One person was taken into custody at Denver International Airport after a “possible security threat” on a flight from Knoxville, Tenn. on Friday night, an airport spokeswoman said.

Denver Police and the FBI responded after Frontier Airlines flight 601 landed safely at about 7:30 p.m. local time, airport spokeswoman Laura Coale said in a recorded message.

The plane was moved to a remote location, and passengers were taken off the plane and bussed to another section of the airport, she said.

A bomb squad also responded to the scene after one person was taken from the aircraft by law enforcement. The area was cleared around 11:30 p.m., Coale said. She did not provide any other details on the nature of the possible threat.

While law enforcement responded to the possible threat, “all other airport operations remained normal,” Coale said.

Related:

• 'Security threat' forces passengers off plane at Denver International Airport

An effort to place military sex assault cases in the hands of an independent prosecutor was thwarted late Tuesday when Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin sided with the top brass – and against a fellow Democrat.

Levin (D-Mich.) will strip a proposal by Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) from the policy-setting Defense Authorization Act and replace it with a measure that instead requires senior military officers to review decisions when commanders refuse to prosecute a case.

Gillibrand’s proposal - which had 27 co-sponsors, including 4 Republicans – came in response to complaints that the U.S. military has repeatedly failed to deal with the issue of sex assaults. The military has resisted efforts to involve outsiders in its handling of such cases.

Aides for Gillibrand told NBC's Capital Hill correspondent Kelly O'Donnell that the move was "a real setback."

She is expected to make another attempt to introduce her proposal when the defense bill comes up for a final vote later this summer.

Levin, who is not seeking re-election, is expected to accept an amendment from Senator Claire McCaskill to prevent commanders from overturning jury verdicts.

The intra-party showdown is an example of the generational and gender divide on this issue - even as it has gained more attention and support with the additional women now in the senate. 

Last month, a Pentagon report revealed that the number of service personnel who made an anonymous claim that they were sexually assaulted but never reported the attack skyrocketed from 19,000 in FY11 to 26,000 in FY12.

Embarrassingly, the report was published just a day after it was revealed that the Air Force's sexual-abuse prevention chief has himself been charged with sexual assault.

Last week, a female midshipman who accused three U.S. Naval Academy football players of raping her last year said her client was actually disciplined for drinking while her alleged attackers went unpunished.

Related: 

• Gillibrand, McCaskill grill military leaders over handling of sexual assault
• Lawyer for female midshipman says client was punished after sexual assault claim
• Air Force's sex-abuse prevention honcho charged with sexual battery

This story was originally published on Wed Jun 12, 2013 6:31 AM EDT

The National Security Agency contractor who came forward claiming to be the source of leaks about vast government surveillance programs set off diplomatic intrigue Monday by holing up in Hong Kong and hinting at seeking protection in Iceland.

The reporter who broke the story for the British newspaper The Guardian said that he did not believe American authorities had been in touch with the contractor, Edward Snowden, 29.

“I don’t believe they know where he is or how to communicate with him,” the reporter, Glenn Greenwald, told TODAY from Hong Kong.

The Justice Department, without naming Snowden, said it was in the early stages of an investigation, and there were already calls from some members of Congress to prosecute him.

Philippe Lopez / AFP - Getty Images

A security guard stands outside the U.S. Consulate in Hong Kong on Monday.

“As long as you have laws on the books, and we do, you’ve got to enforce the laws,” Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., told CNBC. “This is somebody who — it appears, at least — leaked sensitive classified information, and I think he needs to be prosecuted.”

And FBI agents were seen Monday at Snowden's father's house in Allentown, Pennsylvania, but did not answer any reporters' questions.

The Guardian and The Washington Post, with Snowden’s consent, revealed him Sunday as the source for stories that disclosed two giant surveillance programs collecting data on Americans’ phone calls and foreigners’ Internet use.

Those disclosures led President Barack Obama to issue a striking defense — “Nobody is listening to your phone calls” — and to insist that Americans must make tradeoffs between safety and privacy.

Snowden, employed by the defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, said he traveled to Hong Kong on May 20 because “they have a spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent.”

He spoke to The Guardian at a Hong Kong hotel, but his whereabouts Monday were unknown.

Hong Kong, a former British colony, is part of China but has considerable autonomy. It has an extradition treaty with the United States, but China can veto extradition requests when it believes its foreign interests would be affected.

“The only thing I can do is sit here and hope the Hong Kong government does not deport me,” Snowden told The Guardian.

