23narchy.com

smile, breathe and go slowly

FBI 'fabricated terror emergencies to get phone records' | The Guardian

Justice department to accuse FBI of invoking crises to obtain details of more than 2,000 calls, Washington Post reports

The US justice department is preparing a report which concludes that the FBI repeatedly broke the law by invoking terrorism emergencies that did not exist to obtain more than 2,000 telephone call records over four years from 2002, including those of journalists on US newspapers, according to emails obtained by the Washington Post.

The bureau also issued authorisations for the seizure of records after the fact, in order to justify unwarranted seizures.

The Washington Post said the emails show how counter-terrorism ­officials inside FBI headquarters breached regulations designed to protect civil liberties.

The FBI's general counsel, Valerie Caproni, told the Washington Post that the agency violated privacy laws by inventing non-existent terrorist threats to justify collecting the phone records. "We should have stopped those requests from being made that way," she said.

Caproni said that FBI's issuing of authorisations after the fact was a "good-hearted but not well thought-out" move to give the phone companies legal cover for handing over the records.

After the 9/11 attacks, the USA patriot act greatly expanded the government's ability to monitor American citizens, including increased access to their phone calls with the approval of lower-level officials than previously allowed. But the authorisation had to be tied to an open terrorism investigation.

The Washington Post said two FBI officers had raised concerns. Special agent Bassem Youssef observed that the necessary authorisations were not being sought before phone records were seized and were sometimes only given later in response to complaints from phone companies. Another official, Patrice Kopistansky of the FBI's legal office, noticed a similar problem. She also raised concerns when she was unable to get investigators to provide her with an open terrorism case to justify issuing relevant authorisation.

The Washington Post reported that Kopistansky and Youssef discussed the worsening "backlog" of cases without the necessary authorisations, or where false claims were made about terrorism emergencies. "I also understand some of these are being done as emergencies when they aren't necessarily emergencies," Kopistansky wrote to Youssef in April 2005.

The FBI subsequently issued a blanket authorisation covering all past searches, although its legality was questioned.

The Washington Post said journalists on the newspaper and the New York Times were among those whose phone records were illegally searched. The FBI later apologised to editors of both papers.

via guardian.co.uk

 

FBI uses Internet photo of Spanish lawmaker to create aged Osama Bin Laden photo | Boing Boing

201001161928

This is why the FBI needs such a big budget -- browsing the Web for a guy who looks like Osama Bin Laden, but older, doesn't come cheap, folks.

In a statement Saturday, the agency would say only that it was aware of similarities between their age-progressed image "and that of an existing photograph of a Spanish public official [Gaspar Llamazares]."

"The forensic artist was unable to find suitable features among the reference photographs and obtained those features, in part, from a photograph he found on the Internet," the FBI said in a statement to the Associated Press.

Spanish lawmaker used in updated bin Laden photo

via boingboing.net

 

FBI file links Kennedy to Monroe's death | Sydney Morning Herald

For four decades there have been rumours that Marilyn Monroe's death was not a simple suicide. Now a Los Angeles-based Australian writer and director, Philippe Mora, has uncovered an FBI document that throws up a chilling new scenario.

The screen legend Marilyn Monroe...the FBI report says she "expected to have her stomach pumped out and get sympathy for her suicide attempt", but it suggests she was left to die. Photo: Harold Lloyd/The Harold Lloyd Collection

(download)

BOBBY KENNEDY'S affair with the screen idol Marilyn Monroe has been documented, but a secret FBI file suggests the late US attorney-general was aware of - and perhaps even a participant in - a plan "to induce" her suicide.

The detailed three-page report implicates the Hollywood actor Peter Lawford, Monroe's psychiatrist, staff and her publicist in the plot.

The allegations suggest the 36-year-old actress, who had a history of staging attention-seeking suicide attempts, was deliberately given the means to fake another suicide on August 4, 1962. But this time, it is suggested, she was allowed to die as she sought help.

The document, hidden among thousands of pages released under freedom-of-information laws last October, was received by the FBI on October 19, 1964 - two years after her death - and titled simply "ROBERT F KENNEDY".

It was compiled by an unnamed former special agent working for the then Democrat governor of California, Pat Brown, and forwarded to Washington by Curtis Lynum, then head of the San Francisco FBI. Despite a disclaimer that it could not be sourced or authenticated, it was considered important enough to immediately circulate to the FBI's five most senior officers, including director J. Edgar Hoover's right-hand man, Clyde Tolson.

