FBI WATCH Making Cruelty visible

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msfreeh
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Posts: 7691

Re: FBI WATCH Making Cruelty visible

Post by msfreeh »

taxpayer funded criminal justice crime family FEAR R US that created
Oklahoma City bombing refuses to extend it's hand to Vet
who lost his hand thinking he was protecting us from terrorists.

ugh!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/nat ... story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Inspector general censures senior FBI official for remarks about disabled veteran

August 27 2014

The Justice Department’s inspector general has concluded that a senior FBI official created the impression of witness-tampering during a discrimination lawsuit brought against the bureau by a disabled Army veteran.

Teresa Carlson, who is currently an FBI acting deputy assistant director, showed “extremely poor judgment” in her statements to Special Agent Mark Crider, a subordinate who was being deposed in the case, the inspector general found.

Crider was called to testify last year in a lawsuit brought by the veteran who had been disqualified from agent training in 2011 because of concerns about his prosthetic left hand.

The veteran, Justin Slaby of Stafford County, Va., won the case last August and resumed training at Quantico in June. When he graduates in October, he will be the first FBI agent with a prosthetic hand.

According to a redacted report by the office of the inspector general, Crider said Carlson told him in April 2013 that “it would be in my best interest to come down on the side of the FBI.”

Crider, in a one-page memorandum that was reproduced in the report, said he took her remarks “as a threat to make sure that I took the position that Slaby should not be an agent.”

Carlson, who was then special agent in charge of the Milwaukee field office, where Slaby, a Wisconsin native, had applied to join the FBI, disputed that she made such remarks, the report said. But government attorneys in the civil discrimination case stipulated she made the statements alleged by Crider, the report noted.

The inspector general’s office (OIG) referred its findings to the FBI to determine whether disciplinary action is warranted. The bureau does not comment on personnel matters, a spokesman said.

An attorney for the 32-year-old Slaby welcomed the report. “I’m hoping this will be a beacon of light for men and women serving as special agents to know that they can tell the truth without being intimidated by their superiors for doing so,” said John W. Griffin Jr., a lawyer in Victoria, Tex.

Slaby’s left hand was blown off by a defective “flash-bang” grenade in a training accident in Georgia in 2004 between overseas deployments. He served two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. He left the Army in 2005, earned a college degree and in 2009 applied to the FBI and was offered a job.

In 2011, he went to Quantico, where the FBI has its training academy. After a couple of months, he was removed from training because instructors felt he could not fire a gun safely with his prosthetic hand. He went to work for the FBI’s hostage rescue team.

In 2012, he filed a discrimination suit. Slaby’s attorneys questioned Crider, who had witnessed the prospective recruit’s completion of physical fitness tests at the Milwaukee field office.

Crider told the OIG that when he informed Carlson that he was scheduled to be deposed, she told him, among other things, that “Slaby should never be an agent because he is disabled,” according to the report.

msfreeh
Level 34 Illuminated
Posts: 7691

Re: FBI WATCH Making Cruelty visible

Post by msfreeh »

couple of couples....


1
http://www.propublica.org/article/a-son ... cy-on-race" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



Dispatches from Freedom Summer
In His Professional Twilight, a Son of Mississippi Considers His Legacy on Race
Former federal judge Charles W. Pickering wants his life of accomplishment and controversy to have been a contribution to his state’s racial healing.
by Joe Sexton September 3, 2014

2
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adve ... man_(radio" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)


“Clan of the Fiery Cross”Edit

The series delivered a powerful blow against the Ku Klux Klan's prospects in the northern USA. The human rights activist Stetson Kennedy infiltrated the KKK and other racist/terrorist groups. Concerned that the organization had links to the government and police forces, Kennedy decided to use his findings to strike at the Klan in a different way. He contacted the Superman producers and proposed a story where the superhero battles the Klan. Looking for new villains, the producers eagerly agreed. To that end, he provided information—including secret codewords and details of Klan rituals—to the writers. The result was a series of episodes, “Clan of the Fiery Cross,” in which Superman took on the Klan. Kennedy intended to strip away the Klan's mystique. The trivialization of the Klan's rituals and codewords was perceived to have had a negative impact on Klan recruiting and membership.[4]

Reportedly, Klan leaders denounced the show and called for a boycott of Kellogg's products. However, the story arc earned spectacular ratings, and the food company stood by its support of the show.



3
http://www.stetsonkennedy.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Stetson Kennedy October 5th, 1916 - August 27th, 2011

Stetson Kennedy at Desk circa 1945 - 1955Stetson Kennedy was an author, folklorist, environmentalist, labor activist, and human rights advocate. He was also known for his infiltration of the Ku Klux Klan during the 1940s. Kennedy authored eight books, including Palmetto Country, Southern Exposure, and The Klan Unmasked.

In Kennedy's early years, he became one of the country's pioneering folklorists. As a teenager, he began gathering white and African American folklore material while he was collecting "a dollar down and dollar a week" accounts for his father, a furniture merchant. He left the University of Florida in 1937 to join the WPA Florida Writers' Project, and at the age of 21, was put in charge of folklore, oral history, and ethnic studies. While he was with the WPA, he oversaw the work of African American writer Zora Neal Hurston.

After World War II, Kennedy and another informant infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan and related white supremacist groups, exposing their secrets, helping Georgia authorities revoke the Klan's corporate charter, and testifying against a fascist Klan offshoot known as the Columbians. Kennedy made public such information as secret code words and details of Klan rituals, including a stint where he supplied Klan secrets to the writers of the Superman radio program, culminating in a series of four episodes in which Superman battled the KKK.

A founding member and past president of the Florida Folklore Society, Kennedy was a recipient of the Florida Folk Heritage Award and the Florida Governor's Heartland Award, and was inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame. In addition to his passion for folklore, Kennedy has become friends with many literary giants, including Erskine Caldwell, who became so interested in his work during an essay competition, that he went on to edit Kennedy's book on Floridian folklore, Palmetto Country. While he was living in Paris in the mid 1950's, Jean Paul Sartre published his The Jim Crow Guide. Kennedy also maintained a close friendship with musician Woody Guthrie, who wrote numerous songs while staying at Beluthahatchee, Kennedy's home in Fruit Cove, FL.

Stetson Kennedy has been discovered and re-discovered by authors, young scholars, academics, film makers, and journalists alike. Until the very last days of his life, Kennedy continued to champion the causes that drove his decades of activism. His advice to young people was always to "pick a cause and stick to it." Kennedy's legacy lives on through his writings, Beluthahatchee Park, and the remarkable impact he made on all those who knew him.


4
Tributes to and about Stetson Kennedy
http://www.stetsonkennedy.com/tributes.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Willie Green perfroms for his departed friend Stetson Kennedy on October 1st 2011 .... JOHN EDGAR HOOVER, director, FBI: Please be advised that the letter ...

msfreeh
Level 34 Illuminated
Posts: 7691

Re: FBI WATCH Making Cruelty visible

Post by msfreeh »

see link for full story

A JOURNAL SENTINEL WATCHDOG UPDATE
FBI mum on why former Milwaukee chief still holds top job
Teresa L. Carlson, formerly the special agent in charge of the FBI office in Milwaukee, remains in a high-ranking position despite the belief that she ​encouraged perjury and ​then lied to investigators​.
Mike De Sisti
Teresa L. Carlson, formerly the special agent in charge of the FBI office in Milwaukee, remains in a high-ranking position despite the belief that she ​encouraged perjury and ​then lied to investigators​.
By John Diedrich of the Journal Sentinel
September 4. 2014

http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchd ... 49651.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


The former ​chief ​of the FBI Milwaukee office — ​believed to have ​encouraged perjury and ​then lied to investigators​ — is worthless as a witness ​and ​dishonors an agency that places a premium on integrity, according to bureau veterans and law enforcement experts.​

But ​Teresa ​Carlson ​remains a high-ranking FBI official in Washington, D.C., and the agency won't say whether she has been demoted, suspended or disciplined in any way.

A Justice Department report issued last week concluded that Carlson, then special agent in charge of the Milwaukee office, instructed a subordinate to commit perjury in the case of a wounded veteran who wanted to become an agent. Carlson then likely lied to investigators from the Inspector General's Office and the FBI as well as federal prosecutors, the report says.

