Bernard NotHaus has been
convicted of possessing and selling coins that resemble United States coins, violating
U.S.C. 18 § 486 and other US statutes. This follows three years after a raid on the Liberty Dollar offices. The trial took four days, the deliberation all of two hours. The US government is now pursuing a forfeiture case against Liberty Services for approximately $7 Million. (
previously)
[more inside]
posted by Hactar
on Mar 21, 2011 -
158 comments
Theo de Raadt:
I have received a mail regarding the early development of the OpenBSD IPSEC stack. It is alleged that some ex-developers (and the company they worked for) accepted US government money to put backdoors into our network stack, in particular the IPSEC stack. [more inside]
posted by These Premises Are Alarmed
on Dec 14, 2010 -
94 comments
ACLU launches "Spyfiles" to track domestic surveillance. "The American Civil Liberties Union launched a
new website Tuesday to track incidents of domestic political surveillance by the government along with a
report (PDF) claiming such incidents have increased steadily since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. According to the report there have been 111 incidents of illegal domestic political surveillance since 9/11 in 33 states and the District of Columbia. The website,
Spyfiles, will serve as the ACLU's online home for all news and reports of domestic spying."
posted by homunculus
on Jun 29, 2010 -
12 comments
The FBI has released their extensive files on US Senator Edward M. Kennedy to the public, covering their relationship with him between 1961 and 1985. The seven files, totaling more than 2,200 pages of documents
reveal (among other things,) the perhaps unsurprising news that the late Senator
received "scores" of
death threats from radical groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, “Minutemen” organizations, and the National Socialist White People’s Party. The release was initiated by a Freedom of Information Act Request from
Judicial Watch on May 3, 2010, (Complaint
pdf) but the FBI gave the Senator's family the
"rare opportunity" to raise objections before releasing the file.
posted by zarq
on Jun 14, 2010 -
20 comments
About 8 years ago,
U.S. Representative James Traficant (D-Ohio) was sentenced to 8 years in jail for kickbacks, fraud, bribery, and racketeering. He was tightly connected with the Youngstown Ohio Mafia. At the time, he was only the second Congressman since the Civil War to be expelled by his peers from the institution in a vote of 420:1. The fascinating story of the Youngstown Mafia - and Traficant's rise and fall - is told by
David Grann (of
Lost City of Z and
The New Yorker) in a 2000 article called
"Crimetown, U.S.A.". Traficant was released from prison on September 2, 2009 to a hometown hero
welcome. On February 23, 2010, Traficant
announced he will running for Congress as an Independent.
posted by stbalbach
on Feb 23, 2010 -
44 comments
The investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks (dubbed "Amerithrax" by the FBI) is now closed. Yesterday, the Department of Justice released a 92-page
summary [pdf] of their investigation. Their conclusion -- that
USAMRIID scientist Bruce Ivins was the culprit -- was backed by an impressive amount of evidence, including microbiological detective work (p. 23 ff). But some of the investigation was downright bizarre....
[more inside]
posted by cgs06
on Feb 20, 2010 -
46 comments
The FBI has arrested James O'Keefe, one of the filmmakers behind the ACORN "pimp" video, and three others over an alleged plot to tap the phones in the office of Senator Mary Landrieu, D-La., according to
a report in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. (Previously:
1,
2,
3)
posted by ekroh
on Jan 26, 2010 -
263 comments
The FBI illegally collected more than 2,000 U.S. telephone call records between 2002 and 2006 by invoking terrorism emergencies that did not exist or simply persuading phone companies to provide records, according to internal bureau memos and interviews. FBI officials issued approvals after the fact to justify their actions. E-mails obtained by The Washington Post detail how counterterrorism officials inside FBI headquarters did not follow their own procedures that were put in place to protect civil liberties. The stream of urgent requests for phone records also overwhelmed the FBI communications analysis unit with work that ultimately was not connected to imminent threats.
A Justice Department inspector general's report due out this month is expected to conclude that the FBI frequently violated the law with its emergency requests, bureau officials confirmed.
Among those whose phone records were searched improperly were journalists for The Washington Post and the New York Times, according to interviews with government officials.
[more inside]
posted by VikingSword
on Jan 19, 2010 -
93 comments
For your perusal:
The New FBI Operations Manual. "
Agents may begin such assessments against a target without a particular factual justification. The basis for such an inquiry “cannot be arbitrary or groundless speculation,” the manual says, but the standard is “difficult to define.”
posted by Xurando
on Oct 29, 2009 -
16 comments
The movie adaptation of
Mark Whitacre's story, Steven Soderbergh's
The Informant, based on the book by
Kurt Eichenwald was released last month. Whitacre's life belies easy explanation: a hugely important corporate whistleblower, at some point during the five years he spent informing on agribusiness behemoth
Archer Daniels Midland Whitacre embarked on a massive embezzlement scheme that would see him imprisoned for nearly eight and a half years. To this day, the
FBI remain divided on whether he is more hero or villain.
