The recent FBI surveillance planes that were observed flying over Dearborn a few days ago made many revisit the issue of trust between the Arab and Muslim American community and the federal government.
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com An Italian company with suspected ties to repressive regimes has been selling surveillance and spyware to the FBI and DEA, The Hill reports. The discovery comes after the firm, Hacking Team, was hacked. The hacker revealed company documents that suggest countries the company does business with countries like Sudan. Among the…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com The Justice Department could make a deal to convince NSA leaker Edward Snowden to return to the U.S. after he fled in 2013 following the shocking release of secret surveillance documents. That’s according to former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who spoke to Yahoo News about the issue. Holder said the…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com The FBI assured Congress that its plane surveillance program is not intended to perform mass surveillance or bulk intelligence collection, the Associated Press reports. The FBI, however, declined to answer some questions about its planes, including how often they are used and how much they cost. The briefing comes two weeks…
By Editorial Board Minneapolis Star-Tribune Last week, reports surfaced that the FBI had flown small single-engine planes over 30 cities across the U.S. The planes, outfitted with video and cellphone surveillance equipment, were registered to fictitious companies in order to shield the government’s role during this domestic surveillance operation. Cellphone surveillance equipment, commonly known as…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com Are Apple and Google the bad guys? A senior FBI official told a Congressional committee that the technology giants are aiding terrorists by offering users encrypted communications, a senior FBI officials told the House Homeland Security Committee, The Register reports. Michael Steinbach, assistant director in the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, said the…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com Less than a week after the discovery that the FBI was using fictitious names of companies to conceal the use of small planes to spy on Americans, Sen. Al Franken is demanding more information on the surveillance flights, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. The small planes, mostly single-engine Cessnas, were used…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com Boston police said they have video that should end any questions about whether law enforcement used appropriate force when they fatally opened fire on a 26-year-old terrorism suspect in his neighborhood Tuesday. The Associated Press reports that Usaama Rahim lunged at a police officer and FBI agent with a military-style knife,…
