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08 Feb 2011 13:35

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U.S.: Has Scientology issued their blanket denial and reactionary attack yet?

  • 1 FBI investigation into the Church of Scientology’s Sea Org labor rules source
  • » That new-time religion: The Church of Scientology, in addition to dealing with last year’s high-profile defector, high-profile director Paul Haggis, now must survive the fruit of Haggis’ labor with New Yorker writer Lawrence Wright; a 26-page tale of his ascent and subsequent rejection of the church. Amongst the familiar charges the article makes (secrecy, strident and at times brutally violent discipline by church leader David Miscavige, disconnected families, and an inscrutable origin story that Scientologists are forbidden to admit exists), it also reveals that the FBI has been investigating Scientology for almost a year regarding potential rights abuses in their elite “Sea Organization,” or “Sea Org.” They’re looking into defector allegations of forced manual labor, shockingly low pay, and “re-education” through rehabilitation camps, which it goes without saying are at best creepy ideas, at worst wicked ones.
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

03 Feb 2011 14:58

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U.S.: Senate report criticizes govt. agencies over Ft. Hood shootings

  • YES the FBI, DoD should’ve discharged Nidal Hasan source
  • » Specific and systemic failures: So says a new Senate report investigating the FBI and Department of Defense’s handling of former Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, prior to his executing the Ft. Hood shootings in 2009. The report, authored by Sens. Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins, accuses the agencies of failing to link the information they had between them, and of being negligent of Hasan’s transition to violent Islamic extremism, which they say was “on full display to his superiors and colleagues during his military medical training.”
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Dec 2010 11:15

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Tech: FBI investigating Gawker hack. We hope they catch the jerks.

  • The kind of attention we got – which spiked Gawker.com traffic – is the kind we can do without.
  • Gawker founder Nick Denton • Noting that there’s actually a kind of traffic Gawker doesn’t like. You know, the kind that comes after an embarrassing hack to one’s Gibson. By the way, the FBI is (thank God) actually investigating the hack, which is good, because even though Gawker screwed up big time here, the level of evil that Gnosis showed was beyond the pale. Look, you don’t like Gawker, so what. Don’t punish their users. We hope the jerks that did this go to jail for a really long time. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

08 Dec 2010 21:27

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U.S.: The FBI lets another guy ruin his life by making up terror threat

So, this place almost got blowed up because the FBI decided to make some idiot think he was blowing up a bomb. This wasn’t a thwarted terror threat; this was theater. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

03 Dec 2010 17:56

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Tech, U.S.: FBI agents seize the wrong email account

  • good The FBI obtained a warrant to seize the emails of prolific Internet spammer Oleg Nikolaenko, wanted on a felony charge.
  • bad Due to a typo, they accidentally seized the wrong Gmail account (the FBI agent in charge dropped an ‘n’ by mistake).
  • bashfulThat agent now has to go back to federal court and get another search warrant – this time for the right email address. source
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink

27 Nov 2010 11:19

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U.S.: Portland tree-lighting bomb suspect had been plotting for months

  • You know there’s going to be a lot of children there? You know there are gonna be a lot of children there?
  • An FBI operative working undercover • Talking to Portland, Oregon tree-lighting bombing suspect Mohamed Osman Mohamud back in August, months before the incident took place. Portland police stopped Mohamud a mere 18 minutes before the ceremony began, which is kind of amazing. They say, though, that the the device wasn’t in any shape to actually explode (because the FBI supplied it to him, even though he tried to detonate it) and that the public was never in any danger. Whew. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

15 Sep 2010 21:02

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U.S.: FBI employees, baseball stars, wrestlers have something in common

  • 4 FBI employees arrested for lying about steroid use source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

03 Aug 2010 09:50

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U.S.: The FBI thinks Wikipedia has no right to use its logo

  • The reasoningWikipedia puts logos on its various pages, often recreating them in a vector format in cases where the original is a low-resolution sample. Also, most things acquired by the U.S. government, from logos to photos to numerous other assets are designated public domain. Certain insignias, such as the FBI’s, however, are restricted for non-copyright reasons.

    The conflict This particular logo of the FBI led to Wikipedia’s offices getting a letter claiming that “Whoever possesses any insignia …or any colourable imitation thereof..shall be fined … or imprisoned … or both.” Considering that the seal is commonly used in other places, this seems like an odd source to attack. source

Posted by Ernie Smith • 6 Comments • Permalink

28 Jun 2010 22:03

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U.S., World: Russian spies! Intrigue! Is this the Cold War or something?

  • It’s right out of a John le Carré novel. It will interesting to see how it plays out next couple of days and weeks from an international point of view and law enforcement point of view.
  • Former US attorney Stan Twardy • Describing the events that led to the U.S. arrest of ten reported Russian spies. You know, spies from one of our allies. What’s funny is that Obama was hanging out at Ray’s Hell Burger with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, the FBI was very close to catching the spies – some of whom had been in the U.S. for a long time. (Disclosure: Julius is a spy. And since we’re disclosing it, a not very good one.) source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

11 Jun 2010 14:58

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Tech: Gawker/Goatse Security/AT&T/Apple update: Something happened

  • yes Gawker was contacted by the FBI as part of an investigation into that 3G iPad data leak thang.
  • unlikely The chance that the FBI has a case; Goatse Security grabbed their info from a public site. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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