Medical Marijuana Business Attracts Hedge Funds, Venture Capitalists

Marijuana has been a cash crop for many years in this country. The only problem is that most of that crop had been grown illegally. Now, that medical marijuana is legal in 15 states and the District of Columbia, legalized marijuana has quickly become so popular it is attracting attention from hedge fund managers and [...]

Retired airman accused of soliciting minor

An outstanding warrant remains in effect for an Air Force officer accused of soliciting sex from a person he thought was a 15-year-old girl in an Internet chat room. Maj. Reinaldo Canton was arrested in 2007 on suspicion of meeting a girl he met online at a mall in Layton, Utah. The “girl” was actually [...]

Captain pleads guilty to online enticement

An officer from Scott Air Force Base, Ill., pleaded guilty in federal court May 17 to a charge of online enticement after traveling to Tennessee to have sex with a 15-year-old girl. Capt. Felix Tran, assigned to Air Mobility Command, will be sentenced Sept. 23 in Chattanooga, Tenn. He faces a minimum sentence of 10 [...]

Gun Running, Drugs and Flamenco: US Army Human Terrain System Has It All

See also:  Nature: Shut Down Army’s Human Terrain Program A member of the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command management team in Afghanistan, according to sources, is a “gun runner.” That individual is allegedly listed in an “Federal Bureau of Investigation database” and has “ties to Ahmad Wali Khan Karzai and the drug business.” Another [...]

FBI Releases Preliminary Statistics for Law Enforcement Officers Killed in 2009

According to preliminary statistics released today by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 48 law enforcement officers were feloniously killed in the line of duty during 2009. Geographically, 21 of the victim officers were killed in the South, 13 in the West, seven in the Northeast, and five in the Midwest. Two officers were slain [...]

Forty years since the Kent State massacre

May 4 marks the 40th anniversary of the shootings of unarmed student protesters at Kent State University in northeast Ohio. The Ohio National Guard killed four students and wounded nine others at a rally against the Nixon administration’s decision to escalate the Vietnam War by invading neighboring Cambodia. The four students who died were Allison [...]

FBI Adds Electronic Form for FOIA Requests

The FBI has a new electronic form designed to make requesting information easier. In addition, the bureau has retooled it records website, including a guide for research in FBI Records. Of course, filing a request has always been the easiest part of making a FOIA request of the FBI. George Washington University’s National Security Archive [...]

Oklahoma Passes Bill Outlawing Militia Recruitment

Last week the Oklahoma House of Representatives passed a bill that equates recruiting militia members to recruiting gang members. “Recruiting membership in an unauthorized militia or the Ku Klux Klan would be a crime if legislation approved Thursday by the House of Representatives becomes law. ‘This is making unauthorized militias illegal,’ said Rep. Mike Shelton, [...]

FBI: Ex-airman claimed he had dynamite

BANGOR, Maine — A former Air Force intelligence specialist showed signs of paranoia aboard a trans-Atlantic flight and told federal air marshals that he had dynamite in his boots and laptop computer, forcing the plane to be diverted to Maine, according to court documents filed Wednesday. Derek Stansberry told the FBI that fellow passengers were [...]

Let Dr. Aafia go home, Mr. President

Reading all those legal thrillers by John Grisham and watching Hollywood blockbusters that portray innocent individuals framed and ensnared by a powerful system, one always thought: Of course, these things do not happen in real life. I am not so sure anymore though. The abduction, persecution and now conviction of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, a Massachusetts [...]

Former soldier convicted of stealing pay, lying

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A former soldier has been convicted of stealing $100,000 in pay and lying to federal agents. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charlotte said that 60-year-old Dyrrle Gene Osborne of Charlotte was found guilty on Tuesday. A statement from federal officials said Osborne, a former master sergeant, was paid after he was no [...]

Feds Can Search, Seize P2P Files Without Warrant

The authorities do not need court warrants to view and download files traded on peer-to-peer networks, a federal appeals court says. Wednesday’s 3-0 ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit concerned a Nevada man convicted of possessing child pornography as part of an FBI investigation. Defendant Charles Borowy claimed the [...]

FBI probes US school webcam ‘spy’ case

The FBI is investigating a Pennsylvania school district officials accused of secretly activating webcams inside students’ homes, a law enforcement official with knowledge of the case told The Associated Press. The Federal Bureau of Investigation will explore whether Lower Merion School District officials broke any federal wiretap or computer-intrusion laws, said the official, who spoke [...]