An investigation into her conduct has dragged on for months, underscoring the perception among some agents that top officials are given special treatment.

Five years ago, the inspector general found that allegations ​of wrongdoing by top FBI​ leaders often were not pursued. A third of FBI employees surveyed for that report believed there was a double standard for top officials in the bureau.

"That is the basis of everything the FBI does — trust, integrity, honesty. Everything you do involves that," said retired FBI agent Jack Blair. "When you go to trial, the case is based on the testimony, many times, of the agent. If they are lying, you got a serious problem with the whole agency. That is one thing we get fired for."

Inspector General Michael Horowitz's office found Carlson "conducted herself unprofessionally and exhibited extremely poor judgment" when she coached Special Agent Mark Crider on how to testify in the case of Justin Slaby, a wounded war veteran trying to become an FBI agent.

According to Crider, Carlson told him to "come down" on the FBI's side in the case. Carlson denied she told Crider how to testify, but the inspector general staff concluded her version of events was not credible.

Carlson invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination last year after she was subpoenaed to explain the conversation. Likewise, she refused to speak to inspector general staff until she was forced to do so. She has not returned calls for comment.

FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce quietly moved Carlson out of Milwaukee last summer. More than a year later, Carlson remains in a high-level job as acting deputy assistant director of the Facilities and Logistics Division at headquarters in Washington — which manages FBI facilities and an $800 million budget.

The FBI will not say how much Carlson makes — but government pay scales show it is between $120,000 and $180,000 year. The agency also will not say if any disciplinary action has been taken against her.

msfreeh
Level 34 Illuminated
Posts: 7691

Re: FBI WATCH Making Cruelty visible

Post by msfreeh »

2. stories


Mystery Over FBI Agent's Firing
Government shrouds details of why top child porn prober got canned

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/ ... nts-firing" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Mystery Over FBI Agent's Firing



AUGUST 20--The lead FBI investigator on several of the government's highest profile child porn prosecutions has recently been fired in connection with her work on those cases, though details of why the agent was terminated have been sealed by a federal judge.

The canning of Monique Winkis, 40, was just disclosed by federal prosecutors to a Tennessee defense lawyer who represents Timothy Richards, who was convicted in a case in which Winkis was the lead FBI agent. In an August 8 U.S. District Court filing, defense lawyer Kimberly Hodde stated that prosecutors had informed her that Winkis was canned due to her 'conduct in the investigation of cases related to Defendant Richards' prosecution.'

Specific details of Winkis's firing are contained in a court filing made by Department of Justice officials, a submission that was ordered sealed last week by Judge Aleta Trauger. In her court filing, Hodde argues that Richards, pictured at left, is entitled to details about the Winkis firing since the ex-prober was the FBI case agent assigned to his prosecution.

The Winkis firing was apparently first disclosed by government lawyers during a late-June status conference, at which Trauger set dates for court pleadings 're: FBI Wincus,' according to a court filing. Winkis did not respond to a detailed message left with her mother, and the federal prosecutor handling the Richards case did not return a message left at her office. An FBI spokesperson declined comment, noting that the agency is prohibited from discussing personnel matters.

According to court records, Winkis worked for the FBI for about 13 years, most recently from the bureau's Washington, D.C. headquarters where she was a supervisor in the Innocent Images Unit. In that capacity, Winkis developed cases based on information provided by Justin Berry, who began operating an X-rated Webcam business while still a teenager. Berry's cooperation was, in large part, arranged in late-2005 by Kurt Eichenwald, then a New York Times reporter investigating online child porn businesses.

According to a December 2005 Eichenwald story, the Times 'persuaded Justin to abandon his business and, to protect other children at risk, assisted him in contacting the Justice Department.' That Times report also quoted Winkis commenting on the breadth of potential targets identified as a result of Berry's cooperation and how 'hundreds of other kids that we are not aware of yet' could be saved from sexual abuse and exploitation.


EX-FBI AGENT JOHN LANDS IN JAIL - AGAIN

By Ryan McBride - The Sun Staff



WAKEFIELD - A former FBI agent from Westerly has returned to prison
after a series of recent arrests for violating a court order to stay
away from his ex-wife.



John served 15 months at the ACI for a criminal conviction of violating a
restraining order in March 2002. His suspended sentence and probation
from the conviction end in 2012.



According to court records, state police arrested John in February 2002
on a disorderly conduct charge for exposing himself in public.

msfreeh
Level 34 Illuminated
Posts: 7691

Re: FBI WATCH Making Cruelty visible

Post by msfreeh »

September 5th, 2014, 8:50 pm
Retrial of FBI agent delayed

see link for full story


http://news.fredericksburg.com/newsdesk ... t-delayed/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Much to the dismay of the presiding judge, the retrial of an FBI special agent accused of murdering his estranged wife won’t begin Monday after all.

Arthur Gonzales, 43, is charged with second-degree murder and using a firearm in the commission of a felony in connection with the April 19, 2013, slaying of 42-year-old Julie Serna Gonzales.

Gonzales’ first trial in March ended after eight days with a hung jury. Sources said the jurors voted 10–2 to acquit Gonzales, and the two in opposition only supported a lesser manslaughter conviction.

At that time, Commonwealth’s Attorney Eric Olsen immediately announced his intention to try Gonzales again and his second trial was set to start next week.

But defense attorney Mark Gardner said he needed more time after being informed by prosecutors Wednesday of two new expert witnesses they intended to present.

Marcella Fierro, the retired chief medical examiner for the state, has examined the evidence and made conclusions that differ somewhat from those of the forensic scientist who performed the autopsy.

Specially, according to statements made during a hearing Friday in Stafford Circuit Court, Fierro has concluded that one of the shots that struck Julie Gonzales was fired while her back was against a hard surface, presumably the floor.

The medical examiner who testified at the first trial said the victim’s back being against a hard surface was not the only reasonable interpretation of the evidence.

Gardner said that if Fierro and a use-of-force expert he also just found out about were going to be allowed to testify, he would need more time to examine their conclusions.

msfreeh
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Posts: 7691

Re: FBI WATCH Making Cruelty visible

Post by msfreeh »

see link for full story



http://articles.latimes.com/1988-06-24/ ... fbi-agents" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


4 FBI Agents Face Probe in Dispute With Congressman
June 24, 1988|

Three veteran Los Angeles FBI agents reportedly are under internal investigation for lobbying U.S. Rep. Elton Gallegly to support a proposed law, and a fourth agent says he is under review for sending an irate note to Gallegly.

The four men face possible disciplinary action for engaging in improper political activity, according to several FBI agents.

Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) complains, meanwhile, that he was "the target of a bitter, and politically motivated, attack by a handful of FBI agents and their families" before the June 7 primary. But he denies filing a complaint against any of the four agents.

The FBI considers the situation an internal matter and will not discuss it, spokesman Jim Neilson said Thursday.

Several agents say the controversy has sparked outrage within FBI ranks.

"I have a right to express my views to my elected representative without putting my job on the line," said special agent Greg Mercier, one of the agents who says he is under investigation.

Mercier said he was upset with Gallegly because three colleagues were placed under internal investigation after a Sept. 4 meeting with the congressman. The three had sought the lawmaker's support for a bill that would increase the rate of overtime pay for 20,000 to 25,000 federal employees, including most FBI agents.

msfreeh
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Posts: 7691

Re: FBI WATCH Making Cruelty visible

Post by msfreeh »

2. reads


bonus reads. see below




1


http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obi ... story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


FBI agent, cold case analyst

Robert B. Fram, 58, an FBI special agent who in retirement became a cold case analyst for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va., died Aug. 24 at a medical center in Bethesda, Md. The cause was melanoma, said his wife, Joan Fram.

Mr. Fram, a resident of Burke, Va., was born in the Bronx. He joined the FBI in 1981 and became a special agent in 1985. In 1989, he became a hair and fiber examiner at FBI headquarters. He became chief of the trace evidence unit in 2001 and was section chief of the scientific analysis section of the FBI laboratory in Quantico, Va., from 2006 to 2009. In retirement, he was an adjunct professor at Northern Virginia Community College in Springfield and Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, Md.






