Time has the details, but the top line is:

When given a choice, 61 percent of Americans say they are more concerned about the government enacting new anti-terrorism policies that restrict civil liberties, compared to 31 percent who say they are more concerned about the government failing to enact strong new anti-terrorism policies.

Only 32 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. government can prevent all major attacks, down from an average of 40 percent in 2011 and 41 percent in 2006. And by contrast with polls taken in the wake of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing, when only 23 percent of voters polled showed reluctance to give up civil liberties to protect terrorism, 49 percent said they were not willing to give up such rights, as opposed to 40 percent who were.

Continue Reading...

According to the criminal complaint against Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov, the pair recognised Tsarnaev from pictures released by the authorities four days after the attack. Kadyrbayev is said to have told FBI agents that then he sent text messages to Tsarnaev, who replied "Lol", "You better not text me", and "Come to my room and take whatever you want."

The complaint alleges the Kazakh pair then went with Phillipos to Tsarnaev's dorm room at Pine Dale Hall. They were let in by Tsarnaev's unnamed roommate, who told them Tsarnaev had left some hours earlier.

The FBI says the accused men described how, while watching a movie in the room, they noticed a backpack containing seven red tubes of fireworks, emptied of their explosive powder. Kadyrbayev, by now sure of Tsarnaev's involvement in the bombings, admitted to agents that he decided to remove the backpack "in order to help his friend Tsarnaev avoid trouble".

Continue Reading...

All three suspects have been charged, according to Federal court documents.

The first two suspects, Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov, have been charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice for "destroying, concealing, and covering up objects" belonging to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The full complaint can be read here.

The third suspect, Robel Phillipos, was charged with making false statements in a terrorism investigation. The full complaint can be read here.

Updated: 12:12 p.m.

NBC News' Pete Williams is reporting that the three suspects currently in custody have been under FBI surveillance for more than a week, and while "there was no indication they had any prior knowledge of the bombing" sources told NBC News that "the FBI had been investigating [the suspects] for about 10 days."

More from NBC:

Continue Reading...

These questions are timely, following Vice President Joe Biden’s dismissive description of the Boston Marathon bombers as “knockoff jihadis.” Mere amateurs, these brothers, who were capable of murdering several marathon participants, maiming scores more and shutting down a major city and even rail lines for hours or days. The real amateurism, it might be suggested, is that of the pundits and journalists trying to psychoanalyze the Tsarnaev brothers and their relations from a distance.

But there are already reports that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving killer, has said that he and his brother acted in response to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — wars that they considered to be attacks on Islam. What if this really was the motive? What if these brothers really were sincere Islamist revolutionaries, like the thousands of others who have rallied to militant jihadism in the past several decades, whether they were connected to international Islamist networks or acting on their own? That doesn’t exonerate their brutal crimes in any way. But surely Islamist terrorists are best understood in terms of the common Islamist ideology they share, rather than personal or familial experiences that are unique to each.

Continue Reading...

According to the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, Tsarnaev may have been linked to William Plotnikov, a Canadian "boxer-turned-jihadist" (sounds familiar) who died at the hands of Russian forces in the republic of Dagestan last year, while Tsarnaev was visiting...Tsarnaev may have also known, or chatted online, with Makhmud Mansur Nidal, an 18-year-old militant who was reportedly "under surveillance for six months as a suspected recruiter for Islamist insurgents fighting Moscow's rule in the region." Nidal was also killed in Russia, in May 2012 during Tamerlan's six-month visit

Continue Reading...

The program also interviews friends of the Tsarnaev brothers:

Continue Reading...

Continue Reading...

It's not particularly surprising that Tsarnaev would be drawn to a wide range of conspiracy theories, as research shows that people prone to believing one conspiracy theory will likely believe many -- even if they're completely contradictory. And he fits a profile of a type of person likely to be drawn to conspiratorial thinking, considering he was allegedly alienated from and disgruntled with society.

