https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/tag/fisaFISA reforms face uncertain future after Congress renews FBI spy tool
by Ashley Oliver, Justice Department Reporter
December 17, 2023
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... -probationJudge sentences Black child, 10, to three months of probation for peeing in public
Mississippi judge also orders child to write a book report on Kobe Bryant after officers arrested him for urinating in a parking lot
Associated Press
Thu 14 Dec 2023
https://www.thedailybeast.com/whitey-bu ... om-the-fbi‘Whitey’ Bulger Judge Needed Security After ‘Perceived Threat’ From the FBI
WHO DO YOU TRUST?
Judge Mark L. Wolf is campaigning for an International Anti-Corruption Court after experiencing the threat of corruption back home in the U.S.
Nico Hines
Updated Dec. 14, 2023
The judge who exposed the “Whitey” Bulger scandal has told The Daily Beast that a “perceived threat” from the FBI against his family during the high-profile case has helped to spur on his campaign to create an International Anti-Corruption Court.
Senior District Court Judge Mark L. Wolf said he never felt threatened in years on the bench—despite handling numerous organized crime cases—until he was on the verge of exposing corruption inside the FBI.
Wolf presided over a 1998 hearing into why the FBI had failed to tell prosecutors that James “Whitey” Bulger had been a high-level informant for 15 years. He discovered that the FBI had protected Bulger and his colleague Stephen “the Rifleman” Flemmi from a host of criminal allegations—including murder—so that they could continue to act as Mafia informants. Bulger was even tipped off
https://www.independent.org/publication ... sp?id=1510Fear: The Foundation of Every Government’s Power
May 17, 2005
By ROBERT HIGGS
https://theintercept.com/2023/12/11/hou ... veillance/TRUMP ALLIES ARE GIDDY ABOUT HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE’S SURVEILLANCE BILL
The committee is pushing a bill that civil liberties experts say would amount to the largest expansion of domestic surveillance in decades.
Daniel Boguslaw
December 11 2023
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/12/11/hou ... l-reforms/House Committees Offer Up Competing Section 702 Reform Bills. Only One Has Any Actual Reforms.
Privacy
from the protecting-all-Americans-vs.-protecting-career-politicians dept
Mon, Dec 11th 2023 01:29pm - Tim Cushing
As is the case any time surveillance powers are up for renewal, there’s always a chance to reform them. Most of these efforts tend to get derailed by a majority of legislators who just want to push things through before any lively discussion takes place. Every so often, legislation is passed that modifies authorized powers after the fact.
Despite the fact that declining to renew the powers is always an option, this is a route that has never been taken. Even with plenty of Republicans pushing to severely restrict Section 702 for purely political reasons, no one seems to have the guts to state “Hey, we’re just not going to do this any more.”
But as the clock winds down on the year, nudging everyone closer to voting on a reauthorization, competing reform bills have been brought forward by two different House committees. But one is reform in name only. The other contains actual reforms.
The House Intelligence Committee is pitching a set of reforms that barely contain any reform. Of main concern to most privacy activists and privacy-focused legislators is the FBI’s warrantless access to US persons’ info via Section 702 collections. The FBI has constantly abused this power to turn a foreign-facing NSA collection into a domestic surveillance tool.
The Intelligence Committee’s bill (H.R. 611 [PDF]) reforms hardly anything. It codifies voluntary policy changes enacted by the FBI to limit its own abuses. The only warrant requirement is in cases involving criminal investigations, which is an extremely small subset of FBI backdoor searches.
Rather than protect all Americans from warrantless searches by the FBI, the Intelligence Committee’s bill would only protect the Americans they respect the most: themselves and those similarly situated on Capitol Hill.
The bill also includes numerous provisions that would further protect members of Congress or other high-profile officials, including requiring a lawmaker’s consent before gathering information for a “defensive briefing” about a lawmaker being targeted by a foreign entity. It also requires the FBI to notify a member of Congress, with some limitation, if they have been queried in the 702 database.
These provisions were prompted by the FBI’s (extremely questionable) search of Page’s communications via its 702 powers, as well as notifications received after the fact by oth
https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/cg ... ontext=mlrDon't Fear Carnivore: It Won't Devour Individual Privacy
Thomas R. McCarthy
https://covertactionmagazine.com/wp-con ... _chart.pdfWHERE YOUR INCOME TAX U.S. FEDERAL BUDGET 2023 FISCAL YEAR
MONEY REALLY GOES
https://www.wired.com/story/section-702 ... ewsa-frra/SECURITYDEC 11, 2023 3:20 PM
Congress Clashes Over the Future of America’s Global Spy Program
Competing bills moving through the House of Representatives both reauthorize Section 702 surveillance—but they pave very different paths forward for Americans’ privacy and civil liberties.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AnBr2yNXE4Tesla's Secret Weapon - Deadly Intelligence - S01 EP08 - True Crime
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/12/11/nyp ... ntability/NYPD Still Shelling Out Millions In Lawsuit Settlements Every Year, Still Protecting Its Worst Officers From Accountability
Legal Issues
from the bleeding-the-city-dry dept
Mon, Dec 11th 2023 07:45pm - Tim Cushing
The NYPD’s refusal to engage in nearly any form of accountability means it’s up to the city’s residents to pay billions for police work that adds tens of millions to the tab with lawsuit settlements.
