By Danny Fenster ticklethewire.com The Justice Department on Tuesday afternoon announced that FBI and DEA agents had foiled a plot linked to the Iranian government to kill the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. Manssor Arbabsiar, a 56-year-old Iranian-American, and Gholam Shakuri, an Iran-based member of Iran’s Qods Force– a unit of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com DETROIT — If it hadn’t have been so potentially deadly and scary, Nigerian terrorism suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s Christmas day Northwest flight from Amsterdam to Detroit in 2009 might have made a good Saturday Night Live skit. Witness Michael Zantow, who was flying to Wisconsin to visit his ailing mom from…
By Danny Fenster ticklethewire.com Being told you look like someone famous might be flattering. Then again, it depends who. Spanish MP (Member of Parliament) Gaspar Llamazares said he wants to sue the FBI, reports the Guardian, for using a photo of his face to create most wanted images of top al Qaeda operatives, Osama Bin…
By Danny Fenster ticklethewire.com Using a law passed before the birth of the Internet, the U.S. government has obtained a controversial court order to force Google and a small Internet provider, Sonic.net, to hand over information regarding a WikiLeaks volunteer, reports the Wall Street Journal. The WikiLeaks volunteer was identified as Jacob Applebaum, and the…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com DETROIT — Having immunity has its benefits. U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn of Detroit has dismissed a lawsuit by a suburban Detroit insurance company that was trying to get the government to pay up after an FBI agent smashed up a stolen $750,000, 1995 F50 Ferrari that was in government custody,…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com You’d think just two weeks after the 10th Anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, people would be conscious about bringing guns to airports. You’d think. But nooo. As part of ticklethewire.com’s occasional check up on guns at airports, we found that 20 firearms were found at airport checkpoints in the U.S….
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com Atty. Gen. Eric Holder Jr. is an honorable man. So I believe him when he tells Congress he didn’t know about ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious until the controversy exploded in 2011. The problem is that he needs to take responsibility for it. Period. He’s the top dog. People in his…
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. New York Times GAINESVILLE, Fla. — After decades of new laws to toughen sentencing for criminals, prosecutors have gained greater leverage to extract guilty pleas from defendants and reduce the number of cases that go to trial, often by using the threat of more serious charges with mandatory sentences or…
