By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com The FBI directed a local police department to drop criminal charges against a suspect in 2012 to avoid the public finding out about a secret device to track people, CNN reports. The device, called the “Stringray,” allows investigators to find suspects by tracking their cell phones. The technology mimics a cell…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com A group affiliated with the DEA has apologized after tweeting a photo of a Harlem drug dealer to commemorate Black History month, The Washington Post reports. The DEA said the tweet was a misunderstanding. “The focus of original tweet was to be invaluable hard work of African American DEA agents, not…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com Federal prosecutors handled fewer drug prosecutions last year because of a new approach to handling smaller non-violent offenders, the Los Angeles Times reports. Attorney General Eric Holder said at a National Press Club address that prosecutions for drug cases fell 6% last year. Holder said the feds are placing more focus…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com A license-plate scanning system designed to combat drug trafficking and other crimes has raised serious privacy questions because of the technology’s ability to snap photographs of drivers and their passengers, the ACLU said, reports Bloomberg. The concern is that authorities will combine the photographs with facial-recognition software. “This adds a whole…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com Agents returned fire Wednesday morning and killed a drug smuggling suspect near Roma, Texas, the Associated Press reports. The incident happened after Border Patrol agents came under fire while investigating suspected drug smugglers in the desert, the agency said. The agency, which has pledged to be more transparent about agent-involved shootings,…
By Greg Stejskal ticklethewire.com Webster Bivens may have been a drug dealer, but his place in law enforcement history is not proportional to his status as an alleged dealer. In the fall of 1965, Federal Bureau of Narcotics agents raided Bivens’ Brooklyn apartment. The FBN agents had neither an arrest warrant nor a search warrant….
Greg Stejskal served as an FBI agent for 31 years and retired as resident agent in charge of the Ann Arbor office By Greg Stejskal ticklethewire.com Webster Bivens may have been a drug dealer, but his place in law enforcement history is not proportional to his status as an alleged dealer. In the fall…
