Adam B Sullivan

A former federal anti-terrorism specialist says the government can “certainly” listen to a phone call one of the accused Boston bombers made before he was killed. Via CNN:

More recently, two sources familiar with the investigation told CNN that (widow Katherine) Russell had spoken with Tamerlan (Tsarnaev) after his picture appeared on national television April 18.

What exactly the two said remains under investigation, the sources said.

Investigators may be able to recover the conversation, said Tom Clemente, a former counterterrorism agent for the FBI.

“We certainly have ways in national security investigations to find out exactly what was said in that conversation,” he told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Monday, adding that “all of that stuff is being captured as we speak whether we know it or like it or not.”

If that guy is right, that “all that stuff is being captured as we speak,” it ought to be a little more prominent than the second half of an 1,100-word story about the dead suspect’s widow.

Earlier this week 32 mentally challenged men were granted a huuuge $240 million in a workplace abuse case, which disability advocates called a big win for their cause. It wouldn’t have happened without the Des Moines Register, according to Iowa political operative Graham Gillette:

These men were abused by an employer who retained the men’s government disability checks, paid the men a shockingly low wage and mistreated them while government inspectors, health workers and social service personnel went about their business as usual. It wasn’t until Clark Kauffman, a reporter for the Des Moines Register, investigated and wrote about these men of Atalissa that anyone had the gumption to take action. … Without investigative journalism, the plight of these mentally challenged individuals would have gone unreported. These men might still be suffering today.

Gillette goes on to say all citizens ought to support some news organization and stay tuned to its content. “A healthy democracy depends on an informed citizenry. By choosing to not be informed, a person shirks his responsibility as a citizen.”

Officials are starting to disclose more details about what they’ve learned from accused Boston bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev. He reportedly said he and his accomplice brother were influenced by a famous U.S.-born radical before the attack, according to the New York Times.

(Tsarnaev) told authorities that he and his brother viewed the Internet sermons of Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American cleric who moved to Yemen and was killed in September 2011 by an American drone strike. There is no indication that the brothers communicated with Mr. Awlaki before his death.

You can kill as many accused terrorists as you want, but you can’t kill the Internet (try as they may).

Al-Awlaki’s is likely the best-known victim of the Obama-era drone wars. Despite his U.S. citizenship, he was targeted by the U.S. government, called illegal by civil libertarians. Critics are doubly outraged that the Obama administration won’t disclose its legal rationale for the killing of al-Awlaki and likely other targeted U.S. citizens living abroad.