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How the FBI's Network of Informants Actually Created Most of the Terrorist Plots

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Trevor Aaronson - Oct. 10 (Investigative Report) - The FBI has built a massive network of spies to prevent another domestic attack. But are they busting terrorist plots—or leading them?

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The FBI vs. Antiwar.com

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

readersupportednews.org - By Justin Raimondo - Aug. 23 (Special Report) - The April 30 memo - which was issued to FBI counterrorism offices in New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and San Francisco - is prefaced with the following rather ominous 'administrative' note: 'This document contains information obtained under the authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), 50 U.S.C., Section 1801. Such FISA derived information shall not be used in any criminal proceeding, including grand jury proceedings ...' Justin Raimondo, Antiwar.com

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Justice Department Filing Casts Doubt on Guilt of Bruce Ivins, Accused in Anthrax Case

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

ProPublica - By by Mike Wiser, PBS FRONTLINE, Greg Gordon, McClatchy Newspapers, Stephen Engelberg, ProPublica This story was co-published with PBS FRONTLINE, McClatchy. WA - Jul. 19 (News Report) - The Justice Department has called into question a key pillar of the FBI's case against Bruce Ivins, the Army scientist accused of mailing the anthrax-laced letters that killed five people and terrorized Congress a decade ago. Shortly after Ivins committed suicide in 2008, federal investigators announced that they had identified him as the mass murderer who sent the letters to members of Congress and the media. The case was circumstantial, with federal officials arguing that the scientist had the means, motive and opportunity to make the deadly powder at a U.S. Army research facility at Fort Detrick, in Frederick, Md. On July 15, however, Justice Department lawyers acknowledged in court papers that the sealed area in Ivins' lab -- the so-called hot suite -- did not contain the equipment needed to turn liquid anthrax into the refined powder that floated through congressional buildings and post offices in the fall of 2001. The government said it continues to believe that Ivins was “more likely than not” the killer. But the filing in a Florida court did not explain where or how Ivins could have made the powder, saying only that the lab “did not have the specialized equipment’’ in Ivins' secure lab “that would be required to prepare the dried spore preparations that were used in the letters.” The government’s statements deepen the questions about the case against Ivins, who killed himself before he was charged with a crime. Searches of his car and home in 2007 found no anthrax spores, and the FBI’s eight-year, $100 million investigation never proved he mailed the letters or identified another location where he might have secretly dried the anthrax into an easily inhaled powder. Earlier this year, a report by the National Academy of Science questioned the genetic analysis that had linked a flask of anthrax stored in Ivins’ office to the anthrax contained in the letters. The court papers were uncovered by a reporter for the PBS program FRONTLINE which is working on a forthcoming documentary on the case with McClatchy Newspapers and ProPublica, the investigative newsroom. They were filed by lawyers in the Justice Department’s Civil Division who are defending the government against a wrongful death suit brought by the family of Robert Stevens, a photo editor at the Sun. Stevens was the first to die from a tainted letter and his family has accused federal officials of lax procedures that allowed someone to make a germ weapon using anthrax from a government laboratory. In asserting that Ivins was culprit, criminal investigators pointed to his access to the specialized equipment at the laboratory. Officials drew up elaborate charts showing that Ivins’ time in the hot suites spiked in the weeks before the letters were mailed. But Ivins’ colleagues have said in depositions for the Stevens case that the powder could not have been made in the lab without sickening lab technicians and others who had not been vaccinated against anthrax. A Justice Department spokesman Monday shed little light on the seeming shift in positions, saying that investigators still believe Ivins produced the anthrax at Fort Detrick and are unaware of evidence that he did so elsewhere. The Justice Department filed the papers in federal court in West Palm Beach, Fla., last week. The lawyers were attempting to counter allegations by the Stevens family of negligence at Fort Detrick, including inadequate controls over anthrax controls, by arguing that the anthrax in the letters wasn't produced there. Dean Boyd, a Justice Department spokesman, said Monday that the court filing did not contradict the government’s conclusion that Ivins sent the letters. Rather, he said, the lawyers merely argued that “Ivins’ actions were not foreseeable to his supervisors’’ because he did not have equipment to dry the spores in his containment laboratory. Boyd said this meant the United States should not be held liable for his actions.” “To clarify, this statement was intended to relate to the specific containment laboratory” where Ivins kept a flask of liquid anthrax with genetic markers similar to those found in the letters, Boyd said. In excerpts from one of more than a dozen depositions made public in the case last week, the current chief of of the Bacteriology Division at the Army laboratory, Patricia Worsham, said it lacked the facilities in 2001 to make the kind of spores in the letters. Two of the five letters, those sent to Democratic U.S. Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Thomas Daschle of South Dakota, were especially deadly, because they were so buoyant as to float with the slightest wisp of air. Worsham said that the lab’s equipment for drying the spores, a machine the size of a refrigerator, was not in containment. “If someone had used that to dry down that preparation, I would have expected that area to be very, very contaminated, and we had non-immunized personnel in that area, and I would have expected some of them to become ill,” she said. In its statement of facts, the government lawyers also said that producing the volume of anthrax in the letters would have required 2.8 to 53 liters of the solution used to grow the spores or 463 to 1,250 Petri dishes. Colleagues of Ivins at the lab have asserted that he couldn’t have grown all that anthrax without their noticing it. The government’s own summary of the case against Ivins, released early last year when the Justice Department formally closed its investigation, noted that “drying anthrax is expressly forbidden by various treaties,” and “overt use of any of these methods, if noticed, would have raised considerable alarm and scrutiny.’’ Paul Kemp, Ivins’ lead defense attorney, said Monday that the department’s concession that the equipment wasn’t available “is at direct variance to the assertions of the government on July 29, 2008,” the day Ivins died, thus “invalidating one of the chief theories of their prosecution case.” Kemp said that government officials told him and a colleague, Tom DeGonia, that the FBI could “prove that Dr. Ivins manufactured the dried spores used in the anthrax attacks, and would prove this by the records of his presence in the hot suites in August and September. Anthrax is one of the deadliest biological weapons. Once inhaled, the tiny spores germinate inside the human body, producing rapidly multiplying, highly toxic bacteria that, if untreated, typically kill a person within days. The anthrax mailings came as a second shock to the nation just weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks. Beginning Sept. 18, 2001, the perpetrator sent at least five letters containing anthrax powder to three media outlets and to the offices of Sens. Leahy and Daschle. Two postal workers, a nurse and an elderly woman in Connecticut also died, some 32,000 congressional and postal employees took long-term antibiotic treatments and teams wearing moon suits spent months cleansing a Senate office building and large postal facility of the deadly spores.

