Why wasn't Tamerlan Tsarnaev on the FBI's watch list when he returned after 6 months in Russia?

On Today's Fox News Sunday:

CHRIS WALLACE, host: What do you make of the fact, because of a Russian request, the FBI interrogated the older brother Tamerlan back in 2011 about his ties to radical Islam. They found out he was not a threat.... [W]hat do you make of the interrogation? And what about the fact that when he returned after six months in Russia, he apparently was not on an FBI watch list?

CONGRESSMAN PETER KING: ... [W]here the FBI is given information about someone as being potential terrorists, they look at them, and then they don't take action. And they go out and carry out murders after this. So, again, I'm wondering, again, is there something deficient here? What was wrong? Again, there was nothing they could find in 2011. He goes to Chechnya in 2012. He has statements up on his Web site. He's talking about radical imams. Why didn't the FBI go back and look at that?... [I]s far as getting information in advance and not seeming to take proper action, this is the fifth case I'm aware of where the FBI has failed to stop someone who ultimately became a terrorist murderer....

Later in the show, Wallace interviews Philip Mudd, a terrorist expert with experience in the CIA, the National Security Council, and the FBI.

WALLACE: Was there any kind of a breakdown here in our national security operation, and specifically with regard to the FBI? Are you troubled by the fact that they were alerted by the Russians to the older brother, they interviewed him, decided he was not a threat, he goes to Russia, he comes back, and they don't seem to have him on a watch list?

PHILIP MUDD: No, I'm not troubled by this for several reasons. First, people fail to consider the implications of false positives. You look at one guy we could have gotten, but you forget the other 10,000 that would have come into the net if we look at a person like this every day. So, I look at this and say, you know, these kinds of things happen, but I suspect it wasn't a dropped ball here.

10,000 caught in the net every day? Every year? Every decade? When the FBI goes as far as it did on Tamerlan Tsarnaev, shouldn't the case be tagged in a way that would cause it to reopen when something happens that is as significant as 6 months in Russia — even if there would be 10,000 files subject to reopening? If we have to worry about "sleeper cells," why don't we monitor these characters and do something  when they engage in behavior typical of planning or training? But I don't know that the FBI doesn't do these things. Mudd seems intent on deflecting our attention from past FBI failings.

Wallace presses him: "[D]o you see any way you could have prevented these two guys?"

MUDD: Well, I mean, we're going to have to see what kind of foreign connections they have, whether the travel to Russia last year actually meant something. But what I see so far says we've got two kids who are in a closed radical circle. Breaking that circle in a state like ours that is an open society is virtually impossible.

WALLACE: What is your sense -- and I understand this is speculation, but informed speculation -- were they acting alone, part of a group, and do you see any Al Qaeda fingerprints on this?

MUDD: The only fingerprint I've seen might possibly have been ideology, but not operations. Every step of the way was pretty rudimentary. For example, if you look at some of those initial photos, you've got a kid with a hoodie and a cap. If he wants to obscure himself, the hoodie goes on, and the cap goes forward. If he had operational training, I want to know who did it because they were amateurs.

Two kids who are in a closed radical circle... An open society....

Don't expect the government to protect you from everything in our free society. That's a talking point. I heard it from Senator Dick Durbin this morning on "Meet the Press":

GREGORY: Do you have questions about the FBI’s tracking of the older suspect here who is now dead and whether something was missed?

SEN. DURBIN: Of course I do. And I think we should ask those questions. That’s our responsibility. But I listened to [Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee] Mike Rogers and I thought he laid it out as a former FBI agent himself as to what we were faced with when we were asked these hard questions. We’ve got to make sure as well, let me add David, that we give to the intelligence and law enforcement agencies, federal, state, and local, the resources they need to keep America safe. We live in a dangerous world. We live also in a free and open society, which we value very much. In order to keep Americans safe at the marathon, at every other public event, we need to invest the resources that are necessary for law enforcement.

I laughed at this point, because it was such knee-jerk Democratic Party response: We need to invest the resources. Spend more money. No one on their side ever fails. They were always only deprived of enough money. The FBI has been well-funded over the years, though presumably they could always hire more people and so forth. But the question is whether they did enough here and are doing enough in similar cases.

GREGORY: Is that a call in fact for re-examination of whether additional resources are needed to-- to look at homegrown terror and the potential for smaller boar attacks that can only be deterred by the strength of law enforcement and engaged citizenry?

Smaller boar attacks! Gregory didn't transcribe his own question, but somebody at NBC doesn't know enough about guns.





Gregory is responsible, however, for the inanity of his question. Is this a call for more money? Durbin's answer — "It is" — is as short as he can possibly make it, and Gregory doesn't stop him from gratuitously plugging in his prepared remarks about immigration. This is really shameless:

SEN. DURBIN: It is. But let me add one other element. Let me bring it up to date with the agenda of the Senate. I’ll return tomorrow for the Senate Judiciary Committee’s second hearing on the new immigration reform bill. Let me put it in context. There are four specific provisions in this immigration reform bill that will make America safer. We are going to have a stronger border with Mexico. We are going to have 11 million people come forward and have an opportunity to register with our government, out of the shadows. We’re going to have verification of employment in the work place. And we’re finally going to have a system where we can track visa holders who visit the United States to make sure that they leave when they’re supposed to. So this is part of the ongoing conversation about a safer America and the immigration reform bill moves us closer.

Does that have anything to do with terrorist attacks? Gregory gets his next question right:

GREGORY: Do you fear an impact similar to what we saw after 9/11 that derailed immigration reform. Already, you’ve heard Senator Grassley talk about, you know, loopholes in the immigration system, whether, you know, leniencies of student visas. Are there going to be concerns here related to the Boston attacks that you think impact the immigration debate?

Of course, the immigration proposal, the next item on the legislative agenda, just happens to answer these questions Durbin would have us believe:

SEN. DURBIN: I’ll just put it on the line. I’ve been involved with the eight senators who have put this bill together, Democrats and Republicans. The worst thing we can do is nothing. If we do nothing, leaving 11 million people in the shadows, not making our border safer, not having the information that comes from employment and these visa holders, we will be less safe in America. Immigration reform will make us safer. And I hope that those who are critical of it will just come forward and say what their idea is. We’ve come up with a sound plan to keep this country safe.

The worst thing we can do is nothing. So the best you've got is the assertion that your plan is better than nothing — is it? — and the baseless insinuation that the 11 million people in the shadows are central to the fight against terror.