The report was in effect buried for decades as a classified document, and even the released version contains censored sections. Never before mentioned despite thousands of articles, books and documentaries about her death, it details aspects of Kennedy's on-and-off affair with the movie star, including sex parties and a lesbian dalliance, as well as her emotional departure from 20th Century Fox and descent into depression.

Critically, it raises an alleged conspiracy, apparently overseen by Lawford, for Monroe to unwittingly commit suicide with the drug Seconal, a barbiturate used to treat insomnia and relieve anxiety. The document gives no precise reason why she would be killed but hints it may be linked to her threats to make public her affair with Kennedy, as other conspiracy theories have previously claimed. It states in part: "Peter Lawford, [censored words blacked out] knew from Marilyn's friends that she often made suicide attempts and that she was inclined to fake a suicide attempt in order to arouse sympathy.

"Lawford is reported as having made 'special arrangements' with Marilyn's psychiatrist, Dr Ralph Greenson, from Beverley Hills. The psychiatrist was treating Marilyn for emotional problems and getting her off the use of barbiturates. On her last visit to him he prescribed Seconal tablets and gave her a prescription for 60 of them, which was unusual in quantity especially since he saw her frequently. On the date of her death … her housekeeper put the bottle of pills on the night table. It is reported that the housekeeper and Marilyn's personal secretary and press agent, Pat Newcomb, were co-operating in the plan to induce suicide."

It goes on to say that on the same day, Kennedy had booked out of the Beverley Hills Hotel and flown to San Francisco where he booked into the St Charles Hotel, owned by a friend. "Robert Kennedy made a telephone call from St Charles Hotel, San Francisco, to Peter Lawford to find out if Marilyn was dead yet."

Lawford called and spoke to Monroe "then checked again later to make sure she did not answer". The document claims the housekeeper, Eunice Murray, who had been hired by the actress on the advice of Dr Greenson, then called the psychiatrist.

"Marilyn expected to have her stomach pumped out and get sympathy for her suicide attempt. The psychiatrist left word for Marilyn to take a drive in the fresh air but did not come to see her until after she was known to be dead."

Officially, the actress was found by Murray in the early hours of August 5, naked on her bed lying on top of her telephone. The others are now dead, too.

The FBI report says Kennedy had promised Monroe he would divorce his wife and marry her, but the actress eventually realised he had no intention of doing so. About this time, he had told her not to worry about 20th Century Fox cancelling her contract - "he would take care of everything". When nothing happened, she called him at work and they had "unpleasant words. She was reported to have threatened to make public their affair."

Hoover, keeper of America's secrets, was obsessed with the private life of celebrities, particularly those with leftist leanings. The files show the FBI tracked Monroe from the Cold War mid-1950s to her death in 1962, but particularly after she met and married the playwright Arthur Miller, who was being watched as a possible communist.

FBI arrest man for tweeting | guardian.co.uk

New York man accused of using Twitter to direct protesters during G20 summit

Elliott Madison arrested by FBI and charged with using social networking site to help demonstrators evade Pittsburgh police

G20 Pittsburgh protest

About 5,000 protesters are estimated to have taken part in demonstrations in Pittsburgh during the G20 summit. Photograph: Brian Blanco/EPA

 

A New York-based anarchist has been arrested by the FBI and charged with hindering prosecution after he allegedly used the social networking site Twitter to help protesters at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh evade the police.

Elliot Madison, 41, from Queens, had his home raided and was put on $30,000 (£19,000) bail after he and Michael Wallschlaeger, 46, were tracked to the Carefree Inn motel in Pittsburgh during the summit on 24 and 25 September.

The pair were found sitting in front of a bank of laptops and emergency frequency radio scanners. They were wearing headphones and microphones and had many maps and contact numbers in the room.

Official police documents allege the two men used Twitter messages to contact protesters at the summit "and to inform the protesters and groups of the movements and actions of law enforcement".

In all, almost 200 protesters were arrested during the two-day summit, which brought world leaders to Pittsburgh to discuss the global economic meltdown and other matters of common financial interest.

About 5,000 protesters were estimated to have taken part in demonstrations in the city.

Twitter has rapidly established itself as an important tool in the armoury of protest groups and demonstrators. During the summit, the police openly monitored Twitter to listen in to the protesters' communications.

The FBI said that as well as the computers and radio scanning equipment discovered at the motel, they also confiscated from Madison's home 11 gas masks, five pairs of goggles and test tubes and beakers. They said they also took away anarchist books and pictures of Marx and Lenin.