2

http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafe ... al/1067463" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Quasi-governmental missing kids center enjoys key exemptions from federal rules



Friday, January 22, 2010 6:53pm



In many ways, the National­ Center for Missing and Exploited Children is a quasi-government agency.



Mandated by Congress, the center has access to the FBI's missing, wanted and unidentified persons files. It operates tip lines for the Justice Department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It gets more than half of its money from U.S. taxpayers.

Yet the Virginia-based center, with regional offices in Florida and three other states, is a private nonprofit organization exempt from federal salary caps. And that has enabled the center's president, Ernie Allen, to command a salary among the highest in the nonprofit world.

In 2008, the latest year for which records are available, Allen made $511,069 as head of the center and its international affiliate. He also received $787,126 in deferred compensation and underfunded retirement benefits, as well as $46,382 in nontaxable benefits — a total of $1,344,567.

Allen's base salary was higher than that of the top executives of two other nonprofits — the American Red Cross and the Smithsonian Institution — that also get substantial funding from the U.S. government. Both have budgets many times greater than that of the missing children's center.

Allen's compensation "does appear quite high,'' says Daniel Borochoff, president of the American Institute of Philanthropy.

Of the more than 500 nonprofits the institute rates, Allen's total compensation ranked third-highest — exceeded only by that at the Boy Scouts of America ($3.97 million) and Memorial Sloan-Kettering ($3.67 million), one of the world's top cancer centers.

Borochoff says there is "no easy formula" for determining executive compensation in nonprofits.

"You really have to look at the facts and circumstances and what kinds of skills are needed," he said. "If he (Allen) was running the Red Cross, where he was in charge of half the blood supply and major disaster relief, you could make a bigger argument (for his compensation)."

Charity Navigator, a watchdog group that evaluates 5,400 nonprofits, ranks Allen's salary as 47th-highest and almost twice the average for chief executive officers of similar-size organizations. Most of the CEOs who are paid more than Allen head major universities or research centers.

"I think it doesn't pass the smell test with donors," Sandra Miniutti, Charity Navigator's vice president, says of Allen's compensation. "It's very hard for people to wrap their arms around huge salaries, especially right now when we're in a recession.''

Although Allen's salary is high by nonprofit standards, Charity Navigator and the philanthropy institute list the center as "top-rated'' because most of its revenues go for programs, not fundraising costs.

Allen, a lawyer, said the board of directors set his compensation based on a study to ensure it was "comparable, appropriate and reasonable.'' He said he won't receive some of the money for years, although Internal Revenue Service rules required it to be reported on the center's annual IRS return.

"I am one of the nation's leading experts on the issue of missing and exploited children,'' Allen said in an e-mail to the St. Petersburg Times. "I am always on call and have little time off, including nights, weekends and holidays. I receive no bonuses or perks that many other nonprofit executives receive."

Allen said none of his compensation comes from U.S. taxpayers — $25.4 million in 2008 — but is paid out of "private funds" like donations. Total revenues in 2008 were $42 million.

The center's 350 employees include 11 who are paid more than $125,000. And in 2006 and 2007, the center paid medical claims totaling $76,572 for co-founder John Walsh, whose son Adam was murdered in South Florida in 1981. Although Walsh is no longer an employee, his wife is an unpaid board member and their family is covered by the center's health plan.

Walsh, host of America's Most Wanted, still acts as a spokesman for the center and is a "key person … whose knowledge, work, and overall contribution is uniquely valuable," Allen said.

President Ronald Reagan announced the creation of the center in 1984 and Congress designated it as the national clearinghouse for information on missing and sexually exploited children.

Missing kids are located by way of a 24-hour toll-free phone line, a photo distribution system and a team of forensic artists, who create age-progressed photos showing what a child abducted at, say, 2 might look like at 13.

The center says it has helped recover more than 135,000 missing children, though it acknowledges that many reported kidnapping victims are actually taken by parents in custody disputes.



Bonus reads


Federal review stalled after finding forensic errors by FBI lab unit ...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...fbi-la ... 85-4243a40.." onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.
Jul 29, 2014 - After two years, inquiry into FBI forensic testimony targets 45 capital ... mostly involving the same FBI hair and fiber analysis unit now under scrutiny. “I don't ... counter earlier FBI claims that a single rogue examiner was at fault.
U.S. reviewing 27 death penalty convictions for FBI forensic ...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...fbi... ... 3be8095fe7.." onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.
Jul 17, 2013 - David Christian “Chris” Hassell, director of the FBI Laboratory, said the ... DNA analysis, there is no accepted research on how often hair from ...
Hair Analysis: The Root of the Evidence Problem: Texas takes on ...
http://www.austinchronicle.com/.../hair ... nce-proble.." onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.
Jan 13, 2014 - That review is being conducted via an agreement between the FBI and ... it trained many microscopic hair analysts in state and local crime laboratories, ... Indeed, faulty hair analysis has been implicated in the case of at least ...
The Innocence Project - Innocence Project and NACDL Announce ...
http://www.innocenceproject.org/.../Inn ... L_Announce.." onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.
Jul 18, 2013 - The review will focus on specific cases in which FBI Laboratory reports and ... of faulty FBI microscopic hair comparison laboratory reports and/or testimony. ... “Unfortunately hair analysis is only one of many flawed forensic ...
[PDF]report - Department of Justice
http://www.justice.gov/oig/reports/2014/e1404.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Jul 9, 2014 - faulty FBI Lab analysis and examiner testimony. Chapter Six contains .... based in part on FBI hair analyses and testimony that DNA analysis.
DOJ Waives Procedural Bars in FBI Review of Hair Analysis ...
http://www.mainjustice.com/.../doj-waiv ... w-of-hair-.." onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.
Jul 24, 2013 - “Microscopic hair analysis often involved faulty conclusions,” he said. ... “There is no reason to believe the FBI laboratory employed 'flawed' ...
Faulty FBI forensic hair analysis: Thousands of possible wrongful ...
http://www.save-innocents.com/.../fault ... usands-of-.." onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.
Jun 1, 2014 - The undertaking is the largest post-conviction review ever done by the FBI. It will include cases conducted by all FBI Laboratory hair and fiber ...
US reviews 27 death penalty convictions due to FBI errors — RT USA
rt.com/usa/usa-reviews-death-penalty-274/
Jul 18, 2013 - More than 21,700 FBI Laboratory files are being examined, and at least 120 ... In cases where solely a hair analysis led to a suspect's conviction, US ... result of faulty hair tests, but the FBI says it will announce partial results of ...

msfreeh
Level 34 Illuminated
Posts: 7691

Re: FBI WATCH Making Cruelty visible

Post by msfreeh »

see link for full story

http://www.sacbee.com/2014/09/10/669623 ... tment.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Misconduct at Justice Department isn’t always prosecuted

Published: Wednesday, Sep. 10, 2014 - 1:49 pm
Last Modified: Wednesday, Sep. 10, 2014 - 2:29 pm

WASHINGTON -- Dozens of Justice Department officials, ranging from FBI special agents and prison wardens to high-level federal prosecutors, have escaped prosecution

or firing in recent years despite findings of misconduct by the department’s own internal watchdog.

Most of the names of the investigated officials, even the highest-ranking, remain under wraps. But documents McClatchy obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal for the first time a startling array of alleged transgressions uncovered by the department’s inspector general.

These include:

– Investigators concluded an assistant U.S. attorney “lacked candor” when interviewed by FBI agents investigating her husband’s “embezzlement activity.” The prosecutor also “made misleading and contradictory” statements to other investigators who were asking about her husband’s criminal activities. She was “verbally admonished” this year, but the Justice Department opted not to prosecute.

– A U.S. attorney violated federal laws and regulations by accepting a partially paid trip to a foreign country by a nonprofit organization, according to investigators. The unnamed presidential appointee was given a written admonishment and he was ordered to reimburse the organization. Prosecution was declined.

– Two FBI supervisory special agents accepted free tickets to the NBA All-Star Game and gave them to family members. One agent “lied under oath” about his actions, and was found to have misused government resources to “engage in extramarital affairs with three women.” That agent resigned after the bureau proposed his dismissal and the other was suspended for three days. Neither was prosecuted.

