By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON — The FBI, which can be very sensitive about its image, is taking on the ever-popular Wikipedia. The issue? The FBI seal. The New York Times reports that the bureau sent off a letter to Wikimedia Foundation, the parent company of Wikipedia, demanding that it remove the FBI seal from…
By Allan Lengel For AOL News WASHINGTON — In courtroom 18 in the sterile D.C. federal courthouse, Justice Department prosecutors earlier this month tried nailing a major producer of adult pornography on obscenity charges. The lawyers, part of the department’s Obscenity Prosecution Task Force, spent four days presenting their case against California porn producer John…
By Greg Stejskal ticklethewire.com It was February, 1980 in Detroit. I was assigned to the FBI surveillance squad (with apologies to Jack Webb and his introductions to “Dragnet”). It was very cold in the back of the van. We hadn’t yet installed a heater that would work when the van wasn’t running. I had been…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com Who says wiseguys aren’t sensitive? The New York Daily News reports that Genovese mobster Joseph “JB” Barone, 49, who was an FBI informant for 18 years, cried late last week after he was acquitted by a federal jury in Manhattan of in a $1 million murder-for-hire plot. But it may not…
By Matt Castello ticklethewire.com On the ever-popular Facebook, words of support, encouragement and disbelief plaster a wall with 2,700-plus followers dedicated to the elderly, ever-elusive San Diego bank robber dubbed the “Geezer Bandit”. “This is the first time I’ve heard of this guy,” wrote one Facebook fan. “And he just became my personal hero.” “Financial…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com The FBI could be getting more powers when it comes to getting data on Internet activity. Reporter Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post reports that the Obama administration wants to change a law so that it would allow the FBI to compel companies over individual’s records of their Internet activity without…
Mike Mason/fbi photo Michael Mason, a former assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington field office, retired as the executive assistant director at FBI headquarters in 2007. His column is in response to the Justice Department investigation into whether potentially hundreds of FBI agents cheated on an open book test on a computer they…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON — FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III said Wednesday that his agents were assisting the Department of Defense in a controversial leak investigation into the ream of documents that were leaked on the Afghanistan war. Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he also acknowledged a Justice Department probe into the…
