The two West Memphis, Ar., police officers who pulled over an old, white van two years ago today knew neither about the father and son occupants nor the sovereign citizen movement they espoused. FBI investigative files obtained by the Memphis Commercial Appeal under the Freedom of Information Act show the FBI had been tracking Ohio-born Jerry Kane since at least 2004. Agents suspected him of various financial fraud schemes in several states, but never charged him with a crime.
There's no hint in the massive record that agents knew Kane and his 16-year-old son, Joe, crisscrossed the country armed with an AK-47. Even after probes in Oklahoma, California, and Ohio, records show, nothing suggests the agency suspected Kane would turn violent against law enforcement officials. When Kane's son killed Sgt. Brandon Paudert and officer Bill Evans at exit 275, the FBI's investigation of a potential network of like-minded friends and potential co-conspirators quickly became an intensive national effort. In the two years since the shootings, the FBI has warned of sovereign citizens' growing threat to law enforcement. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit organization that tracks hate groups, has documented a proliferation of its adherents nationwide. "West Memphis woke a lot of us up to how bad this situation really is," said the center's Mark Potok. "I think things are likely to get worse before they get better."
Read full entry »FBI chief Robert Mueller told a U.S. Senate committee he hasn’t bothered calling New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly about the latest terror threat, reports the New York Daily News. If Kelly wanted to know more about the foiled Yemeni underwear bomb plot, he could have picked up the phone and called, Mueller said. “As I told Ray, he’s always welcome to call,” he said, repeatedly referring to the commissioner as “Ray.”
Mueller found himself being grilled by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) about his secret-hoarding after Kelly fumed that the NYPD had been left in the dark on the details of the plot. “That’s the type of information, quite frankly, that we need, deserve,” Kelly vented. The FBI got around to briefing NYPD brass Monday. Schumer asked Mueller to call Kelly, suggesting that his failure to brief Kelly underscored a growing rift between the FBI and NYPD. “No, no, no, no,” Mueller insisted. “There are always bumps in the road. And every six months or so, Ray Kelly and I get together and discuss those bumps in the road and move on.” Mueller may say the FBI and the NYPD work well together, but an FBI source said that’s far from true.
Read full entry »The House refused this week to rebuke the New York Police Department’s intelligence-gathering efforts focused on Muslim groups, the Wall Street Journal reports. Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), introduced an amendment to a Justice Department appropriations bill that would have blocked spending on police programs found to violate the U.S. Constitution or federal antidiscrimination laws. The measure was part of a broader push to stop the NYPD’s counterterrorism and surveillance efforts focused on Muslims.
“My amendment would ensure that no federal funds are flowing to any law-enforcement entity that the [Justice] Department has identified as engaging in racial, ethnic, and religious profiling,” he said. It failed in a largely party-line vote, 232 to 193. The police counterterrorism tactics have come under scrutiny as the result of an Associated Press probe into efforts targeting Muslim groups in the city and across the New York region. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly have defended the department’s approach as necessary and legal.
Read full entry »
The supposed bomber in a foiled plot to bring down a jetliner was actually a double agent who funneled vital information to U.S. and Arab intelligence...
Read full entry »With the Republican National Convention four months away, private security firms, lawyers, and bodyguard training companies are relying on fear to sell their services, reports the Tampa Bay Times. "The RNC is coming [ ] Is your security ready for it?" says a mailer to 5,000 downtown businesses from a Lutz security installation company. "At the 2004 RNC there were 1,800 arrests, in 2008 there were 800 arrests. What kind of mayhem will Tampa see in 2012?"
A former Hillsborough County sheriff's deputy offers "armed executive personal security and transportation" on his investigations and security consulting company website, while a Tampa insurance claims adjustor is circulating a news release explaining how companies should protect themselves in case mayhem occurs. Of the 50,000 visitors expected for the RNC, police said 15,000 will be protesters. ASI Consultants & Associates, a. Fort Lauderdale bodyguard training firm. advertises three-day sessions to train and license bodyguards with as many as six certifications and prerequisites to get RNC-related security jobs. "I've gotten probably about 40 phone calls," said owner Bill Ferrell. "We actually had that class filled within the three weeks of advertising it, and we actually turned down some people."