– An FBI assistant special agent in charge sexually harassed female subordinates, retaliated against a female special agent who refused to have a relationship with him and used his FBI-issued BlackBerry to pursue romantic relationships with 17 FBI employees, nine of whom were direct subordinates, as well as 29 other women. In January, the FBI told the inspector general it had issued an undisclosed disciplinary action. No charges were brought. In a statement to McClatchy, the FBI said it couldn’t comment on an “ongoing personnel matter.”

The records, which cover the period from January 2010 to March 2014, detail some 80 cases, only a few of which appear to have been previously made public. The accused officials work for agencies that include the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Marshals Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

In at least 27 cases, the inspector general identified evidence of possible criminal wrongdoing but no one was prosecuted.

These previously undisclosed cases, and dozens of others like them reviewed by McClatchy, reveal more than an underside to federal law enforcement. The cases underscore how much discretion federal prosecutors have in deciding whether to press charges, and they raise questions about when and why this discretion is applied.

“I think it’s fair to ask why some of these cases weren’t prosecuted,” Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz said in an interview. “That’s clearly a concern we have: To make sure there are not two standards of justice at the Department of Justice.”

However, he said it’s understandable in many cases that criminal charges aren’t filed. His office presents a case for prosecution in every instance where there’s “credible evidence that could support elements of a crime, even when it’s weak.”


The reports come, however, amid an overall decline in public corruption prosecutions during the Obama administration. So far this year, records obtained by the nonpartisan Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University show that 34 percent of investigators’ referrals of public corruption allegations were accepted for prosecution.

During the George W. Bush presidency, records show, 41.6 percent of the official corruption referrals resulted in prosecution.

Gauging the reasons behind an individual prosecutor’s decision-making is nearly impossible, because the Justice Department and inspector general’s office won’t release most of the names or discuss the details of the cases.

Justice Department records show that federal prosecutors nationwide declined a total of 25,629 criminal matters during fiscal year 2013. The reasons most commonly reported included weak or insufficient evidence and lack of criminal intent.

Peter Carr, a Justice Department spokesman, said prosecutors followed federal rules when deciding whether to initiate or decline charges in a case.

Carr pointed to the U.S Attorney’s Manual, which says, “Federal law enforcement resources and federal judicial resources are not sufficient to permit prosecution of every alleged offense over which federal jurisdiction exists.”

“Public corruption cases are very fact-specific, and statistics fluctuate routinely year by year,” Carr said Tuesday. “The decision to bring a case involves a number of factors, all covered by the Principles of Federal Prosecution, which may include the seriousness of the allegation, the admissible evidence and whether there is a substantial federal interest in pursuing charges.”

The inspector general’s summary of unprosecuted cases was provided to Republican Sens. Charles Grassley of Iowa and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, and independently obtained by McClatchy through a FOIA request.

Grassley said he agreed that not all cases warranted prosecution. However, he called for more transparency in the decisions “because of the obvious appearance of a conflict of interest.”

“The public needs to be reassured that the department doesn’t have one standard for its own employees and another standard for everybody else,” he said.

Other cases federal prosecutors declined that were cited in the documents obtained by McClatchy include:

– Allegations against an unnamed prosecutor who was recused from involvement with a criminal investigation because of a personal relationship with a criminal target. The inspector general, however, concluded the prosecutor had disclosed information about the investigation and the wiretap to her spouse, “who subsequently disclosed it to the target.” The prosecutor initially denied revealing the information to her spouse, but subsequently acknowledged that she might have “said something” about the investigation. The prosecutor retired last November.

The husband of former Assistant U.S. Attorney Paula Burnett in New Mexico was convicted last September of leaking details of an investigation to Mexican drug cartel members. Burnett retired late last year, according to news accounts. The inspector general and the U.S. attorney’s office in New Mexico wouldn’t confirm whether it was the same case. Burnett declined to comment.

– The inspector general’s review found $211,000 in questionable purchases at a district U.S. marshals’ office, including “ceremonial and promotional” items previously banned by headquarters, personal or other wasteful items. The investigators concluded that the marshal and the chief deputy marshal had misspent funds, knowingly misused the government purchase card program and violated public service laws. Disciplinary action was still pending this year.

– Investigators concluded that an immigration judge had solicited attorneys to purchase jewelry from her, borrowed money from a lawyer and interpreter, and failed to recuse herself from cases that involved lawyers representing her relatives in criminal matters. The Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees immigration judges, “proposed disciplinary action” in January. Spokeswoman Kathryn Mattingly said her office “does not comment on personnel matters.”

Several cases also involve prosecutors misusing their positions, including one who’d sent emails on behalf of her boyfriend, disclosed sensitive information to him without authorization, used government databases to conduct legal research for him, gave him access to government computer accounts and sent a gift to an attorney to get her boyfriend legal assistance. In December 2011, she received a letter of suspension for 14 days.

In the interview, Horowitz wouldn’t comment on specific cases but he added that he’s personally appealed to U.S. attorneys to consider prosecution in some instances.

“I pick up the phone and call them,” said Horowitz, a former longtime federal prosecutor who handled corruption cases in New York.

Horowitz’s role is not to make the prosecution decisions, but to ensure that prosecutors get the information they need .

“There are some where I might have pulled the trigger. But I’m not a prosecutor anymore so I respect the discretion not to. I can’t think of any case where a decision was made not to prosecute that I thought was unreasonable,” he said.

Some of the misconduct cases may not be pursued because they involve “low-dollar” waste or abuse, Horowitz said. Or cases may be seen as too tough to prosecute, sometimes for the wrong reasons, he added, such as the sexual abuse of prisoners. Prosecutors can view prisoners as unsympathetic witnesses.

Before Horowitz took over in 2012, the inspector general’s office disagreed with a federal prosecutor who didn’t want to file charges. In that case, a correctional officer had accepted $1,300 from an undercover agent in exchange for agreeing to smuggle tobacco into a correctional facility. After prosecutors from the federal district based in Houston declined to pursue criminal charges, a local district attorney took the case. The officer later pleaded guilty to bribery, was sentenced to probation and was fined $2,000.

Earl Devaney, a former inspector general for the Department of Interior, said a decision not to pursue criminal charges didn’t necessarily mean investigators or prosecutors were pulling their punches.

“There are always a lot of good reasons to not prosecute,” he said. “Also, you can have a thousand little crappy cases that just make you look good and just one case that has enormous impact.”

Devaney nonetheless added that he’d found the Justice Department’s public integrity unit, which is set up to prosecute cases of high-level corruption, to be “risk adverse” in the past. He worked with it as part of a federal task force that investigated superlobbyist Jack Abramoff and his influence peddling.

Sometimes, alleged misconduct by prosecutors and investigators might be handled less aggressively because of concern that it would taint criminal cases, Devaney said. At trial, defense attorneys are permitted to learn of serious misconduct of the agents and prosecutors involved in their cases.

According to the most recent report by the office, the Justice Department’s inspector general received nearly 5,900 allegations of misconduct, opened 195 investigations and was involved in 32 arrests and 38 convictions from October through March.

This year, for instance, a former federal correctional officer in Missouri was sentenced for trying to hire an inmate to murder his wife’s ex-husband.

However, the Justice Department’s inspector general doesn’t break down details on prosecutions. As a result, McClatchy couldn’t determine the prosecution rate for the office’s cases.

At least one other inspector general does report such statistics. The Interior Department Inspector General’s Office opened 742 cases in the year that ended March 31. During the same period, the office reported referring 44 cases for possible prosecution. Nineteen cases were declined.

During the same year, the Department of Homeland Security opened 551 investigations, referred 322 for prosecution and had 196 declined.

Horowitz is one of some 72 federal inspectors general, spanning myriad federal agencies. They are auditors, in part, scrutinizing government agencies in hopes of rooting out waste and inefficiencies. In fiscal 2013, for instance, the inspectors general identified $44.9 billion in funds that could be “put to better use.”

Inspectors general also investigate criminal allegations. In fiscal 2013, their work led to 6,705 successful criminal prosecutions.

The agencies make the calls on disciplinary action.

In the Justice Department cases, Devaney said he was struck by instances of weak punishment.