In 2022, the NYPD cost residents $121 million in settlements. This came on top of the NYPD’s budget, which cleared $11 billion. Sure, it’s the largest local law enforcement agency in the United States, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be doing something to cut expenses that should be considered discretionary. Imposing better discipline would deter officers from violating rights and regulations so often it takes another hundred million to set things right.
NYPD officers routinely engage in misconduct, racking up thousands of complaints. The NYPD routinely refuses to discipline officers, preferring to exonerate them in closed sessions that rarely result in discipline of any severity.
This total of 207 substantiated force allegations is based on the data provided to OIG-NYPD by CCRB. The total number of substantiated force allegations represents approximately 2.0% of the more than 10,000 allegations of force received by CCRB from 2010 to 2014.
That’s from an Inspector General’s report
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... settlementJosh McLemore died of multiple organ failure on 10 August 2021 after losing nearly 45lb while in solitary confinement.
Family of man who starved to death in Indiana jail awarded $7.25m settlement
Agreement thought to be the largest in state’s history involving an incarcerated person’s death
Michael Sainato
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/1 ... formation/Consortium News Performs Service to Humanity By Filing Lawsuit Against Media Watchdog Organization Run By Ex-Spooks that Promotes Censorship Under Guise of Combatting “Disinformation”
By John Kiriakou - December 12, 2023
The real question was how the company (or its algorithm) would determine what news was true and what was false. For starters, NewsGuard would send readers to official U.S. Government sources.
More cynically, Crovitz’s pitch noted that “Other content-moderation allies include intelligence and national security officials, reputation management providers, and government agencies” which contract with the firm to identify misinformation trends. Crovitz said that instead of only fact-checking individual pieces of information, NewsGuard could rate the “overall reliability” of a website and “prebunk” information there.
In the end, Twitter wasn’t interested in the service. But Crovitz and his partners forged ahead. Most importantly, it was NewsGuard’s admission in that pitch that led to the Consortium News lawsuit.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... harge-saleColorado thieves ask for lesser charge because items they stole were on sale
Two men sentenced for retail theft at Kohl’s department store in Parker were called the ‘KitchenAid Mixer Crew’ by the shop
Michael Sainato
Wed 13 Dec 2023
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... industriesOne in four billionaire Cop28 delegates made fortunes from polluting industries
Exclusive: analysis by Oxfam raises concerns about influence wielded by ultra-rich mega-emitters at summit
Jonathan Watts Global environment editor
Tue 12 Dec 2023
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/12/12/goo ... -the-data/Google Promises Unlimited Cloud Storage; Then Cancels Plan; Then Tells Journalist His Life’s Work Will Be Deleted Without Enough Time To Transfer The Data
Failures
from the how-do-you-trust-a-company-that-can-delete-your-life's-work? dept
Tue, Dec 12th 2023 01:33pm - Mike Masnick
Over a decade ago, I pointed out that as Google kept trying to worm its way deeper into our lives, a key Achilles’ heel was its basically non-existent customer service and unwillingness to ever engage constructively with users the company fucks over. At the time, I dubbed it Google’s “big, faceless, white monolith” problem, because that’s how it appears to many customers. Going all the way back to 2009, I had suggested that the company needed not just better customer support, but something like a user advocate.
This issue shows up time and time again. The company screws people over and generally there’s no one to talk to. Too bad. Talk to the white monolith. We’ve faced it ourselves here at Techdirt.
And, of course, in situations where someone’s full Google account is taken
Major Pharmacy Chains Routinely Hand Over American’s Prescription Information
https://whowhatwhy.org/science/health-m ... formation/WHOWHATWHY STAFF 12/12/23
A new congressional investigation shows that the country's major drug stores routinely hand over the prescription information of Americans without a warrant.
https://theintercept.com/2023/12/12/psy ... -veterans/CONGRESS IS PUSHING REVOLUTIONARY RESEARCH ON PSYCHEDELIC TREATMENTS FOR THE MILITARY
A provision in the annual defense bill would have the Pentagon run clinical trials for members of the military with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Prem Thakker
December 12 202
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/12/12/tex ... rs-office/Text Messages, Emails Show KBI Had Full Knowledge Of Raid On Kansas Newspaper’s Office
Legal Issues
from the ohhhhh-THAT-small-town-paper-raid dept
Tue, Dec 12th 2023 12:11pm - Tim Cushing
On August 11, the Marion County PD — with the assistance of the Kansas Department of Revenue, the county sheriff’s office, and (for some fucking reason) the local fire marshal — raided the office of the Marion County Record, along with the home of its co-owner, 98-year-old Joan Meyer.