Madison is a social worker with a Manhattan-based programme attached to a psychiatric hospital. He is said to be a member of the People's Law Collective, a voluntary group that advises protesters on legal issues arising from actions. Wallschlaeger produces a talk show on radio called This Week in Radical History.

via guardian.co.uk

 

Saddam Hussein prosecutive summary report released by FBI under freedom of information

(download)

Saddam Hussein written interviews released by FBI under freedom of information

(download)

US justice department to investigate CIA over terror interrogation tactics | guardian.co.uk

The US attorney general, Eric Holder, is poised to order a special criminal investigation into CIA agents who may have gone too far in interrogation of al-Qaida and other suspects taken after the 9/11 attacks, it emerged today.

Holder's preference for pushing ahead with an investigation came on the day that the CIA was ordered by the court to release hundreds of pages of previously hidden documents detailing how interrogations were conducted.

The attorney general's imminent decision to order the investigation runs counter to the wishes of the CIA director, Leon Panetta, who was appointed by Barack Obama, and has argued in favour of looking forward rather than back.

The Washington Post today revealed that Holder is planning to name John Durham, a career justice department prosecutor, to lead the inquiry.

His mandate will be relatively narrow: to look at whether there is enough evidence to launch a full-scale criminal investigation of current and former CIA agents.

The White House tried to take some of the sting out of the release of the reports into the CIA by announcing that in future there will be a special group set up specifically trained in interrogations, to be housed in the FBI headquarters rather than the CIA.

The CIA reports have been the subject of a long-running freedom of information battle between the agency and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). A copy was published last year, while George Bush was still in power, but almost the entire contents were blacked out. Obama promised earlier this year to release as much of the material as possible.

The main report, written in 2004, was an investigation by the then CIA inspector-general, John Helgerson, into allegations that some agents went beyond the guidelines, albeit loose ones, set out at the time for interrogations.

Also released were two other reports, one from 2004 and the other from 2005, on the value of intelligence obtained by what the US calls "high-level detainees", mainly al-Qaida suspects held now at Guantanamo. The three reports amount to hundreds of pages.
Holder was reported in the US media earlier this year to have been sickened by what he read in Helgerson's report. In 2004, when George Bush was still in power, the justice department opted against prosecution, and Holder would have to reverse that decision.

Jameel Jaffer, a spokesman for the ACLU, said: "It is encouraging that the justice department's ethics office recognises that prior decisions to cut off investigations of serious abuse cases were ill-advised, and that those who broke the law must be held accountable."

Bill Burton, the deputy White House press secretary, speaking in Martha's Vineyard, where Obama is on holiday, stonewalled today when asked by reporters whether he supported going after people who may have committed crimes. Burton said: "The White House supports the attorney general making the decisions on who gets prosecuted and investigated."

Burton said the new interrogations unit will report directly to the director of the FBI, and will bring together different elements of the intelligence on how to get the best possible information based on scientifically-proven methods. The CIA, though its role in interrogations is being downgraded, would still remain involved.

The prospect of prosecutions has already led to rows between the Obama administration and former members of the Bush administration led by the former vice-president Dick Cheney, who said CIA morale would be damaged.

Cheney, speaking before publication, said that the files would show that vital information about al-Qaida was obtained by interrogation. Panetta today came to the defence of his agents, echoing Cheney's argument. "The CIA obtained intelligence from high-value detainees when inside information on al-Qaida was in short supply. Whether this was the only way to obtain that information will remain a legitimate area of dispute, with Americans holding a range of views on the methods used."

In a note sent to the CIA workforce this morning ahead of the report's release, Panetta echoed another argument from the Bush administration officials, that the justice department had looked at Helgerson's report in 2004 and decided against prosecution, except in the case of one contractor.

Panetta added: "My primary interest - when it comes to a programme that no longer exists - is to stand up for those officers who did what their country asked and who followed the legal guidance they were given. That is the president's position, too."

via guardian.co.uk

The FBI's Michael Jackson File is almost 600 pages

FBI's Michael Jackson File = 591 Pages

When I submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for any records they may have in their archive on Michael Jackson, I expected the agency would reply saying they didn't locate any such records, or that there were only a handful on pages on the late entertainer. I was wrong.

A letter from the FBI yesterday informs me they've located close to 600 pages on him. As I've learned from years of filing these sort of FOIAs, it's going to be a while before anything is released, and, when pages are eventually provided to me, they could be quite mundane.

Here's the FBI letter on my Michael Jackson FOIA:

posted by Michael at 3:27 PM

via mpetrelis.blogspot.com

Saddam Hussein Talks to the FBI

via gwu.edu