“An oral admonishment is not a deterrent,” Devaney said.

One case was triggered by a complaint by Grassley about FBI Assistant Director Stephen Kelly. Kelly, who managed the bureau’s Office of Congressional Affairs, told Grassley’s staff that the FBI knew that the senator planned to attend the wedding of a “subject” of an FBI investigation, according to the inspector general’s report.

“He assured Senator Grassley that he was not a focus of the FBI investigation,” the documents say.

“The OIG concluded that Kelly did not have the authority to disclose nonpublic information about an ongoing criminal investigation to Senator Grassley or his staff, and in doing so exhibited poor judgment,” the report states.

Grassley’s office said the senator never planned to attend the wedding and was invited by the son of the target of the investigation. The target was Russell Wasendorf Sr., founder of Peregrine Financial Group Inc., who pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $100 million from customers.

“Senator Grassley and the staff member who spoke with Mr. Kelly both thought the disclosure was inappropriate, and could have been intimidating to somebody who hasn’t dealt with the FBI like Senator Grassley and his staff have,” said Grassley spokeswoman Beth Levine.

This year, the FBI concluded that the allegation Kelly had violated internal policy was “unsubstantiated” and gave him “nondisciplinary counseling.”

“FBI concluded that Kelly’s disclosure of nonpublic information derived from an ongoing investigation was improper, for which he received nondisciplinary counseling,” the bureau said in a statement. “The FBI’s Office of Congressional Affairs must be afforded some measure of latitude and flexibility in dealing with members of Congress. As this instance did not result in harm to the ongoing investigation, and was done with good intentions, the matter did not constitute official misconduct.”

Tish Wells contributed to this story.

msfreeh
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Re: FBI WATCH Making Cruelty visible

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FBI agents love to torture their own, eh?


http://www.courthousenews.com/2014/09/11/71301.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thursday, September 11, 2014Last Update: 1:26 PM PT

Former FBI Agent Can't Wage Privacy Act Claim



A federal judge dismissed Privacy Act claims filed by an FBI special agent who said the "be on the lookout" report the agency issued on him made him unemployable and gave his wife ammunition in the couple's divorce proceedings.
Michael Dick sued Attorney General Eric Holder and U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey in 2013 after the nationwide "BOLO" report was issued by the agency in response to frustrated comments he made to members of the agency's Health Services Unit.
According to U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras' ruling, Dick injured his hand during his quarterly firearms qualification test, but medical help was hard to come by.
Dick couldn't be seen by a FBI doctor because his hand injury kept him from filling out a required questionnaire, and a private healthcare provider turned him away because the injury was too serious. An urgent care facility cleaned the wound, but a doctor wouldn't see him until the Health Services Unit authorized treatment.
According to the ruling, Dick finally received treatment, but after driving 72 miles to his house, the Health Services Unit refused to authorize his pharmacy to give him medication and pain killers.
"Still in pain and increasingly agitated by the lack of response from the Health Services Unit, Agent Dick told a Health Services Unit employee over the telephone that 'he would personally come to the [FBI] to straighten out the approval process,'" the judge writes in his ruling. "Agent Dick also 'expressed displeasure at [Assistant Director of Human Resources] Bennett personally because the Health Unit employee claimed that Mr. Bennett had limited their ability to communicate approval authority and had revoked issuance of cell phones to facilitate address requests.'"
Those statements led to the FBI's "be on the lookout" alert, describing Dick as a subject of interest to every level of law enforcement nationwide.
Dick claimed that the alert violated the Privacy Act by releasing personal information about him; specifically, that he had made threats to FBI personnel and that he was on administrative leave pending an investigation.
"In addition, the BOLO contained personal information about Agent Dick, including a 'grim faced picture' of him, his social security number, and his address," the judge notes.
Dick argued that the BOLO cost him his security clearance and outside employment opportunities, as well as got him shunned by his neighbors and peers. He also claimed that his wife used the alert in their divorce proceedings.
But Judge Contreras dismissed Dick's claims, stating that he had failed to exhaust the administrative remedies available through the Bureau, and therefore the court lacked jurisdiction.
The judge also ruled that the agency did not violate the Privacy Act by releasing Dick's personal information, or at least Dick failed to prove that it did, and further that he failed to link the alert with the his suspension and other consequences.

msfreeh
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Celebrating Frank Wilkinson


http://www.defendingdissent.org/now/new ... wilkinson/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Sue Udry , October 1, 2014, In : Features & Interviews

Frank Wilkinson was the Johnny Appleseed of the First Amendment, sowing the seeds of liberty in every city of the county. He was a founder and the driving force behind DDF for half a century. We’re celebrating the 100th anniversary of his birth with a new website full of stories, videos and music to celebrate his life. We hope those of you who knew Frank will drop by and add your memories of him to those of Katrina Vander Heuval, Ed Asner, and others. Those of you who never got to meet him should take a look too. His was an incredible life.

Frank got his start as a housing activist in Los Angeles, fighting to save Chavez Ravine, a poor neigborhood lacking basic sanitation and services. His dream was to build integrated public housing on the site, but real estate developers had other ideas. The “Battle of Chavez Ravine” was lost when the FBI fed information to the opponents about Frank’s radical politics. It was 1952, the hunt for Commies was on. Frank was fired, and the Chavez Ravine neighborhood fell to the wrecking ball, cleared to build Dodger Stadium.

But the witch hunt didn’t stop. Frank and his wife (a school teacher) were blacklisted. So they decided to fight back. When Frank was called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) he was ready to try a new strategy. He refused to answer any questions, on the basis of the First Amendent. He was cited for contempt of Congress, found guilty and sentenced to a year in jail. The case went to the Supreme Court, which upheld the conviction on a 5-4 decision.

Frank spent 9 months in jail, and emerged ready to fight some more.

First it was organizing to abolish HUAC with a new organization: The National Committee to Abolish HUAC (NCAHUAC, the forerunner to the Defending Dissent Foundation). Frank tirelessly traveled the country educating, agitating and working the halls of Congress to abolish the committee. As the influence of HUAC waned (until it eventually was abolished in 1975), other forces of repression were gaining ground.

NCAHUAC changed it’s name to the National Committee Against Repressive Legislation (NCARL) and went to work to stop S.1, an omnibus crime bill introduced in 1975 that would have had devastating impacts on the fundamental rights of freedom of expression, press, assembly and due process. Among S.1’s most egregious proposals were an official state secrets act, reinstitution of the federal death penalty, criminalization of of certain acts of political assembly and organizing, as well as some union strike activities, an increase in prosecutorial power and an expansion of federal laws on obscenity. The bill had broad bi-partisan support but Frank, NCARL and a broad coalition built by NCARL succeeded in stopping it.

As revelations of FBI spying on domestic political activists were exposed in the 1970’s Frank was at the forefront of calls for reform. He also availed himself of the Freedom of Information Act to find out whether the FBI had been tracking his activity. With the help of the Southern California ACLU, Frank sued for his FBI files and was shocked to find that the FBI had been spying on him for decades, building a dossier of 132,000 pages. At times he was followed around the clock by a team of agents.

Our work is Frank’s legacy, and we invite you to make it yours with a contribution today.

msfreeh
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Re: FBI WATCH Making Cruelty visible

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http://www.fightbacknews.org/2014/10/18 ... -activists" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;





Another FBI investigation of international solidarity activists
By Scott Williams |
October 18, 2014
Read more articles in Political Repression

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following Oct. 17 statement from Scott Williams. We remind all progressive activists to not speak with the FBI.

The FBI came looking for me today at my family’s house

Hello everyone,

I am writing to let everyone know that the FBI visited my father today with the intention of questioning me about my trip to Syria as an international election observer for the 2014 Syrian Presidential Elections.

In June 2014, I visited Syria with the objective of learning the truth about the situation there. This trip was entirely legal and well documented. I visited along with observers representing 32 countries, many of which were members of Parliament and representatives of local governments in countries such as Bolivia, Brazil, Uganda, and beyond. Since then, I have reported on my trip in public meetings at the United Nations, as well as in Buffalo, NY, Rochester, NY, Syracuse, NY, Albany, NY, and where I live in Philadelphia, PA. Since 2007, I have been a committed anti-war activist with many organizations, including Students for a Democratic Society, the International Action Center and several others. The FBI mentioned me as an activist with FIST (Fight Imperialism, Stand Together), of which I am one of the national coordinators.