[more inside]
posted by MuffinMan
on Oct 20, 2009 -
19 comments
Just released:
Saddam Hussein Talks to the FBI.
FBI special agents carried out 20 formal interviews and at least 5 "casual conversations" with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein after his capture by U.S. troops in December 2003, according to secret FBI reports released as the result of Freedom of Information Act requests by the National Security Archive. Via
this Washington Post article.
posted by amyms
on Jul 2, 2009 -
25 comments
Familial genetic profiling of law enforcement DNA databases has already been used to succesfully establish both guilt and innocence. Legal and moral questions on these expanded techniques abound and are comprehensively explored by a speaker at a recent FBI symposium on the topic. In the author's words,
scenarios previously limited to movies like Minority Report are unfolding quietly, before most of us have thought about the consequences. (Via)
posted by protorp
on Mar 18, 2009 -
29 comments
Since at least February, the St, Paul police and the FBI have been trying to
infiltrate protest groups planning to demonstrate and the RNC. Apparently they were successful because they have begun
arresting protestors before the convention actually starts. They even went after the press. I have to wonder if any
MeFites were busted?
posted by Xurando
on Aug 30, 2008 -
57 comments
(Big) Newsfilter: FBI Searches Office of Special Counsel Building "A multi-year investigation leads federal agents to search the Office of Special Counsel's building. Employees have alleged the agency was misused for political purposes. Neither Office of Special Counsel head Scott Bloch nor anyone else has officially been charged with a crime. But the FBI secured a separate subpoena for Bloch's home."
[more inside]
posted by spock
on May 6, 2008 -
79 comments
Do you have an FBI file? Or
do your grandpa and grandma? "Find out now by ordering a copy of their FBI files and learn a bit more about your family history. Best of all, it's free! (Well, except for the cost of a postage stamp.)"
This web site helps you generate the letters you need to send to the FBI to get a copy of your own FBI file. While we're at it, we can generate request letters to some other Federal agencies besides the FBI that you may be interested in (or who may have been interested in you!).
[more inside]
posted by nickyskye
on Nov 2, 2007 -
30 comments
Traditionally, media doesn't print names/photos of people only accused, but not yet convicted, but not always. Lots of towns have a police blotter section where arrests are listed.
Here in Seattle, the FBI recently
asked
the public for help in identifying two men seen acting suspicious on the ferry system. The
Seattle PI has decided not to publish the photos.
Other local media have. The
commentary on if the PI made the right choice follows predictable paths...
posted by nomisxid
on Aug 21, 2007 -
33 comments
Game developer/ perfume critic Theresa Duncan has died, and longtime companion Jeremy Blake is missing. The art world is
buzzing about the seeming suicide-by-water of video installation artist Jeremy Blake. The
perfume blogs are fizzing with sadness over the death of Theresa Duncan, whose suicide preceded Blake's. The cops are not releasing the notes left by the late,
pretty people, but a clue might be found in the
paranoiac screed Duncan posted on her blog in May, in which Blake's ex-girlfriend, the CIA, FBI, Church of Scientology, Jeff Gannon, bloated plutocrats and many other bugbears of the
psy-ops crowd were put on Duncan's mental merry-go-round and given a real strong spin.
posted by Scram
on Jul 21, 2007 -
37 comments
FBI 101 -- "Essentials for Writers," an "exciting and informative" interactive workshop for writers being offered to members of my union -- the Writers Guild of America, East - by the FBI Office of Public Affairs and FBI New York. ... -- Very interesting account of a workshop the FBI puts on for writers in NY.
What's in it for the FBI?
...The only question we have for you is 'Will it show us in a good light?'" ...
posted by amberglow
on Jun 9, 2007 -
13 comments
"Dillan Kramer," the alias of a man accused of killing his family doctor, is currently on the run from the FBI with his son, "Michael," and he's
liveblogging the entire thing. High potential to be fake, sure, but is it? Go, hive-mind -- use your powers; get to the bottom of this!
posted by c:\awesome
on May 25, 2007 -
42 comments
My National Security Letter Gag Order "Under the threat of criminal prosecution, I must hide all aspects of my involvement in the case -- including the mere fact that I received an NSL -- from my colleagues, my family and my friends. When I meet with my attorneys I cannot tell my girlfriend where I am going or where I have been. I hide any papers related to the case in a place where she will not look. When clients and friends ask me whether I am the one challenging the constitutionality of the NSL statute, I have no choice but to look them in the eye and lie."
posted by grouse
on Mar 23, 2007 -
61 comments