Experts and Hong Kong lawmakers said it was unlikely China would defy such a U.S. request. One Hong Kong legislator told The Wall Street Journal that Snowden’s choice of location was based on “unfortunate ignorance.”

Snowden told The Guardian that he wanted to seek asylum in a country “with shared values,” and mentioned that Iceland had stood up for people over Internet freedom issues.

But even Iceland, which took in the fugitive former chess champion Bobby Fischer in 2005, may not be a safe bet, either. Iceland has just elected a more conservative government seen as closer to Washington than previous governments have been.

Stefania Oskarsdottir, a lecturer in political science at the University of Iceland, told Reuters that she would be surprised if the new government wanted to engage in any disputes with the United States.

“I think what this guy is saying is based on something he is imagining or hoping for rather than actual facts,” she told Reuters.

Still, Snowden could travel to Iceland without a visa and could apply immediately for asylum.

Snowden grew up in North Carolina and enlisted in the Army in 2003 in hopes of joining the Special Forces. But he broke both legs in a training accident and was discharged, he said.

He told the paper that he joined the armed forces in hopes of helping the Iraqi people escape from oppression, but was jarred that his commanders “seemed pumped up about killing Arabs.”

After his injury, Snowden got a job as a security guard at a covert NSA facility at the University of Maryland before working on tech security for the CIA, The Guardian reported.

Snowden could join Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning as among the most consequential leakers in American history. Manning, who admitted sending military documents to WikiLeaks, is being court-martialed in Maryland.

Ellsberg leaked what became known as the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times, documenting the government’s systematic misleading of the public about American involvement in Vietnam.

He said in an Op-Ed for The Guardian on Monday that he believed Snowden’s leaks to be the most important in American history, including the Pentagon Papers four decades ago.

“Snowden’s whistleblowing gives us the possibility to roll back a key part of what has amounted to an ‘executive coup’ against the U.S. Constitution,” he wrote. “Since 9/11, there has been, at first secretly but increasingly openly, a revocation of the Bill of Rights for which this country fought over 200 years ago.”

NBC News’ Ali Weinberg, Mike Kosnar and Joel Seidman, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

This story was originally published on Mon Jun 10, 2013 6:20 AM EDT

A secret National Security Agency program to collect vast amounts of phone records has foiled multiple attempted terrorist attacks inside the United States, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee told reporters on Thursday. 

Sen. Dianne Feinstein did not specify how many attempted attacks had been prevented, or the nature of the threats, but the California Democrat said there had been more than one. 

The remarks were made to reporters following a meeting with senators who were concerned over a report in a British newspaper that the NSA had requested phone records from a division of telecommunications giant Verizon. According to Feinstein, 27 senators attended the meeting and voiced concerns about the policy. 

"We are always open to changes. But that doesn't mean there will be any. It does mean that we will look at any ideas, any thoughts, and we do this on everything," she said. 

Earlier in the day Feinstein defended the surveillance as a legal and long-standing government program. 

“It began in 2009 – what appeared in the Guardian today, as I understand it, is simply a court reauthorization of a program. The court is required to look at it every three months,” she said.

And while Republican Senator Rand Paul called the surveillance of Verizon phone records described in the report “an astounding assault on the constitution,” other GOP lawmakers including Senator Lindsey Graham disagreed.

“I have no problem. I am a Verizon customer. You can have my phone number, and put it in a database,” Graham said. “If they get a hit between me and some guy from Waziristan,” officials should investigate, he said.

House Speaker John Boehner said President Obama should “explain to the American people why the administration considers this a critical tool in protecting our nation from the threats of a terrorist attack.”

The practice was first revealed by the British newspaper The Guardian on Wednesday, which obtained and published a highly classified court order that requires the production of “telephony metadata” by the telecommunications giant.

The order, marked "Top Secret" and issued by the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, instructs Verizon Business  Network Services, a subsidiary that provides internet and telecommunications services for corporations, to hand over data including all calling records on an "ongoing, daily basis.”

“On its face, the order reprinted in the article does not allow the government to listen in on anyone’s telephone calls,” the official said.

The NSA, Department of Justice, and Federal Bureau of Investigation have issued no formal comment on the report or purported practices described in it.

While declining to say how long the particular order referenced in the Guardian article has been in place, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that a “robust legal regime” reviews government powers under the Patriot Act “to ensure that they comply with the Constitution.”

“This strict regime reflects the president’s desire to strike the right balance between protecting our national security and protecting constitutional rights and civil liberties,” Earnest said.