Phony US Marshal Apprehends, Deports Woman

A Hemet man who passed himself off as a U.S. Marshal was able to enter San Diego International Airport with a “prisoner” after convincing airport security officers he was a federal agent, a Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday. Suzanne Trevino, spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration, said in a telephone interview that an investigation [...]

Man who says he spied on mosques for FBI files lawsuit

Craig Monteilh says he lives in danger. He’s been targeted for death by Islamic extremist groups, the Romanian and Mexican mafias and white supremacist groups. One fugitive now wants his head, he claims. Today Monteilh, a 47-year-old fitness consultant, plans to serve papers on the people he says put him in this bind – his [...]

Efforts to silence Aafia Siddiqui continue

Efforts to silence Pakistani citizen Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, who is charged with attempted murder of US military and Federal Bureau of Investigation personnel, are continuing during her trial. In a letter to the New York Federal judge presiding over her trial, Siddiqui’s defense team said that she is not mentally fit to testify. In the [...]

Former Fulton County, GA, Sheriff’s Deputy Convicted on Obstruction of Justice Charges Related to Federal Investigation of Inmate Death

Richard Glasco ATLANTA, GA—Mitnee Markette Jones, 46, of Atlanta, Georgia, a former Fulton County Sheriff’s Department deputy assigned to work at the Fulton County Jail, was convicted by a federal jury late yesterday in Atlanta for her role in the obstruction of a federal investigation of a 2008 inmate death. Acting United States Attorney Sally [...]

DOJ Finds FBI Violations Over Phone Conversation Requests

A Review of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Use of Exigent Letters and Other Informal Requests for Telephone Records The U.S. Department of Justice Inspector General has just released a report which concludes that the Federal Bureau of Investigation violated U.S. laws by claiming terrorism emergencies which allowed it to collect more than 2,000 records [...]

Smith & Wesson Executive Indicted

A Smith & Wesson Holding Corp. sales executive and a former Secret Service official were among 22 officials at companies that supply law enforcement and the military who were charged with violating U.S. anti-bribery laws. Amaro Goncalves, vice president of sales at Smith & Wesson, and R. Patrick Caldwell, chief executive officer of Protective Products [...]

Time for full disclosure of DNA databases

Editorial: Time for full and frank data disclosure WHEN a defendant’s DNA appears to match DNA found at a crime scene, the probability that this is an unfortunate coincidence can be central to whether the suspect is found guilty. The assumptions used to calculate the likelihood of such a fluke – the “random match probability” [...]

Right-wing radio host, Hal Turner, was an FBI informant

The New Jersey Record reports that ultra-right-wing radio host/blogger Harold Charles “Hal” Turner worked for over five years for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Turner was tried last month for threatening three federal appellate judges in Chicago: Judges Richard Allen Posner, Frank Hoover Easterbrook, and William Joseph Bauer. Turner’s case ended in a mistrial and [...]

FBI investigating corruption allegations at Bexar Sheriff’s narcotics unit

Over the holidays, the SA Express News reported on a possible brewing corruption scandal at the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office narcotics division. According to reporter Guillermo Contreras (“Bexar narcotics deputies probed,” Dec. 27): The FBI is investigating the Bexar County sheriff’s narcotics unit over allegations that some of its deputies might have been unlawfully taking [...]

Rival Gangs Doing Business Together in L.A.

LOS ANGELES — Some neighborhoods in Southern California are experiencing a kind of truce between rival gangs that used to fight each other. The decrease in gang violence in recent years has led some experts to theorize that gangs are now working together. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Los Angeles told La Opinión [...]

Former Army Ranger Tries to Hire a Hit on a Federal Prosecutor

SEATTLE — A former Army Ranger convicted of leading a 2006 Tacoma bank robbery in a terrifying military-style heist has pleaded guilty to attempting to hire a hit man to kill a federal prosecutor. Luke E. Sommer also pleaded guilty Monday to attacking a robbery co-defendant behind bars because he thought the man had ratted [...]

UPDATES: 3 police officers among 5 people indicted in fatal, race-related beating

Luis Ramirez was in a coma on life support before he died two days after he was beaten. See updated article on this case, with photos, here.  Then see here.  YouTube here … Five people, including three police officers, have been indicted on charges related to the beating death of a Latino man in rural [...]