Continue Reading...

Now, almost a week after the Tsarnaev brothers fought a rolling street battle with dozens of heavily armed police officers, we learned Wednesday night that they had only a single handgun, according to sources who spoke with ABC News and the AP, something that directly contradicts what officials had previously said.

Continue Reading...

We don't know why Tamerlan and his brother blew up the Boston Marathon -- we may never really know -- but we do know that in doing so, they were performing a kind of masculinity that took control of the city through public destruction.

Continue Reading...

Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, a cognitive scientist at the University of Western Australia, published a paper late last month in the journal Psychological Science that has received widespread praise for looking at the thinking behind conspiracy theories about science and climate change. We asked him to explain the psychology of conspiracy theories. This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Continue Reading...

“I will speak as long as it takes, until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our Constitution is important,” Paul declared. “That your rights to trial by jury are precious, that no American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found to be guilty by a court.”

Even though I disagree with Paul on virtually every other issue and generally consider him to be kind of a joke, I’d have been happy to be proven wrong. Maybe he had a conscience. Maybe he would become a much needed civil liberties leader on the right.

Alas, I haven’t been proven wrong. Mr. Filibuster, the tribune of civil liberties, now says that drones should have been used against the Tsarnaev brothers in Boston – not only that, he told Fox’s Neal Cavuto they should even be used against someone robbing a liquor store.

Continue Reading...

This mosque is not the only one in Boston reticent to lay the 26-year-old's body to rest. The denials and equivocations are a part of a broader pattern of Muslims and Chechens understandably distinguishing themselves from the Tsarnaev brothers in the massacre's wake. Via NBC:

Continue Reading...

Miranda establishes that statements made by a suspect in custody in response to interrogation are not admissible against the defendant in court unless the defendant has been properly Mirandized. But, according to the Globe report, authorities aren't sweating this detail -- they believe that witness testimony from the man carjacked by the Tsarnaev brothers will serve as ample evidence for guilt, even if the 19-year-old suspect's hospital bed confession is not admissible in court. Via the Globe:

Continue Reading...

“There's just too many things going on that, to me, doesn't make any sense,” Tremblay told the local Fosters' Daily Democrat, explaining other parts of a theory that is all too familiar a little over a week after the bombings.

Continue Reading...

Tamerlan "took an interest in Infowars," according to Elmirza Khozhugov, the ex-husband of Tamerlan's sister. He was also apparently interested in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and was trying to find a copy of "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion," one of the most notorious conspiracy tomes of history.

Continue Reading...

On Tuesday, CNN chief national correspondent John King -- a Boston native -- addressed the network's blunder, telling D.C. radio station WTOP, "The one thing you have to do is look straight in the camera and say, 'We were wrong.'"

"It's my city, too, so it's sort of a double kick in the head to me," King said. "But, the best way to deal with it is to say 'We made a mistake. Here's how we made a mistake.' And then move on."

He explained that he relied on two sources "who have been reputable in the past who simply had bad information."

Continue Reading...

According to the Washington Post, citing unnamed official sources, "the 19-year-old suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings has told interrogators that the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan motivated him and his brother to carry out the attack":

Continue Reading...

On Wednesday’s NBC Nightly News, for example, Brian Williams brought Leiter on to explain how investigators should deal with the evidence they had collected so far, including “tons of imagery” and backpacks, wires and a battery left by the bombers. Would all of that be a “big early help”? Absolutely, replied Leiter. “All of that imagery from the store, from the police and from people, you combine that with the forensic evidence and then the secret intelligence that we are not hearing about from human intelligence sources, cell phone records, things like that,” he said. “And that starts to paint the mosaic from which they can find their suspect.” He provided much of the same information later on MSNBC’s evening broadcasts and over the weekend on the Today Show.

Continue Reading...

When other networks switched over to news anchors, CNN stayed on the scene in Watertown, Mass., despite having no news to report:

Continue Reading...