Attorney General Eric Holder said he could not discuss the report regarding NSA information gathering today while appearing in a previously scheduled open budget hearing. Members of Congress have been “fully briefed” on the issue, he said.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid urged caution, saying the program “isn’t anything that’s brand new.”

“It’s gone on for some 7 years,” Reid said. “We’ve tried often to make it better and make it work.”

Signed by Judge Roger Vinson of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in April, the order requires the “production of certain call detail records,” and is set to expire on the evening of July 19, 2013. The order pertains to information including the phone numbers making and receiving the call, as well as the time the call was made and how long it lasts. It does not include the “name, address, or financial information of a subscriber or customer,” according to the order.

The order “does not require Verizon to produce telephony metadata for communications wholly originating and terminating in foreign countries,” according to the document.

Earlier on Wednesday, an Obama administration official defended the policy of gathering phone records from American citizens while neither confirming nor denying a report that the National Security Agency is collecting information regarding communications by Verizon customers.

Such information has been “a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats,” the senior Obama administration official said.

Getty Images file

This undated photo provided by the National Security Agency (NSA) shows its headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland.

While not confirming any particulars of the report, the administration official said that data such as that described in the article “allows counterterrorism personnel to discover whether known or suspected terrorists have been in contact with other persons who may be engaged in terrorist activities, particularly people located inside the United States.”

Verizon said it had no comment Wednesday on the accuracy of the story published by the Guardian or the document the report was based on, the company’s chief counsel Randy Milch said in note sent to the company’s employees.

“Verizon continually takes steps to safeguard its customers’ privacy,” Milch said in the note. “Nevertheless, the law authorizes the federal courts to order a company to provide information in certain circumstances, and if Verizon were to receive such an order, we would be required to comply.”

The disclosure of the order, which has not been independently verified by NBC News, comes after the Obama administration has taken fire for a Justice Department subpoena of Associated Press phone records.

Holder told NBC News Wednesday that he has no intention of stepping down from his job despite calls by some congressional Republicans for his resignation, citing the AP seizure.

Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, called the collection of call data as described in the Guardian report “an outrageous breach of Americans’ privacy” in a news release Thursday. “This bulk data collection is being done under interpretations of the law that have been kept secret from the public. Significant FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] court opinions that determine the scope of our laws should be declassified.”

Verizon had 98.9 million wireless customers at the end of the first quarter this year, according to an earnings report released in April, as well as about 11.7 million residential and 10 million commercial lines. It is not clear whether other parts of Verizon might have received similar orders. The order explicitly prohibits any person from disclosing that the NSA or FBI Investigation has sought records under the order.

“Now that this unconstitutional surveillance effort has been revealed, the government should end it and disclose its full scope, and Congress should initiate an investigation,” Michelle Richardson, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement. “This disclosure also highlights the growing gap between the public’s and the government’s understandings of the many sweeping surveillance authorities enacted by Congress.”

The law on which the order explicitly relies is the "business records" provision of the USA Patriot Act.

Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado, both Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a March 2012 letter to Attorney General Eric Holder that most Americans would “stunned to learn the details of how these secret court opinions have interpreted section 215 of the Patriot Act.”

“As we see it, there is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what the government secretly claims the law allows,” the senators wrote in the letter. “This is a problem, because it is impossible to have an informed public debate about what the law should say when the public doesn’t know what its government thinks the law says.”

Former vice president Al Gore called the practices described in the order “obscenely outrageous” in a message posted on Twitter Wednesday night. “In digital era, privacy must be a priority,” Gore wrote. “Is it just me, or is secret blanket surveillance obscenely outrageous.”

The order is the first concrete evidence that U.S. intelligence officials are continuing a broad campaign of domestic surveillance that began under President George W. Bush and caused great controversy when it was first exposed, according to Reuters.

NBC News' Chuck Todd, Peter Alexander, Andrew Rafferty Alastair Jamieson and the Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Related:

• A new controversy facing the Obama administration
• Holder says he has no intention of stepping down
• Holder undergoes marathon House grilling on IRS and leaks probe

This story was originally published on Thu Jun 6, 2013 6:23 AM EDT

Spc. Ryan Hallock / DVIDS via AP, file

Staff Sgt. Robert Bales

SEATTLE  - Robert Bales, the U.S. soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians in two rampages from his Army post last year, has reached a plea deal with prosecutors to avoid the death penalty, one of his lawyers said on Wednesday.