FBI Releases Michael Jackon Files

Michael Joseph Jackson, a celebrity pop star, was born on August 29, 1958. He died unexpectedly on June 25, 2009 at the age of 50. Between 1993 and 1994 and separately between 2004 and 2005, Mr. Jackson was investigated by California law enforcement agencies for possible child molestation. He was acquitted of all such charges. [...]

Record High Federal Prosecutions in 2009

FY 2009 Federal Prosecutions Sharply Higher Analyzing data from the United States Department of Justice, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University has released this report showing a 9% increase in federal prosecutions compared to last year. At a total of 169,612, the swell in prosecutions is attributed to “an unusual flood of [...]

Federal Military/Prison-Industrial Complex Mole Slinks into Orange County

Alan Hostetter, the deputy chief of the Fontana Police Department, has been selected as the new police chief in La Habra and is scheduled to begin as city’s top cop Jan. 4.Hostetter ranked highest among 20 candidates who applied for the job in the 60,000-person city, according to a statement from city officials. He replaces [...]

America’s Secret ICE Castles

“If you don’t have enough evidence to charge someone criminally but you think he’s illegal, we can make him disappear.” Those chilling words were spoken by James Pendergraph, then executive director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement‘s (ICE) Office of State and Local Coordination, at a conference of police and sheriffs in August 2008. Also present [...]

FBI Linguist Leaked Classified Docs to Blogger

An Israeli-American attorney who worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a translator pled guilty yesterday to unlawfully disclosing five classified FBI documents to an unidentified blogger last April, who then published information from the documents on his blog, the Department of Justice announced. In a signed plea agreement (pdf), Shamai Leibowitz stipulated that [...]

Rhode Island Officer Indicted on Beating Handcuffed Woman

PROVIDENCE, R.I. —  A Rhode Island police officer was indicted Friday on charges that he kicked a handcuffed woman in the head after removing her from a slot parlor for disorderly conduct, authorities said. Edward Krawetz, 40, has been suspended without pay from the Lincoln Police Department and also faces administrative charges, said police Capt. Raymond [...]

Retired Army Major Sentenced to 57 Months in Prison for Role in Bribery Scheme Involving DOD Contracts in Kuwait

A retired major in the U.S. Army today was sentenced to 57 months in prison for his role in a bribery scheme related to Department of Defense (DOD) contracts awarded in Kuwait, announced Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division Lanny A. Breuer and Assistant Attorney General of the Antitrust Division Christine A. Varney. Christopher [...]

Interesting FBI Priorities

Recently, I waded through the fiscal year 2010 budget request/justification documents for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which for the most part are about as unexciting as you might expect. A couple of things, however, stood out as kind of interesting and worthy of discussion, so I thought I’d go over them here. Part of [...]

Man Who Spent 28 Years in Prison Cleared by DNA Testing

WASHINGTON —  A man who spent 28 years in prison for a rape and murder has been freed after DNA testing showed he’s innocent. Fifty-eight-year-old Donald Eugene Gates left the federal prison in Tucson, Ariz., on Tuesday, just hours after a Washington judge ordered his release. Gates tells The Associated Press it feels “beautiful” to be [...]

Report Shows Rise in Anti-Muslim Incidents

Status of Muslim Civil Rights in the United States 2009: Seeking Full Inclusion The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) just released its annual report which shows an increase in the number of bias-related incidents, but a decrease in anti-Muslim hate crimes in 2008. In addition to summarizing the year’s incidents of anti-Muslim violence, discrimination, and [...]

Transcript shows man claiming to be spy helped FBI

WEST COVINA, Calif. — A Southern California man who claimed to spy on mosques for the Federal Bureau of Investigation provided the agency with valuable information for a federal prosecution, a court transcript showed on Friday. The transcript from an August 2007 hearing states that Craig Monteilh (MON’-tay) provided “very, very valuable” information to the [...]

Feds: Former US Prosecutor Helped Rub Out Witnesses For Gangster Clients, Ran Drugs And Call-Girls

From federal prosecutor to accused violent gangster, pimp, and drug-dealer…That’s the unusual career trajectory taken, say the Feds, by Paul Bergrin, who was indicted earlier this month in a 39-count racketeering indictment. In a drama that could have been made for HBO, Bergrin — a white-collar defense lawyer who once represented, pro bono, a solider [...]