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Domestic Spy Agency? 5 Outrageous Examples of FBI Intimidation and Entrapment

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Kevin Gosztola - Jun. 30 (Special Report) - Here are five cases of FBI abuse that show the FBI deserves more scrutiny, not a free pass to continue fighting the so-called “war on terror.”

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FBI to Expand Domestic Surveillance Powers As Details Emerge of Its Spy Campaign Targeting Activists

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - Jun. 14 (News Analysis) - Civil liberties advocates are raising alarm over news the FBI is giving agents more leeway to conduct domestic surveillance. According to the New York Times, new guidelines will allow FBI agents to investigate people and organizations "proactively" without firm evidence for suspecting criminal activity.

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China rejects Google allegation of massive hacking breach as ‘fabrication’

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Cecilia Kang, Ellen Nakashima - Jun. 02 (News) - Google’s allegation that hackers based in China accessed hundreds of Gmail accounts, including some belonging to senior U.S. officials, drew angry denials from Chinese government officials on Thursday, with a foreign ministry spokesman calling the accusation “a fabrication out of thin air.”

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Two Iraqi refugees in U.S. charged in terrorism-related case

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Brian Bennett, Michael A. Memoli - Jun. 01 (News Report) - Two men are charged with sending cash, explosives and missiles to Iraq for use against Americans. Their case underscores gaps identified in the U.S. refugee vetting process before last year.

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FBI seeks public aid in outing corruption

Sun, 29 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Tallahassee Democrat - By Jeff Burlew - May. 29 (News Report) - The FBI in Jacksonville is seeking the public's help in identifying government officials who use their office for personal gain. Of particular interest to the FBI is potential fraud involving federal stimulus money. The agency unveiled the Public Corruption Tip Line (1-888-722-1225) in February and said it would run advertisements in newspapers seeking tips. So far, the FBI has run one advertisement, which appeared on the front page of the Tallahassee Democrat. Toni Chrabot, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI office in Jacksonville, said the FBI chose to run the ad in Tallahassee because it is the seat of power in Florida.

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Amazon Server Said to Be Used in Sony Attack

Fri, 13 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Bloomberg - By Pavel Alpeyev, Joseph Galante, Mariko Yasu - May. 13 (News) - Amazon Web Services' cloud- computing unit was used by hackers in last month’s attack against Sony Corp.'s online entertainment systems, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Hackers using an alias signed up to rent a server through Amazon’s EC2 service and launched the attack from there, said the person, who requested anonymity because the information is confidential. The account has been shut down, the person said.

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Two Men Arrested in New York Terror Case

Thu, 12 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Al Baker - May. 12 (News) - Two men who the authorities said intended to carry out a terrorist attack in New York City were arrested late Wednesday, two law enforcement officials said.

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Battle Brews Over FBI’s Warrantless GPS Tracking

Mon, 09 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Wired - By Kim Zetter - May. 09 (News) - The FBI's use of GPS vehicle tracking devices is becoming a contentious privacy issue in the courts, with the Obama administration seeking Supreme Court approval for its use of the devices without a warrant, and a federal civil rights lawsuit targeting the Justice Department for tracking the movements of an Arab-American student. In the midst of this legal controversy, Threat Level decided to take a look at the inside of one of the devices, with the help of the teardown artists at iFixit.