The raid was prompted by the very expansive reading of two state laws, one involving identity fraud and the other involving computer crimes. The first response from nearly everyone but Police Chief Gideon Cody was a denial of knowledge, much less involvement.
But as reporters kept digging into the story, the denials — starting with the county attorney Joel Ensey’s claim of innocence when he asked a court to quash the warrants — began to unravel. The DA claimed he’d never seen the warrants prior to their service. But an email exposed this lie, showing Chief Cody had informed of his plans to search the paper’s office, as well as sent him copies of the
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/12/12/for ... -military/For Some Reason, LA Drug Cops Received Intelligence, Training On ‘Muslim Extremists’ From The Israeli Military
Legal Issues
from the cross-pollination-isn't-always-ideal dept
Tue, Dec 12th 2023 07:55pm - Tim Cushing
A few years ago, hacktivist group Anonymous liberated a ton of documents from law enforcement agencies all over the world. These were published by transparency activists DDoS (Distributed Denial of Secrets). Journalists and other activists continue to dive into this 269 gigabyte treasure trove, teasing out additional information law enforcement agencies certainly wish was still their little secret.
Some early reporting highlighted the panicky bulletins and alerts issued by the DHS and FBI. The DHS tended to get duped by viral videos or encourage the domestic surveillance of people engaged in First Amendment activities. The FBI, on the other hand, was warning law enforcement that consumer products like Ring doorbell cameras now made it pretty much impossible for officers
https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/ ... 303006007/FBI El Paso is first office in Texas to have agents wear body cameras
Aaron Martinez
El Paso Times
Analysis: It’s uncertain if push to ‘Stop Cop City’ got enough valid signers for Atlanta referendum
by: JEFF AMY of The Associated Press and STEPHEN FOWLER of Georgia Public Broadcasting
Posted: Dec 13, 2023 /
https://www.foxnews.com/us/iowa-ex-cop- ... s-15-yearsIowa cop who allegedly exchanged nudes, had sex with teen in ride-along program gets 15 years
Former Clarksville, IA, Lt. Michael Tobin, 35, also accused of showing victim photos of other nude teens being used as evidence
COPAGANDA
https://twitter.com/FBI/status/17349667 ... gr%5EtweetThe Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate collaborated with a local Alabama high school to bring students to the Hazardous Devices School’s Critical Incident Response Group’s range for a safety briefing and improvised explosives demonstration. #FBIWMDD
https://fbi.gov/investigate/https://www.cbs.com/shows/video/3Xdl6YB ... htkWI_SUI/FBI Television
https://www.foxnews.com/us/fbi-dhs-warn ... s-conflictFBI, DHS warn of ‘threats to public safety’ during holiday season, amplified by Israel-Hamas conflict
The FBI says hate crimes have spiked nationwide since Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel
By Bradford Betz Fox News
Published December 12, 2023
https://karenkingston.substack.com/p/pf ... e&r=1uun8ePfizer's Lost $140 Billion in Market Cap in 2023. Expects 2024 to Be Even Worse.
Pfizer plummeted 6.7% yesterday, losing over $140 billion in market cap so far this year and expects 2024 to be even worse in regards to missing forecasted profits and revenues.
https://markcrispinmiller.substack.com/ ... e&r=1uun8eIn memory of those who "died suddenly" in the United States and worldwide, December 5-December 11, 2023
Athletes in US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil (2), Germany (2), Slovakia, Croatia, China, Australia; actors in US (3), Brazil, UK, Belgium, Austria, Spain, India, Indonesia; cops in Brazil, UK, Spain; more
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/1 ... xxonmobil/CovertAction Bulletin: U.S. Targets Venezuela on Behalf of ExxonMobil
By Rachel Hu and Chris Garaffa - December 13, 2023
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/heavil ... d-watchdogHeavily redacted records show FBI's targeting of Catholics went beyond what it claimed: watchdog
The FBI has insisted the controversial memo was the work of a single field office
By Andrew Mark Miller Fox News
Published December 15, 2023
https://truthout.org/articles/when-the- ... -the-left/When the FBI Is Asked to Go After the Right, It Inevitably Comes for the Left
The FBI was never meant to address right-wing extremists. We can’t look to it to stop the right.
By Alex S. Vitale , TRUTHOUT
Published
December 15, 2023
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/1 ... etirement/An Old CIA Intellectual Continues to Promote Fake Atrocity Stories and Advance War Propaganda in Retirement
By Jeremy Kuzmarov - December 13, 2023
https://www.koin.com/video/one-on-one-w ... n/9276894/One-on-one with local FBI agent Kieran Ramsey as he heads to national position
Dec 22, 2023
One-on-one with local FBI agent Kieran Ramsey as he heads to national position
https://www.cbs.com/shows/fbi/FBI
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/12/22/ ... deo-shows/Maine law enforcement knew shooter posed a threat but were concerned about confronting him, video shows
The law enforcement checks were initially set off by an incident in July at an Army Reserve training camp in New York, in which Card got into a fight with three other reservists.