‘Counterinsurgency’ to Fight U.S. Crime? No, Thanks

After the sickening murder of a 9-year-old boy in Washington, our friend Spencer Ackerman made an impassioned plea: U.S. Central Command chief General David Petraeus for D.C. metro police chief. The idea of America’s leading counterinsurgent taking on one of its most crime-ridden towns definitely has a certain visceral appeal. But militarizing our approach to [...]

FBI Releases 2008 Hate Crime Statistics

“Statistics released today by the Federal Bureau of Investigation revealed that 7,783 criminal incidents involving 9,168 offenses were reported in 2008 as a result of bias toward a particular race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity/national origin, or disability. Published by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program, Hate Crime Statistics, 2008, includes data about hate crime incidents [...]

Our research has shown that child trafficking increases when you have military bases

Excerpt: When I reached her by phone, Goodnight said, “Our research has shown that child trafficking increases when you have military bases and a strong agricultural presence in the area.” That’s why, this year, before Shaniya Davis‘s disappearance and the discovery of her body made “human trafficking” a hot topic, Stop Child Trafficking Now had [...]

FBI kept tabs on Pulitzer-winning author Studs Terkel for 45 years

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, which acted as America’s political police during the Cold War, spent several decades watching Pulitzer Prize-winning author Studs Terkel, who died earlier this year at age 96.  The revelation was made by the City University of New York’s NYCity News Service, which acquired 147 of the 269 pages in Terkel’s [...]

Society in Jail

“What are you in for?” the inmate of Lee County jail asked the new prisoner. “Rolling through a stop sign in my subdivision,” answered the new inmate, to gales of laughter from others languishing in the same cell. As they laugh, crumbs from their hard, dry sandwiches — distributed by the wardens twice per day [...]

Flaw in Fed Wiretaps Could Allow Circumvention

People who think they are being wiretapped by the cops could disable the taps by sending a stream of text messages or making numerous VOIP calls to overwhelm the system’s thin bandwidth, researchers in Pennsylvania postulate. The researchers say they’ve found a vulnerability in U.S. law enforcement wiretaps, if only theoretical, that would allow a [...]

An Aryan Nations E-Mail Box Hacked ;)

WikiLeaks: aryannationspa@hotmail.com leaked emails, 2009 mail archives (chronological) ( Aryan Nations (AN) is a white nationalist neo-Nazi organization founded in the 1970s by Richard Girnt Butler as an arm of the Christian Identity group Church of Jesus Christ-Christian. As of December 2007 there were two main factions that claimed descent from Butler’s group. Aryan Nations [...]

New DOJ Report: Gang Information Management System Needed

Review of the Department’s Anti-Gang Intelligence and Coordination Centers The U.S. Department of Justice Office of Inspector General just released this report which examines the intelligence and coordination activities of the National Gang Intelligence Center and the Gang Targeting, Enforcement, and Coordination Center. Additionally, the review “assesses the effectiveness of their contributions to the Department’s [...]

New Audit Report on FBI’s ‘Sentinel’ Case Management System

Sentinel Audit V: Status of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Case Management System This Department of Justice, Office of Inspector General audit report is the fifth in a series of reports assessing the FBI’s ‘Sentinel’ case management system. “The objectives of this current audit, the fifth in our ongoing review of Sentinel’s progress, were to: [...]

ACLU Sues FBI for Imprisonment of New Jersey Man in Africa

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit [1] against the Federal Bureau of Investigation, saying it illegally detained and mistreated an American, Amir Meshal, who was held in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia for four months in 2007 before being released. According to the ACLU’s complaint, which was filed in district court in Washington [...]

SF soldier arrested after C-4 found near house

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A Special Forces soldier was arrested Monday after a pair of hunters found about 100 pounds of explosives outside his home near Fort Campbell. Timothy Ryan Richards was charged with possessing two unregistered guns, and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent Eric Kehn said he expects Richards will face more [...]

FBI Demands Tattoo Shops Rat On Customers

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, in league with the Bureau of Justice Assistance (part of the Department of Justice), has launched a program that harks back to East Germany’s Stasi. In Philadelphia, the FBI has instructed tattoo shops to rat out their customers if they demand privacy, insist on paying with cash, engage in “suspicious [...]

Q&A With FBI Director Mueller

As a result of polygraph testing, more than a thousand applications for employment at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been rejected or otherwise terminated in the last year alone, the FBI told Congress last month.  Polygraph testing has been the single largest reason for discontinuing an application, well ahead of administrative or medical issues, [...]