Why is the FBI coming after me? The FBI’s attempt to question me is not only an attack on me, it is an attack on anyone who chooses to travel the world and seek a perspective that is not represented by the corporate media. The US depends on misinformation and huge lies to perpetrate their crimes abroad. Yet the FBI has picked the wrong person, since I have strong friends and allies across the US who will stand with me in the fight against unjust government repression.

This visit is a continuation of the FBI’s attack on anti-war and international solidarity activists. The FBI has been attempting to charge 24 anti-war and international solidarity activists with “material support of terrorism.” These activist are targeted because have been targeted and face potential long term jail sentences. Please take a moment to look at the StopFBI.net (link http://www.stopfbi.net/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) site for the Committee to Stop FBI Repression, the organization that has fought to defend these 24, as well as Palestinian activist Rasmea Odeh. This is a strong example of the political fightback that is needed to defend activists from Government repression.

These activists are not alone in their treatment. Since 2001, hundreds of Muslim men in the USA have been victims of entrapment, harassment, and false imprisonment simply for their religion.

I strongly encourage all of my friends, co-workers, and family members take a look at the Center for Constitutional Rights’ booklet, entitled “If an Agent Knocks,” for resources on what to do if the FBI comes to your door. Most importantly, you SHOULD NEVER AGREE TO SPEAK TO THE FBI WITHOUT A LAWYER present and really you should never speak with the FBI. You can simply say, “I do not wish to speak with you. I will have my lawyer contact you,’ and then immediately close the door.

Most of us do not have a lawyer, but if you or a family member is contacted by the FBI, you should contact the National Lawyers Guild immediately as well as other activists who have been dealt with this government intimidation before.

As soon as this happened, I called Sara Flounders, the co-director of the International Action Center, to discuss our strategy to stop this FBI intimidation. We decided to make a clear statement as public as possible, we will not be silent as you attempt to attack those who choose to speak out against unjust US foreign policy. In fact, we will use any attack on my freedom to continue to build a movement against government repression. It is in this spirit that I am writing you all today.

As Reverend Martin Luther King Jr said, “The bombs in Vietnam explode at home.” With the US wars escalating in Syria, Iraq and beyond, we see that US war has only caused massive devastation for the people of the world, while bringing in huge profits to few. Meanwhile, billions of dollars are taken away from public education and jobs and the government has trampled our basic civil liberties. As the activists in the Committee to Stop FBI Repression have done, I will continue to fight unjust US wars on people across the world, as well as demanding full funding for human needs and an end to the aggressive destruction of our basic civil liberties.

I am not certain what will happen next. While I do have legal help, I hope you all will also stand with me in case of any further attempt at government repression by the FBI.

msfreeh
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Re: FBI WATCH Making Cruelty visible

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LoL



The smell of Sulphur starting to rise

You forgot what FBI agent G Gordon Liddy
told you about how he blackmailed members of Congress
and what Vice President Mondale warned you about.

see

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lFBxvpmzkfQ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;





Congress won't pass a law letting the FBI access your encrypted data

http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/22/cong ... on-access/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


October 22nd 2014
Just because FBI director James Comey believes his agency has a right to see your phone's encrypted data doesn't mean he'll get his way. Members of Congress from both major parties, including House Representatives Darrell Issa and Zoe Lofgren as well as Senator Ron Wyden, are saying that there's "zero chance" they'll pass a bill requiring that device encryption includes backdoor access for federal investigators. They argue that law enforcement has blown whatever chance it had at public support -- accountability problems at multiple agencies (especially the NSA) have led many to distrust the government's data requests. As it stands, the FBI is battling some fierce legal headwinds. The House recently passed a bill banning the NSA from using backdoor searches, and it's doubtful that these politicians will heed Comey's calls for more access.

The director's requests haven't passed technical muster so far, either. While he casts the encryption

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http://www.plenglish.com/index.php?opti ... 1&Itemid=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



Cuban Hero Denounces He Was Condemned in a Biased Trial
Madrid, Oct 26 (Prensa Latina) Cuban ant-iterrorist fighter Fernando González denounced that the process against him and other four compatriots, of the widely known group of the Cuban Five, was biased by political influence of the Miami extreme right.

It was political vengeance in face of frustration for not having been able to do away with the Revolution, said Gonzalez in an interview published this weekend by Spanish daily El Pais.

In his statement, given during a recent trip to Spain, Gonzalez said 16 years after the trial, he still is convinced about politization of the process.

He recalls the first step taken after their arrest by Hector Pesquera, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Miami, was to communicate this to Anti-Cuban Congress members Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Diaz Balart, which, he said, was publicly recognized.

Gonzalez, already in Cuba after serving his sentence, monitored in the United States the extremist groups to prevent terrorist attacks against his country, together with Rene Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo Hernandez and Ramon Labañino, the last three still remaining in prison.

The daily recalls the detention was carried out after Cuba handed information to the United States on the participation of emigrant Cuban extremist immigrants in a campaign of attacks on the island, during which an italian tourist was killed and several hotels damaged.

Gonzalez also said the arrest was made at that momento because the Miami extreme right and its collaborator Pesquera were distraught because both governments could begin to come to terms in any way and they moved to sabotaje the approach.

The Cuban hero, who served 15 years, five weeks and 15 days in prison, said that instead of acting against the promoters of terrorism, Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, they detained the group whose mission was to prevent those attacfks.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/cri ... story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


see link for full story

Probe of FBI agent leads to release of convicted drug dealers from prison



October 31 at 5:36 PM



An investigation into possible misconduct by an FBI agent has forced authorities to quietly release at least a dozen convicts serving prison sentences for distributing drugs in the District and its suburbs, according to law enforcement officials, court documents and defense attorneys.

In addition, several suspects awaiting trial on drug charges and a man convicted but not yet sentenced have also been freed. Officials said more cases­ that could involve the agent are under scrutiny, including one involving 21 defendants.

None of the suspects or felons have had their charges dropped or convictions overturned. Most are on home detention in what many of their attorneys describe as a holding pattern, awaiting the outcome of the investigation into the agent, who was assigned to a D.C. police task force.


The scope and type of alleged misconduct by the agent have not been revealed, but defense lawyers involved in the cases­ described the mass freeing of felons as virtually unprecedented — and an indication that convictions could be in jeopardy. Prosecutors are periodically faced with having to drop cases over police misconduct, but it is unusual to free those who have been found guilty.

A law enforcement official speaking on the condition of anonymity said the agent has been suspended indefinitely. The agent has not been criminally charged.

The U.S. attorney’s office for the District said in a statement Friday that it is “conducting a case-by-case review of matters in which the FBI agent at issue played some role.”

“We have already begun taking steps to address this issue and are committed to doing everything that is necessary to preserve the integrity of the criminal justice process,” the statement said.

The decision to release the defendants and convicts was made with little or vague public notice. In one case, eight convicts and one defendant who pleaded not guilty were released to home detention Monday, with no indication publicly filed in court. One man who had served nine months of a 10-year sentence was sent back to the District from a federal prison in North Carolina. In another case, a cryptic court document ordered the “immediate release from incarceration” on Oct. 17 of four convicts and others with pending trials for the “duration of a current investigation.”


“I’ve never, ever seen something like this before,” said Robert Lee Jenkins Jr., a lawyer from Alexandria who is representing Anthony McDuffie, 50, who pleaded guilty to a drug conspiracy charge and has been released pending sentencing. “It suggests to me that whatever is going on is very significant.”

Said another defense lawyer, Gregory English, whose client was released as he awaits trial: “This is stunning.”


Among the cases was one that the head of the FBI’s Washington Field Office highlighted in a news release last year as the culmination of a year-long investigation that police said traced heroin and cocaine from suppliers in California to street dealers in the District, Maryland and Virginia. In all, 11 pounds of the drugs were seized in the searches of 26 homes and storage facilities, along with five guns. Affidavits filed in the case show that police listened in on cellphone calls during money and drug drops at a Metro station in Northeast and a barbecue restaurant in Northwest and that the dealers frequently exchanged bundles of cash totaling as much as $85,000.

