakov was a friend and classmate of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Tazhayakov left the U.S. in December and returned Jan. 20. But in early January, his student-visa status was terminated because he was academically dismissed from the university.

A spokesman for the department, Peter Boogaard, said earlier this week that the government was working to fix the problem, which allowed Tazhayakov to be admitted into the country when he returned to the U.S.

Under existing procedures, border agents could verify a student's status in SEVIS only when the person was referred to a second officer for additional inspection or questioning. Tazhayakov was not sent to a second officer when he arrived, because, Boogaard said, there was no information to indicate Tazhayakov was a national security threat. Under the new procedures, all border agents were expected to be able to access SEVIS by next week.

The government for years has recognized as a problem the inability of border agents at primary inspection stations to directly review student-visa information. The Homeland Security Department was working before the bombings to resolve the problem, but the new memo outlined interim procedures until the situation was corrected.

Under the new procedures, border agents will verify a student's visa status before the person arrives in the U.S. using information provided in flight manifests. If that information is unavailable, border agents will check the visa status manually with the agency's national targeting data center.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/...#ixzz2SKNjABIy
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What is interesting is how Homeland Security knew this was an issue for years and was "working on a solution". Amazing how they managed to find a "solution" so quickly, after the fact, only when the issue found its way to the light of day and was connected to a terrorist incident.

The illusion of safety? An immigration issue? A convenient excuse to link immigration to terrorism? An example of how the rhetoric we are fed doesn't fit the reality?

[Kobi]

The search is on for a cemetery to bury Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev as protesters picket the funeral home holding his body.

Four cemeteries in three states have refused to accept the battered corpse of Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, said the Massachusetts funeral director tasked with finding his final resting place.

Peter Stefan, funeral director and owner of Graham Putnam & Mahoney Funeral Parlors in Worcester, Mass., tried to find a plot for Tsarnaev in New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts — but nobody wants to bury the Russian-born terrorist on their land, he said.

Protesters had picketed a North Attleborough funeral home to which it was brought initially, after which Mr Stefan's business received it, in the face of a new demonstration.

"Everyone deserves a burial," Mr Stefan told Reuters news agency by telephone.

"It doesn't matter who it is. I can't pick and choose."

Speaking to AP news agency, Mr Stefan said: "My problem here is trying to find a gravesite. A lot of people don't want to do it. They don't want to be involved with this."

Arguing that everyone deserved a dignified burial, he added: "I keep bringing up the point of Lee Harvey Oswald, Timothy McVeigh or Ted Bundy. Somebody had to do those, too."

Dozens of protesters rallied near Mr Stefan's funeral home on Friday

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The funeral director has been accused of "honoring a terrorist"....just for doing his job.

Did people protest outside the hospitals where the brothers were brought for treatment? Were the doctors and nurses, just doing their jobs, honoring a terrorist? Did people protest outside the medical examiners office? Were the people inside, just doing their jobs, honoring a terrorist?

The war on terror has produced some funky paradoxes for Americans. And, it makes me ask, is this who we are?

[Wolfsong]

Originally Posted by Kobi

The funeral director has been accused of "honoring a terrorist"....just for doing his job.

Did people protest outside the hospitals where the brothers were brought for treatment? Were the doctors and nurses, just doing their jobs, honoring a terrorist? Did people protest outside the medical examiners office? Were the people inside, just doing their jobs, honoring a terrorist?

The war on terror has produced some funky paradoxes for Americans. And, it makes me ask, is this who we are?

How about send him back to Chechnya?

Look bad people have been executed or died since before time. Hitler wasn't buried for long. The Russians dug him up, destroyed what was left of the body, and threw it in the river to prevent it from becoming a shrine to the Neo Nazis. Bin Laden buried at sea for the same reasons. John Wayne Gacy is assumed buried in his parents plot in Niles, IL, but nobody has ever been able to confirm either him or his parents location.

I don't think people are getting stranger, I just think they are becoming less conscience of inside/outside voices. Remember, there was a time when people actualy had respect for one another. Does not seem to be so anymore.