Read full entry »Jamal Tarhuni spent more than 100 hours on trains an cars traveling from Portland to Washington, D.C., and back because he is one of about 500 U.S. citizens on a no-fly list because they are believed to be air-terrorism threats, says the Oregonian. Like many others on the list, the 55-year-old businessman says he has no idea why he is on it.
The FBI won't comment on its reasons for blocking Tarhuni -- even to him. Tarhuni is at a loss for how to defend himself against accusations that no one will divulge. A civil liberties group representing 16 U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents on the no-fly list will argue next month that its lawsuit against the FBI should be heard in federal court. Director Timothy Healy of the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center said that people who land on no-fly lists are those whom the government has a "reasonable suspicion" are associated with terrorism, Healy said. That standard falls below the "probable cause" threshold for arresting suspects and was established by the U.S. Supreme Court's 1968 decision in Terry vs. Ohio.
Read full entry »After Osama bin Laden was killed in May, the FBI started seeking fugitives who could fill his place on the bureau’s 10 Most Wanted list. The New York Times says it's more complicated than finding any old criminal who has committed a high-profile crime. The bureau has been trying to highlight dangerous fugitives who may have been hiding in plain sight but could be recognized by distinctive features.
Now bin Laden's place has been filled by Eric Toth, a Washington, D.C.-area tacher accused of possessing child porn. It was the first time since 2009 that the FBI has added a fugitive to the list. Using most-wanted posters to enlist the public’s help in catching criminals dates to J. Edgar Hoover’s tenure in the early 1930s, when the face of the notorious bank robber John Dillinger was on a “public enemies list.”
Federal anti-terrorism grants have given Tennessee cities and counties emergency response equipment that, a decade ago, they couldn’t have tried to buy in their dreams, The Tennessean reports. The money was real: $192 million from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that paid for remote-controlled bomb-handling robots; special equipment for collapsed building rescues; high-tech surveillance cameras; all sorts of boots, masks, and body armor; and food for police dogs. There was even a training seminar about how to apply for more money.
Now, cities and counties are being asked to maintain all the high-tech gadgetry they obtained. Among the most coveted pieces is the armored Bearcat, a paramilitary vehicle with a gun turret on top and the ability to drive directly into an explosive or hazardous “hot zone.” Nashville police got one funded for $89,000 and have rolled it out about 175 times since 2009, including during barricades and high-risk searches. Some equipment sits on shelves. “This year for the first time, DHS is encouraging sustainment,” said Rick Shipkowski, deputy Homeland Security adviser for Tennessee. “They realize they have put billions of dollars into this program and have capabilities people couldn’t have dreamed of years ago, and it would be a shame to see those go to waste if we don’t prioritize sustaining them.”
Read full entry »The acquittal of seven Michigan militia members charged with conspiring to go to war against the government could make federal agents reluctant to pursue certain investigations at a time when the number of so-called patriot groups is increasing nationwide, reports the Associated Press. "It's an embarrassment to the government to lose this case," said Mark Potok, who tracks extremist groups at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Alabama. "I very much worry this could discourage officials from moving forward on the most open-and-shut cases in the future. I'm not trying to criticize the judge at all, but it might have ramifications."
Potok's center counted more than 1,200 anti-government groups last year and lists them on its website. The FBI recently said it is focusing on "sovereign citizen" extremists who don't recognize government authority. The FBI ran an 18-month probe of the Hutaree militia and placed an informant and undercover agent inside the group. After six weeks of trial, however, a judge this week said the case didn't even deserve to go to the jury and declared all seven not guilty. Prosecutors this week acknowledged there was no specific plan — an admission that clearly irritated the judge. "What the government has shown, instead of a concrete agreement and plan to forcibly oppose the authority of the government, is that most — if not all — of these defendants held strong anti-government sentiments," Roberts said in a 28-page decision. "But the court must not guess about what defendants intended to do with their animosity."