Police also alleged that the group was involved in identity theft involving hundreds of credit cards, Social Security cards and driver’s licenses. U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. hailed the indictments last year and said police were “able to remove guns, drugs and dangerous people from the streets and take another step toward making our community safer.”

Now, all 13 people indicted — including five who pleaded guilty — are free from jail or prison. One is the alleged ringleader, Lester Pryor Jr., 63, who is awaiting trial.

English, who is representing Brandon Beale, 58, in the Pryor case, said he was planning to fight the charges­ before the revelations. He said Beale, who has been freed pending trial, was an addict, not a distributor, and he plans to argue that authorities targeted “what they thought was a group of major dealers who turned out to be a very small one,” and that the others indicted were mostly users.


“It cost the FBI a lot of money to run a wiretap, and they didn’t get what they wanted,” said English, a former federal prosecutor. He said his case is “in a holding pattern” but added: “I’d be surprised if the prosecutor proceeds with the case. If they do, our case has become infinitely stronger.”

In a statement, the spokesman for the FBI’s Washington Field Office said allegations regarding the agent first surfaced the week of Sept. 29 and involved “possible misconduct.” The statement said authorities “took immediate steps to address the incident” that included notifying prosecutors who had cases­ involving the agent.

The Justice Department’s inspector general’s office is leading the investigation into the agent. FBI officials declined further comment, and D.C. police declined to comment.

Some earlier cases­ of police misconduct in the District have had sweeping implications. In 1987, authorities dropped 300 pending criminal cases­ amid an investigation into D.C. police officers skimming drugs and money seized during raids. In that same case, convictions were dismissed against 12 who had already been sentenced.

Authorities said they were looking into virtually every case in which the agent, who has not been publicly identified, was involved. It was unclear what role the agent has had in the cases thus far.

One of those cases involves alleged drug kingpin Angel Costello and 11 others indicted with him on drug charges, according to officials familiar with the investigation. Although there was no notice publicly filed in U.S. District Court indicating a change of status for the defendants, the Federal Bureau of Prisons inmate locator shows eight people convicted in the case were freed Monday — months and years before completing their sentences. Costello has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.

In the Pryor case, a three-page order in the public court file calls for the release of five defendants who pleaded guilty, four of whom had already been sentenced. U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton describes the “court’s authorization to order the [defendants’] immediate release from incarceration for the duration of a current investigation being conducted by the government that resulted from its acquisition of new evidence.” He added that the release was in the “interest of justice.”


Several defense lawyers interviewed said they are in a difficult position because they know little of the allegations involving the agent. Many of the defendants have what are called “status” hearings in the next few weeks during which lawyers said they hope to learn additional details.

Prosecutors could still move forward with some or all of the cases but would face an additional hurdle of proving that any misconduct on the part of the agent did not have any impact on the charges. Officials said decisions will be made on the merits of the case against each suspect.

Defense lawyer Ron Earnest, who is representing James “Sweet Baby James” Burkley, 59, said he readily recommended that his client accept a seven-year prison sentence for his alleged role in the Pryor drug case. Burkley pleaded guilty Sept. 23, a week before the FBI said the alleged misconduct became known.

Earnest, who has an office in Riverdale, Md., said that in late October his client called him from the D.C. jail, where he was awaiting placement in a federal prison in North Carolina. He said Burkley told him that co-defendants in the case were being released, including the alleged kingpin.

Earnest said he called prosecutors and was soon summoned to court. He said the judge told him and other defense lawyers that “something was wrong with the investigation” and “everybody would be released, including the people who pleaded guilty.”

msfreeh
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see link for full story and footnotes

http://whowhatwhy.com/2014/11/02/the-de ... my-carter/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


The Deep State Plots The 1980 Defeat Of Jimmy Carter
By Peter Dale Scott on Nov 2, 2014



How do Wall Street, oil companies and the shadow government agencies like the CIA and NSA really shape the global political order?

That’s the question author Peter Dale Scott examines in his forthcoming book “The American Deep State: Wall Street, Big Oil and the Attack on U.S. Democracy,” due out on Nov. 12. Scott, a professor emeritus of English at Berkeley and former Canadian diplomat, is considered the father of “deep politics”—the study of hidden permanent institutions and interests whose influence on the political realm transcends the elected.

In “American Deep State,” Scott takes a compelling look at the facts lurking behind the official histories of events to uncover the real dynamics in play. In this exclusive excerpt—the second of several we’ll be featuring on WhoWhatWhy—Scott narrates how manipulations by Big Oil and a shadowy alliance of national intelligence agencies called the Safari Club helped Ronald Reagan defeat President Jimmy Carter in the 1980 election.(For the first excerpt, please click here.)

***

The Safari Club was an alliance between national intelligence agencies that wished to compensate for the CIA’s retrenchment in the wake of President Carter’s election and Senator Church’s post-Watergate reforms. As former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki bin Faisal once told Georgetown University alumni,

In 1976, after the Watergate matters took place here, your intelligence community was literally tied up by Congress. It could not do anything. It could not send spies, it could not write reports, and it could not pay money. In order to compensate for that, a group of countries got together in the hope of fighting Communism and established what was called the Safari Club. The Safari Club included France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Iran. (1)

After Carter was elected, the Safari Club allied itself with Richard Helms and Theodore Shackley against the more restrained intelligence policies of Jimmy Carter, according to Joseph Trento. In Trento’s account, the dismissal by William Colby in 1974 of CIA counterintelligence chief James Angleton,

combined with Watergate, is what prompted the Safari Club to start working with [former DCI Richard] Helms [then U.S. Ambassador to Iran] and his most trusted operatives outside of Congressional and even Agency purview. James Angleton said before his death that “Shackley and Helms … began working with outsiders like Adham and Saudi Arabia. The traditional CIA answering to the president was an empty vessel having little more than technical capability.”(2)

Richard Helms
Richard Helms
Trento adds that “The Safari Club needed a network of banks to finance its intelligence operations. With the official blessing of George Bush as the head of the CIA, Adham transformed . . . the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), into a worldwide money-laundering machine.”(3) Trento claims also that the Safari Club then was able to work with some of the controversial CIA operators who had been forced out of the CIA by Turner, and that this was coordinated by Theodore Shackley:

Shackley, who still had ambitions to become DCI, believed that without his many sources and operatives like [Edwin] Wilson, the Safari Club—operating with [former DCI Richard] Helms in charge in Tehran—would be ineffective. . . . Unless Shackley took direct action to complete the privatization of intelligence operations soon, the Safari Club would not have a conduit to [CIA] resources. The solution: create a totally private intelligence network using CIA assets until President Carter could be replaced. (4)

1During the 1980 election campaign each party accused the other of plotting an October Surprise to elect their candidate. Subsequently other journalists, notably Robert Parry, accused CIA veterans on the Reagan campaign, along with Shackley, of an arguably treasonable but successful plot with Iranians to delay return of the U.S. hostages until Reagan took office in January 1981. (5)

According to Parry, Alexandre de Marenches of the Safari Club arranged for William Casey (a fellow Knight of Malta) to meet with Iranian and Israeli representatives in Paris in July and October 1980, where Casey promised delivery to Iran of needed U.S. armaments in exchange for a delay in the return of the U.S. hostages in Iran. (6) Parry also suspects a role of BCCI in the subsequent flow of Israeli armaments to Iran.

William Casey
William Casey
De Marenches was also a member of the Pinay Circle, “an international right-wing propaganda group which brings together serving or retired intelligence officers and politicians with links to right-wing intelligence factions from most of the countries in Europe.” At a June 1980 meeting of the Pinay Circle “attention was turned towards the American Presidential election that was to bring Reagan to power.”(7)

A more usual explanation for Carter’s defeat in 1980 was the second oil shock of 1979–1980, in which an acute gas shortage led to both a sudden increase in prices and long gas lines at service stations. It is customary for establishment scholars to blame the shortage on political upheavals in Iran, which led to “a cutoff of Iranian oil.”(8)

2However Robert Sherrill’s close analysis of the American oil industry demonstrates that American oil companies, not Iranian turmoil, were primarily responsible for the gas shortage:

U.S. companies were up to their own strategy . . . . Although in fact America was importing more oil in January and February [1979], during the Iranian shutdown, than it had imported during the same period in 1978, major oil importers pretended that the Iranian “shortage” . . . was real. It was the excuse they gave for slashing the amount of gasoline they supplied to their retail dealers. . . . A CIA study showed that in the first five months of the year, at a time when the Administration was deploring our oil shortage, U.S. companies exported more oil than they had in those glut years 1977 and 1978.(9)

The oil majors’ manipulation of domestic oil prices, combined with Carter’s failure to bring the hostages home, combined to cause the first defeat for an elected president running for reelection, since that of Herbert Hoover in 1932.

