Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com If all goes as planned, the FBI’s facial recognition database will include 52 million photos by 2015, the Verge reports. That’s an increase of more than three-fold from the 16 million that were in the database in the middle of 2013. Of those, 4.3 million images were for “non-criminal purposes,” according to…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com The TSA caused controversy by seizing a woman’s expensive bottle of perfume because it is shaped like a grenade, Fox News reports. Country music promoter Lois Lewis was stopped by TSA agents and then investigated after after trying to bring her 2-ounce bottle of Jimmy Choo perfume in her carryon at Phoenix’s…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com Michael Mullen, a former assistant to the special agent in charge of the Secret Service, has joined Cyveillance as vice president of security services, PR Newswire reports. Mullen served for 25 years as a special agent. In his new role, Mullen will oversee products that include web and social media monitoring and…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com A network engineer managed to listen to phone calls to the FBI and Secret Service by using Google Maps. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Bryan Seely created fake listings and was able to listen to calls at the FBI office in San Francisco and the Secret Service office in Washington D.C. When…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com Drug smugglers are a stubborn bunch. When security is tight, smugglers find another way into the country. The Associated Press reports that drug traffickers are increasingly using boats to reach the U.S. They take the Pacific Ocean from Mexico and South America to California. Smugglers likely are finding the task easier too…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com Virginia Seitz, the leader of an influential Justice Department office that handles surveillance and security, quietly resigned from her job after less than three years on the job, NPR reports. Seitz received Senate confirmation in 2011, taking over the unit responsible for the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. Sources told NPR…
Wausau Daily Herald Editorial Board For years, the Transportation Security Administration has “managed” the risk of in-flight terror attacks by throwing every one of us — from geriatrics to infants in strollers — into the same category. Call it “one size fits no one.” Finally, that policy is changing. The TSA is dramatically expanding a…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com When federal judges repeatedly complained about the government misleading them about NSA’s secret domestic surveillance, the Justice Department never sprang into action, the USA Today reports. According to the USA Today, newly released records show the Justice Department’s internal ethics watchdog never investigated allegations of the NSA having surveillance on Americans’ phone…
