Bill Piper The Seattle Times Note: Piper is the director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance This year is the 40th anniversary of the Drug Enforcement Administration. Already plagued by scandals, the agency has recently been revealed to be collaborating with the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency to spy on…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com How prepared is Homeland Security to handle terrorism threats? On the 12th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a Senate panel will ask that question as it examines the department and interviews former lawmakers and past DHS officials, including the first Homeland Security secretary, Tom Ridge, the Washington Post reports. The…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com The FBI has acknowledged using surveillance drones on U.S. soil at least 10 times, Al Jazeera America reports. The admission comes after Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., made inquiries after FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress in June that the bureau had used drones for “limited law enforcement purposes.” According to the disclosure,…
By Ross Parker ticklethewire.com Congress has modified the Miranda rights: You have a right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, an attorney will be appointed to represent you, that is, if he or she is not furloughed, laid off or too busy to pay any attention to you. The initial reaction…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com Revelations that the DEA uses NSA data to investigate non-terrorism cases against Americans has prompted a coalition of two dozen civil rights groups to call for congressional hearings, Reuters reports. The call for hearings comes after Reuters revealed that the DEA uses telephone surveillance from the NSA to build criminal cases against…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com U.S. Rep. William Keating touched on a new FBI directive is urging the bureau to share information with local police about terrorist threats, the Boston Herald reports. He wants to talk to the FBI. “That’s news to me,” Keating, a Homeland Security Committee member, said. “If there’s something through these directives and…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com Nearly a year after protesters barged into the U.S. consulate in Benghazi , Libya, and killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, the Justice Department filed the first criminal charges in the case, the Washington Post reports. According to numerous reports, the Justice Department filed an unspecified number of counts…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com The growing controversy over NSA’s domestic surveillance programs is likely to spark legislative debates that could change the extent to which feds can snoop on Americans, McClatchy Newspapers reports. Elected officials have been growing increasingly concerned about the NSA since Edward Swowden leaked information about the surveillance last month. “People at the…