A federal judge in Detroit acquitted seven members of the Hutaree militia Tuesday of the most serious charges following six weeks of testimony in a high-profile terror case, reports the Detroit News. U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts granted a defense motion to acquit the militia members on seven charges, including seditious conspiracy and conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction. She ordered the trial to continue against Hutaree leader David Stone Sr. and his son, Joshua Stone, on weapons-related charges.
The judge said the government's case was built largely on circumstantial evidence. "While this evidence could certainly lead to a rational fact-finder to conclude that 'something fishy' was going on, it does not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that defendants reached a concrete agreement to forcibly oppose the United States government," Roberts wrote. Peter Henning, a former prosecutor and current law professor at Wayne State University, called the case "all talk and no action." "This is a blow to the government," he said. "They put a lot of resources into this case. It demonstrates how difficult it is to prove conspiracy cases that have not advanced very far."
Read full entry »The Los Angeles Times reports that federal agents routinely profiled Muslims in Northern California for at least four years, using community outreach efforts as a guise for compiling intelligence on local mosques, according to documents released by the ACLU. From 2004 to 2008, FBI agents from San Francisco regularly attended meetings and services, particularly in the Silicon Valley area, "collected and illegally stored intelligence" about Muslims beliefs and practices and shared the information with other government agencies, the ACLU said.
The ACLU, the Asian Law Caucus and the San Francisco Bay Guardian filed a Freedom of Information Act request in 2010 and a lawsuit in 2011 after the groups received repeated complaints from the Muslim community about intrusive FBI activity, ACLU attorney Julia Harumi Mass said. "The FBI's targeting of Muslim Americans for intelligence gathering was not connected to any evidence of criminality, but instead targeted an entire group based on religion," Mass said. The pattern of surveillance shown in the documents "is an affront to religious liberty and equal protection of the law." In a brief written statement, FBI Assistant Director Michael Kortan defended the agents' activities, but said that the agency has adjusted its community outreach efforts.
Read full entry »Police investigators, prosecutors, and mayors nationwide say the New York Police Department is putting its chances of getting good tips from Muslim sources at risk by conducting clandestine surveillance of Muslims in the city and across the Northeast, the Associated Press reports. The AP's sources cite their experience in serving communities that are home to large Muslim communities and other minority populations that have become isolated by events.
"It only takes one perceived mistake, whether it's a mistake or not, where the confidence of the community will be temporarily shattered or damaged," said former FBI agent Ted Wasky. Others said the New York police secret spying and its defense against suggestions it might be a mistake is a misguided approach that will hinder the department's efforts to uncover potential attacks for years, if not decades. That critique has been forcefully rejected by the police department and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has praised the department's tactics as ones that have kept the city safe in the decade since the Sept. 11 attacks.
Attorney General Eric Holder has presented the Obama administration’s most detailed justification for armed drone strikes against Al Qaeda leaders, arguing that the U.S. government doesn’t legally need judicial review to kill terrorist operatives overseas, even when they’re Americans, reports Politico.com. Criticism of U.S. practices intensified after reports in 2010 that New Mexico-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki — killed in a 2011 drone strike — was on a list of terror suspects that the U.S. had decided to target using deadly force.
Holder is the highest-ranking administration official to defend the administration’s position, arguing that placing terror suspects on a so-called kill list is subject to “robust oversight” but should not and need not involve the courts. He spoke at Northwestern University Law School. Al-Awlaki’s father filed a lawsuit challenging the targeted-killing policy, but U.S. District Judge John Bates dismissed the case, saying courts were unsuited to make the judgments involved in singling out terrorists for death. Holder rejected claims by legal scholars and human-rights groups that the use of lethal force off the battlefield must be limited to instances of imminent threat, such as cases in which authorities have indication that a terror suspect is in the midst of plotting a specific attack.
Read full entry »New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly defended his department's counterterrorism program, saying “people have short memories as to what happened here in 2001,” reports the New York Times. Kelly spoke on WOR-AM radio in response to growing criticism of his department's surveillance methods, including monitoring Muslim communities in New York City and beyond and its reliance on stop-and-frisk tactics as a crime-fighting tool.
Federal officials have increased their attention on the "sovereign citizen" movement, a group that has attracted little national media attention but which...
Read full entry »
