Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com With a new FBI director in place, at least one influential Congressman is pressing for more answers in the Boston Marathon bombings, the Boston Globe reports. Rep. William Keating, D-Massachusetts, wants to know about blunders in the investigation, including the failure to properly follow up Russia’s warning about one of the bombers,…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com The FBI has flown drones in U.S. airspace 10 times since 2006, the FBI told Sen. Rand Paul, The New York Times reports. The bureau admitted it uses drones for aerial surveillance in “very limited circumstances.” Drones were used eight times for criminal cases and twice for national security, according to…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com Of all the ways to describe Edward Snowden, former CIA and NSA chief Michael Hayden may have come up with the most incendiary. In an interview with Financial Review, an Austrian publication, Hayden compared Snowden to the Boston Marathon bombers. “I don’t think Snowden spied for the money, and he probably did…
By JENNIFER STISA GRANICK and CHRISTOPHER JON SPRIGMAN New York Times The twin revelations that telecom carriers have been secretly giving the National Security Agency information about Americans’ phone calls, and that the N.S.A. has been capturing e-mail and other private communications from Internet companies as part of a secret program called Prism, have…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com Mutual distrust between the U.S. and Russia is threatening to jeopardize cooperation between the FBI and Russia’s Federal Security Service, the Washington Post reports. Cooperation over security threats is guarded and restrained, making it difficult for the two countries to share information about mutual safety concerns. The Boston Marathon bombing has prompted…
By Tim Shorrock The Nation In the annals of national security, the Obama administration will long be remembered for its unprecedented crackdown on whistleblowers. Since 2009, it has employed the World War I–era Espionage Act a record six times to prosecute government officials suspected of leaking classified information. The latest example is John Kiriakou, a…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com Can the FBI force a phone company to turn over its customer records for an investigation? The question is at the center of a rare civil complaint filed by the U.S. Department of Justice, which claims the phone company was interfering with national security, reports the Wall Street Journal. The case, which…
Shoshanna Utchenik ticklethewire.com Authorities are investigating leaks about a thwarted al Qaeda plot to blow up a U.S.-bound plane, reports the New York Times. FBI Director Robert Mueller told a Congressional Committee Wednesday that the the leaks are compromising national security efforts and would be pursued accordingly. White House efforts to prosecute individuals who leak security…
