Anwar al-Awlaki

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

DETROIT — An American Muslim arrested in Detroit has apparent connections to an al-Qaida leader who radicalized the so-called underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Detroit News reports. 

FBI agents raided Sebastian Gregerson’s home on the west side and found illegally purchased grenades and CDs marked “Anwar al-Awlaki,” an al-Qaida recruiter who met with Abdulmutallab ahead of the Christmas Day 2009 attack on a Detroit-bound flight.

The FBI also seized seven rifles, two AK-47 assault rifles, handguns, a shotgun, thousands of round of ammunition, cellphones and computer equipment.

“When you look through most of the cases of individuals who get arrested for terrorism charges, the vast majority had al-Awlaki on their laptops,” said Seamus Hughes, deputy director of George Washington University’s Program on Extremism.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

A stay-at-home home in Dallas forked over $100,000 in legal fees for thousands of Secret Service records that “expose a culture of corruption,” The Dallas Morning News reports. 

Malia Litman filed 89 request for records, and the information she received was shocking.

Here are some of the highlights, as reported by the Dallas Morning News:

• A culture of “wheels up; rings off” meant even married agents could party on foreign trips.
• Secret Service K-9 units brought their dogs into their hotel room, which the dogs trashed. The agents made payoffs so the incident wouldn’t be reported.
• A agent who missed his flight later showed up drunk with two prostitutes. He was not disciplined.
• Agents “engaged” with prostitutes in Amsterdam’s red-light district during an advance team trip.
• A supervisor choked a female subordinate because she rejected his sexual advances.
• A supervisor offered a subordinate a larger office in return for sex.

Javier Vega Jr.

By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com

The National Border Patrol Council is pressing for a fallen colleague’s death to be considered “in the line of duty.”

Javier Vega Jr. was shot and killed by two undocumented immigrants in front of his family during a fishing trip in Willacy County two years ago.

Now the National Border Patrol Council has filed a petition for Vega’s family, whom he protected during a robbery attempt, RGVProud reports. 

The argument is that Vega died trying to prevent a criminal act and therefore his death should be considered “in the line of duty.”

“He served his country. He served his community and I believe we owe it to him to honor him properly,” National Border Patrol Council President Chris Cabrera said.

By Editorial Board
Denver Post

Colorado’s now years-long experiment with legal medical and recreational cannabis markets has been mostly positive and fascinating, and yet the federal government has been slow to rethink its decades-long prohibitionist position.

We hope the Obama administration takes advantage of its historic opportunity to end or take steps toward dismantling the destructive war on pot. What an irony it would be if Obama, who has openly admitted to pot use in his early years, and who has shown great tolerance toward local legalization laws, left office without having moved the nation away from the antiquated reefer-madness enforcement of past presidencies.

The problem appears to be entrenchment at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which missed the July 1 deadlineit set for itself to reach a determination on whether to reclassify marijuana from its current — laughable — position as a Schedule I substance. Like heroin, the classification is reserved for the most dangerous drugs with which the DEA concerns itself.

A DEA spokesman told The Cannabist’s Alicia Wallace last week that the agency remains in the final stages of an inter-agency review. But Denver regulatory attorney Tom Downey, who recently wrote in these pages about the DEA’s reclassification or declassification options, suggested the DEA would not reach a decision this year.

To read more click here. 

By Editorial Board
New York Times

President Obama last week commuted the prison terms of 214 federal inmates who were sent to prison under draconian, ’80s-era laws that have since been revised. Among them were 67 people serving life sentences, nearly all of them for nonviolent drug offenses.

Mercy was granted in these cases. But the federal clemency system — which moves far too slowly and is too often blocked by politics in both the Justice Department and the White House — was never intended to manage miscarriages of justice that happen on a vast scale, as was the case when so many Americans were sent to prison under the “tough on crime” policies of the 1980s.

The country needs a variety of mechanisms for reducing unreasonably long sentences. And the Justice Department, which has considerable latitude in these matters, needs to do more within the course of its regular operations to deal with the legacy of sentencing policies that have been recognized as destructively unfair.

The former attorney general, Eric Holder Jr., took an important step: In 2014, he supported the United States Sentencing Commission’s decision to reduce sentences for many nonviolent drug crimes and asked that people in prison be made eligible for the reductions. According to the Justice Department, more than 12,000 people have been released under that effort.

Recently, however, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a Justice Department agency, has come under criticism for not doing enough with the powers it already has to help inmates who deserve to be released. The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 authorizes the bureau to ask a federal judge to reduce an inmate’s sentence when there are “extraordinary and compelling” reasons for doing so.

To read more click here. 

Other Stories of Interest

• Clinton Acknowledges Misspeaking about FBI Director’s Testimony
• Border Patrol Still Has Orders Allowing Boat Turnbacks in Foreign Waters
• DEA: Marijuana Seizures Decline in 2015
• Clinton Failed a Crucial Homeland Security Test
• A Most Heartwarming Story You’ll Hear about TSA Pat-Down