Bales, a decorated veteran of four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, is accused of gunning down villagers, mostly women and children, in attacks on their family compounds in Kandahar province in March 2012.

Lawyer Emma Scanlan said in an email that Bales would plead guilty to premeditated murder charges and would then go before a military jury for sentencing to determine whether a life sentence for his crimes would include the possibility of parole.

"There will be a jury for the sentencing phase beginning in August," Scanlan said.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP, file

Mohammed Wazir sits with his only surviving son, Habib Shahin, 3, in Kandahar, Afghanistan. 11 members of his family were killed.

Army prosecutors, who had sought the death penalty, have said Bales acted alone and with chilling premeditation when, armed with a pistol, a rifle and a grenade launcher, he left his base twice in the night, returning in the middle of his rampage to tell a fellow soldier: "I just shot up some people."

The shootings marked the worst case of civilian slaughter blamed on a rogue U.S. soldier since the Vietnam War and further eroded strained U.S.-Afghan relations after more than a decade of conflict in that country.

Defense attorneys have argued that Bales was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and a brain injury even before his deployment to Afghanistan.

During a nine-day pre-trial hearing in November, witnesses testified that Bales had been angered by a bomb blast near his outpost that severed a fellow soldier's leg days before the shootings.

Prosecutors presented physical evidence to link Bales to the crime scene, with a forensic investigator saying a sample of blood on his clothes matched a swab taken in one of the compounds where the shootings occurred.

Bales is to enter a guilty plea on June 5 at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, a military installation in Washington state. The presiding judge, Army Colonel Jeffery Nance, and a commanding general must still approve the deal.

Victor Hansen, the vice president of The National Institute of Military Justice, said Bales' multiple deployments and diminished mental state raised "some extenuating and mitigating circumstances" that may have made both sides amenable to such a deal.

"The government saw there was some risk in their case," Hansen said. "From the defense standpoint, every capital litigator has one primary objective, which is to avoid death. They can say they succeeded in that objective even if he gets life without parole."

Under the deal, the Ohio native and father of two from Lake Tapps, Washington, is to provide a full account of the attacks, notwithstanding his patchy memory, to demonstrate that he understands and accepts his guilt. Nance will then decide whether to accept his plea.

Bales' deal mirrors a similar agreement struck last month at Lewis-McChord, where Sergeant John Russell pleaded guilty to killing two medical staff officers and three soldiers at the Camp Liberty combat stress clinic, near Baghdad's airport in a 2009 shooting spree.

Russell, who was spared execution for one of the worst cases of violence by an American soldier against other U.S. troops, was sentenced to life in prison without parole following an abbreviated court.

Read more coverage of the Robert Bales case on nbcnews.com

Russell family via Reuters

Sgt. John M. Russell last month pleaded guilty to killing two medical staff officers and three soldiers.

TACOMA, Washington - A survivor of a shooting spree that killed five U.S. servicemen at a combat stress clinic in Iraq testified on Tuesday that he remembered the gunman, a fellow soldier, chuckling after he shot an unarmed man who had been trying to hide.

U.S. Army Sergeant John Russell pleaded guilty last month to killing two medical staff officers and three soldiers at Camp Liberty, adjacent to the Baghdad airport, in a 2009 shooting the military has said could have been triggered by combat stress.

He is facing a streamlined court martial at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state to determine the level of his guilt, a question that will hinge largely on whether the military judge finds he acted with premeditation, as prosecutors say, or on impulse, as the defense argues.

Army Sergeant Dominic Morales, working at the clinic at the time of the attack, recalled that he hid under a desk beside another soldier and heard shots ring out and said he could smell gunpowder.

Morales testified that Russell shot a soldier hiding near a filing shelf one time and chuckled as he moaned "Oh God, oh God..." and then shot him again.

"I heard Sergeant Russell chuckle ... an evil chuckle," Morales said. "To me, a frightening chuckle."

Russell then approached his hiding place and shot the soldier next to him, Specialist Jacob Barton, whose dead body fell onto him.

Seconds later, with Russell out of sight, Morales sprinted out of hiding but the soldier fired at least two bullets at him.

The testimony came on the second day of a court martial that is expected to focus largely on Russell's state of mind at the time of the shooting, which marked one of the worst episodes of soldier-on-soldier violence in the Iraq war.

Defense attorney James Culp later established through questioning Morales that nightmares jogged his memory of Russell's laugh.

