[ Who/What/Why - http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/10/29/feds-accused-of-harassing-boston-bomber-friends-and-friends-of-friends/ ]
In the six months since the Boston Marathon bombing, the FBI has by
all appearances been relentlessly intimidating, punishing, deporting
and, in one case, shooting to death, persons connected, sometimes only
tangentially, with the alleged bombers.
All of these individuals have something in common: If afforded
constitutional protections and treated as witnesses instead of
perpetrators, they could potentially help clear up questions about the
violence of April 15. And they might also be able to help clarify the
methods and extent of the FBI’s recruitment of immigrants and others for
undercover work, and how that could relate to the Bureau’s prior
relationship with the bombing suspects—a relationship the Bureau has
variously hidden or downplayed.
Who Cares? We Do
The Boston tragedy may seem like a remote, distant memory, yet the
bombing warrants continued scrutiny as a seminal event of our times. It
was, after all, the only major terror attack in the United States since
9/11. With its grisly scenes of severed limbs and dead bodies, including
that of a child, it shook Americans profoundly.
As importantly, in its aftermath we’ve seen public acquiescence in an
ongoing erosion of civil liberties and privacy rights that began with
9/11—and to an unprecedented expansion of federal authority in the form
of a unique military/law enforcement “lockdown” of a major metropolitan
area.
Nonetheless, at the time, most news organizations simply accepted at
face value the shifting and thin official accounts of the strange
events. Today few give the still-unfolding saga even the most minimal
attention. And it is most certainly still unfolding, as we shall see.
-[Full Article]