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FBI probes white powder in letters sent to DC schools

Fri, 06 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Reuters - May. 06 (News) - The FBI on Friday is investigating more than three dozen suspicious letters containing a white powdery substance sent to schools in the capital area, leading authorities to race across the city to check for possible threats.

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New FBI Documents Provide Details on Government’s Surveillance Spyware

Sat, 30 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Electronic Frontier Foundation - By Jennifer Lynch - Apr. 30 (News Analysis) - The documents we received were sent to us in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request we filed back in 2007 after Wired reported on evidence that the FBI was able to use “secret spyware”

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FBI serves Grand Jury subpoena likely relating to WikiLeaks

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Salon - By Glenn Greenwald - Apr. 27 (Opinion) - In the wake of a massive disclosure of Guantanamo files by WikiLeaks, the FBI yesterday served a Grand Jury subpoena in Boston on a Cambridge resident, compelling his appearance to testify in Alexandria, Virgina.

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9/11 Responders To Be Warned They Will Be Screened By FBI's Terrorism Watch List

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Michael McAuliff - Apr. 22 (News Report) - A provision in the new 9/11 health bill may be adding insult to injury for people who fell sick after their service in the aftermath of the 2001 Al Qaeda attacks, The Huffington Post has learned.

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FBI Vault Reveals UFO, Roswell Files - ABC News

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

ABC News - By Ki Mae Heussner - Apr. 11 () - Among the so-called "X-files" are once-classified reports dating back to the 1940s and 1950s detailing Air Force investigations into "flying discs" and the "bodies of human shape" discovered inside them.

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Despite openness pledge, President Obama pursues leakers

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Politico - By Josh Gerstein - Mar. 07 (News Report) - The Obama administration, which famously pledged to be the most transparent in American history, is pursuing an unexpectedly aggressive legal offensive against federal workers who leak secret information to expose wrongdoing, highlight national security threats or pursue a personal agenda.

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Tiny Spy Planes Mimic Birds, Insects

Sun, 06 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Associated Press - By Associated Press - Mar. 06 (Research) - With a 6.5-inch wing span, the remote-controlled bird weighs less than a AA battery and can fly at speeds of up to 11 mph, propelled only by the flapping of its two wings. A tiny video camera sits in its belly. The bird can climb and descend vertically, fly sideways, forward and backward. It can rotate clockwise and counterclockwise. Most of all, it can hover and perch on a window ledge while it gathers intelligence, unbeknownst to the enemy.

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How right-wing hysterics keep danger levels high for the nation's law-enforcement officers

Sun, 06 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Crooks and Liars - By David Neiwert - Mar. 06 (Opinion) - The incident was yet another reminder that one of the most significant ongoing threats to law enforcement officers in this country comes from right-wing extremists of the Patriot/"sovereign citizen" variety -- people who take Republicans' government-bashing rhetoric to its illogical extreme and declare themselves free of federal laws and functionally laws unto themselves.

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Executives Behind Financial Crisis at Little Risk of Jail Time

Sun, 27 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Joe Nocera - Feb. 27 (News Report) - Most of the other Wall Street bigwigs whose firms took unconscionable risks — risks that nearly brought the global financial system to its knees — aren’t even on Justice’s radar screen. Nor has there been a single indictment against any top executive at a subprime lender.

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Serious doubt cast on FBI's anthrax case against Bruce Ivins

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Salon - By Glenn Greenwald - Feb. 16 (Opinion) - That there's so much lingering doubt about who was responsible for this indescribably consequential attack is astonishing, and it ought to be unacceptable.

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Scientific review reaches no conclusion on source of anthrax

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

CNN - By Carol Cratty - Feb. 16 (News Report) - Using the available scientific evidence, "it is not possible to reach a definitive conclusion" about the source of the anthrax used in the 2001 anthrax letter attacks which killed five people, according to a report issued Tuesday by the National Academy of Sciences.

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House Votes to Extend Patriot Act Provisions

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Charlie Savage - Feb. 15 (News) - The House on Monday voted to reauthorize and extend through Dec. 8 three ways in which Congress expanded the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s counterterrorism powers after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

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'A weapon of mass destruction was found in the U.S.': Shock confession of Customs officer

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Daily Mail - By David Gardner - Feb. 14 (News Report) - The disturbing revelation came in an interview with San Diego's assistant port director screened by a television channel in the city - but the Customs Department tried to dampen speculation over his remarks.

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Obama assertion: FBI can get phone records without oversight

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

McClatchy - By Marisa Taylor - Feb. 11 (News Report) - The Obama administration's Justice Department has asserted that the FBI can obtain telephone records of international calls made from the U.S. without any formal legal process or court oversight, according to a document obtained by McClatchy. Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/02/11/108562/obama-assertion-fbi-can-get-phone.html#ixzz1Dlu8N34K

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