Military prosecutors have focused this week on the more than 40 minutes Russell had to consider his actions as he drove back to the clinic with a stolen SUV and rifle and on his calm, stone-faced demeanor as he carried that rifle in a combat-ready position as he slipped into the clinic through a rear entrance.

Russell, who agreed to plead guilty in a deal that will spare him the death penalty, faces up to life in confinement without the possibility of parole, forfeiture of pay and a dishonorable discharge.

Defense lawyers, who had not yet made an opening statement, have said Russell suffered a host of mental ailments after several combat tours and was suicidal before the attack. With his mind damaged and unable to get the help he needed, they say, he cracked.

An independent forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Robert Sadoff of the University of Pennsylvania, concluded that Russell suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and psychosis at the time of the shootings.

Sadoff suggested Russell, who was attached to the 54th Engineer Battalion based in Bamberg, Germany, was provoked to violence by maltreatment at the hands of mental health personnel at Camp Liberty.

The presiding judge, Army Colonel David Conn, ruled on Monday that when Sadoff testifies he can draw upon another doctor's findings that the soldier had "brain abnormalities" in areas that govern behavior and emotion. Sadoff used that analysis in his own broader psychiatric evaluation.

Prosecutors also asked Staff Sergeant Derrick Flowers, who jumped out of a window to escape the attack, whether Russell's gunshots were "erratic or controlled."

"It was controlled, sir," Flowers said. 

Related:

• Ten years after Iraq invasion, US troops ask: 'Was it worth it?'
• Army deserter who fled to Canada sentenced to 10 months in prison
• Iraq, 10 years on: Did invasion bring 'hope and progress' to millions?

More than a week after the terror attacks at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, there remain more questions than answers: What motivated Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev to carry out the attacks? Were more attacks planned? Were the suspects trained by Islamic militant groups? What lessons were learned by the US and intelligence agencies to prevent future attacks? What’s next in the investigation?

NBC News Correspondents Pete Williams and Kerry Sanders addressed some of those questions and more in a Google+ Hangout on Boston Marathon attacks and its aftermath earlier today.

Click on the link above to replay the informative chat.

Related links:

• Full coverage of the Boston Marathon tragedy
• NYPD chief: Bombing suspects may have been headed to NYC to party
• 'Strong like cement': Site of Boston attack is paved over and reopened
• Wife of dead bombing suspect in 'absolute shock'
• FBI quizzes members of mosque suspect attended
• 7 biggest unanswered questions over Boston Marathon bombings
  

Slideshow: Aftermath and reaction following Boston bombings

/

Heightened security, empty streets, and memorials mark the the days after the Boston Marathon bombings.

Launch slideshow

The brothers suspected in the Boston Marathon bombings may have been headed for New York to party after the attack, the New York police commissioner said Wednesday.

“There was some information that they may have been intent on coming to New York, but not to continue doing what they’re doing,” Kelly told reporters at police headquarters. “The information that we received said something about a party, or having a party.”

A man authorities say was carjacked by the brothers has told investigators he believes one of the brothers said “Manhattan” before he escaped, but investigators have cautioned that it may have been a language mixup because the brothers were speaking with Russian dialects.

The surviving brother has told investigators that the pair acted alone, were inspired by an al Qaeda propaganda magazine, and plotted the bombing to defend Islam after the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, federal law enforcement officials told NBC News.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed early Friday after a shootout with police in the Boston suburbs. His younger brother and alleged accomplice, Dzhokhar, is in fair condition at a Boston hospital. The brothers killed a campus patrol officer and carjacked an SUV before the shootout, authorities have said.

Homemade explosives and one semi-automatic handgun believed to belong to the brothers were recovered by investigators, officials said. The gun’s serial number was obliterated, but Massachusetts state police were working to reveal the number.

Slideshow: Aftermath and reaction following Boston bombings

Cj Gunther / EPA

Heightened security, empty streets, and memorials mark the the days after the Boston Marathon bombings.

Launch slideshow

Cambridge police, meanwhile, released a booking photo of Tamerlan Tsarnaev from a 2009 domestic violence arrest during which he was accused of assaulting his girlfriend.

In a closed-door session on Wednesday, members of the House Intelligence Committee were briefed by the FBI and other federal agencies on the ongoing investigation. Among the issues discussed is what federal authorities knew about Tamerlan Tsarnaev's trip to Russia as well as a timeline on his radicalization. 

Also, according to an interview with Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Mich., the ranking member on the committee, it was learned that the device used to trigger the explosives was a remote control for a toy, not a cellphone as thought earlier.

Nine days after the twin blasts near the marathon finish line, authorities early Wednesday reopened the section of Boylston Street in central Boston where the first bomb went off.

The site of the explosion has been paved with fresh cement and is surrounded by orange construction cones but opened to foot traffic. People stopped to pay respects and take photos.

“The people of Boston are strong like cement. Strong people. They get together when it’s needed,” said Robert Bibias, a city masonry worker who early Wednesday cemented over what had been a blood-stained crime scene.

Thousands of people, including police from all over the country, gathered at the baseball stadium of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a memorial service for Sean Collier, the campus patrol officer who authorities said was shot to death by the Tsarnaev brothers before the carjacking and shootout.

With police snipers holding positions atop nearby buildings, Vice President Joe Biden called the perpetrators of the marathon bombing “twisted, perverted, cowardly, knockoff jihadis.”

“The irony is, we read about these events, we experience them, but the truth is, on every frontier, terrorism as a weapon is losing,” he said. “It is not gaining adherents.”

Tamerlan Tsarnaev is seen in a booking photo from a 2009 arrest in Cambridge, Mass.

The vice president went on: “We will not hunker down. We will not be intimidated.”

His wife, Dr. Jill Biden, visited Boylston Street on Wednesday.

Private funerals were held Tuesday for Collier and for Martin Richard, the 8-year-old boy killed near the finish line. Two other people were killed at the marathon, and more than 200 were injured, including 39 who were still hospitalized Wednesday.

In Russia, the brothers’ aunt said that a Boston-area mosque has refused to hold a funeral for Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

American authorities have told the family that they can have Tsarnaev’s body, and an uncle approached the mosque to request a burial and funeral but was declined, said the aunt, Patimat Suleimanova.

She said that she did not know the name of the mosque but that it was one the family attended. A mosque in Cambridge, Mass., has said that Tsarnaev attended and occasionally caused disruptions and that mosque leaders threatened to kick him out.

A spokesman for the Cambridge mosque, Yusufi Vali, said the mosque had not heard from the family.

“There were some reports out there that we had rejected his burial, and — or the family had reached out to us, rather. And to our knowledge, you know, the family has not reached out to us,” he said on the MSNBC program “Andrea Mitchell Reports.”

The mosque, run by the Islamic Society of Boston, has also said that congregants have been questioned by the FBI. The mosque did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday from NBC News.

Earlier this week, Imam Talal Eid of the Islamic Institute of Boston, a separate institution, told The Huffington Post: “I would not be willing to do a funeral for him. This is a person who deliberately killed people. There is no room for him as a Muslim.”

NBC News' Adrienne Mong, Alastair Jamieson, Bill Dedman and Matthew DeLuca contributed to this report.

Related:

• Full coverage of the Boston Marathon tragedy
• Wife of dead bombing suspect in 'absolute shock'
• FBI quizzes members of mosque suspect attended

This story was originally published on Wed Apr 24, 2013 7:14 AM EDT

TSA via AP

This handout image provided by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) shows a page from a TSA pamphlet of Changes to Prohibited Items List (PIL), of the sizes of knife blades not allowed on airplanes as per a new policy that was set to go into effect April 25.

The Transportation Security Administration has decided to delay a controversial new rule that would have allowed small knives to be carried on passenger aircraft, the agency said Monday,

Bats, golf clubs and other sports equipment that was set to be permitted under the new rule, will also stay banned, for now.

The TSA calls this a temporary delay, but has not decided a new implementation date.

The new rule for small blades — shorter than 2.36 inches in length and less than 1/2 inch in width — had been set to go into effect April 25th.

"In order to accommodate further input from the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, which includes representatives from the aviation community, passenger advocates, law enforcement experts, and other stakeholders, TSA will temporarily delay implementation of changes to the Prohibited Items List, originally scheduled to go into effect April 25," said a TSA spokesperson.

"This timing will enable TSA to incorporate the ASAC's feedback about the changes to the Prohibited Items List and continue workforce training," they added.

But the postponement announced by TSA doesn't go far enough, a coalition of unions representing 90,000 flight attendants nationwide said Monday.

"All knives should be banned from planes permanently," the group said in a statement.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who opposed the policy, said TSA's decision is an admission "that permitting knives on planes is a bad idea." He also called for a permanent ban.

Meanwhile, many airports were experiencing wide-ranging delays as FAA furloughs kicked in this week.