Not mentioned by either mainstream journalists or Sherrill was the role quietly played by Saudi Arabia in augmenting the 1979 gas crisis: “The Saudis had cut production by nearly 1 million barrels a day to 9.5 million at the start of the year [1979], and in April 1979 they made a second cut to 8.5 million. The Saudis had the capacity to produce 12 million barrels a day at that point.”(10)

The Saudi manipulation of gas prices reflected their acute displeasure with the Camp David Accords of 1978, which did nothing to change Israeli control of Jerusalem. (11) B

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Retired FBI Agent Publishes Book That Blasts Quality of Bureau’s Training Academy

A retired FBI special agent has published a book in which he describes his inadequate training at a new agent class at the academy in Quantico, Va., the Officer.com reports.

Entitled “FBI: Animal House,” the book alleges that the training was subpar and didn’t rise to the level of education by police departments.

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http://www.courthousenews.com/2014/11/0 ... snitch.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Man Says FBI Jailed Him for not Being a Snitch




The FBI and immigration service jailed an Iranian-born legal U.S. resident for 19 months because he wouldn't infiltrate San Jose-area mosques as a paid informant, the man claims in court.
Hassan Abpikar sued Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers David Harris and Dwayne Sanchez and FBI agent Robert Carr on Tuesday in Federal Court.
He claims the men violated his civil rights, falsely imprisoned him, assaulted and battered him and caused him emotional distress throughout the ordeal.
Neither the United States nor the agencies the officers work for are named as defendants in the lawsuit.
Abpikar, 54, was born in Tehran and came to the United States legally on a student visa, eventually earning advanced degrees in math and chemistry from San Jose State University, he says in the lawsuit.
After he became a permanent legal resident in 1983, Abpikar says he applied twice for citizenship - and both times missed his interview due to "time constraints."
In 2006 - two years after being denied citizenship for missing the second interview - Abpikar says San Jose Police arrested him for using a fake ID. Police released him shortly after the arrest, Abpikar says, but ICE picked him up almost immediately despite his permanent legal resident status.
He says immigration agents had held him for two weeks when an FBI agent came calling.
According to the complaint, the agent promised his immediate release if he would work as an FBI informant.
Abpikar claims he took the agent's card, agreed to go to the FBI office in San Jose the next day, and was promptly released from custody.
Abpikar says he visited the FBI office the next day. He claims the agent said he had already conducted a background check on him and decided he was a perfect candidate to infiltrate local mosques and keep an ear out for terrorism plans and threats.
But Abpikar says he didn't agree to become an informant - that he needed time to think about it. He says he never returned to the FBI office, and was arrested during a dinner with friends three months later.
Again, the charge was using a fake ID, Abpikar says. And once again, ICE put an immigration hold on him.
After another two weeks in federal custody, Abpikar says, defendant Sanchez served him with a notice to appear in immigration court. The notice alleged that Abpikar had "committed two crimes of moral turpitude and was therefore removable from the United States," according to the complaint.
But the immigration judge tossed the case, as Abpikar had not been convicted of any crime involving moral turpitude. The judge ordered his immediate release, but he remained in custody for another four days before being let go, Abpikar says.
He claims that two years passed before he was harassed by police again. This time, Santa Clara County Sheriff's deputies arrested him on a number of charges, including petty theft and - once again - possessing false identification. He bonded out, but was arrested again after the bail bond company canceled his bail "under the order of defendants," the complaint states.
This time, Abpikar says, he told the FBI he would be an informant if they could arrange his release. But he claims that defendant Carr - also known as Garr - had taken the first agent's place and said the only way they'd have a deal is if Abpikar became a permanent informant for the bureau.
Abpikar says he declined the offer, and that defendants Harris and Sanchez then paid him a visit in jail. He says the men interrogated him about his religious practices as a Shia Muslim, his ex-wife and whether he had a criminal record - questions that Abpikar says led to more criminal charges against him.
At one point, Abpikar says, the officers offered him naturalization in exchange for his services as an informant. He says he demanded the offer in writing and was refused.
After his arraignment, he says, a Santa Clara County judge told the agents that ICE does not have jurisdiction in state matters and ordered Abpikar released on bail. But the agency put an immigration hold on him again, blocking his release.
After another 46 days in jail, Abpikar says, he at last received a hearing before an immigration judge. There, he was charged with making false statements under oath during his naturalization proceedings.
"Plaintiff was indicted before a grand jury on Aug. 20, 2008. Defendant Sanchez was the only witness to testify before the grand jury. Plaintiff alleges based on belief and information that defendants retaliated against him. Due to plaintiff's refusal to become a puppet of the FBI as an informant, defendants Carr, Harris and Sanchez framed plaintiff as a criminal," the complaint states.
Although the immigration judge ordered Abpikar released on bail, he claims a second judge intervened after the agents indicated that Abpikar had ties to terrorist groups and was a flight risk.
In January 2009 - after 6 months in custody - Abpikar says Santa Clara County correctional officers abused him verbally and physically, twisting his wrists and shouting derogatory terms about his religion and national origin. He believes Carr, Harris and Sanchez ordered the abuse.
Santa Clara County is not a defendant in the case.
Six months later, after telling his story to the San Jose Mercury News, Abpikar says he was assaulted again - this time by an inmate being held by the U.S. Marshal's Service, which - like ICE - routinely uses the Santa Clara jail to house prisoners. The assault caused nerve damage in Abpikar's brain, and he again asserts that Carr, Harris and Sanchez ordered the attack.
Abpikar eventually appealed his immigration case to the 9th Circuit. A month after filing the appeal, he was released from custody without being told why.
The 9th Circuit issued an opinion in November 2013, finding that the immigration judge had incorrectly determined that Abpikar had committed a crime of moral turpitude and ordering the judge to use a different tes

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Journalists Accuse FBI Employee of Being out of Control and Striking Them With Her Car at National Press Club


WASHINGTON — An FBI employee at headquarters is being accused by two Voice of America journalists in Washington of road rage that included intentionally striking them with her car and carrying one a short distance on her hood, the Washington Examiner reports.

The paper reports that a lawsuit filed Monday by Thomas Bagnall and William Greenback is asking for $1 million each.

The lawsuit stated that the two were unloading a television camera and other equipment from their sport utility vehicle in front of the National Press Club on 14th Street NW in downtown Washington on March 23 when Joy Ellen Mullinax, who works as a support staffer in Human Resources, at the bureau, pulled up behind them in her 2003 Hyundai Accent, according to the Examiner. Greenback was inside the car while Bagnall unloaded equipment, the paper reported.

After pulling up, Mullinax blew her horn and yelled and Bagnall told her to go around, the suit said, according to the Examiner.

“Mullinax accelerated and struck Bagnall, who spun around and screamed in pain,” the paper reported. ” Greenback got out of the SUV and yelled at Mullinax to stop because she had struck his colleague.”

“Mullinax gunned her engine, each time moving closer to Greenback, eventually pinning Greenback between her car and another car which had stopped in traffic. She then hit the gas again, striking Greenback and throwing him onto the hood of the car,” the paper reported. ” Mullinax’s vehicle then bumped into a 2006 Chevy Trail Blazer driven by Jeneer Beer, who was already on the phone calling 911, according to the lawsuit.”

Millinax was given a ticket for changing lanes without cautions.

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http://tbo.com/list/news-opinion-commen ... -20141113/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



Hassan Shibly: CAIR strikes right balance between protecting security and libertyBY HASSAN SHIBLY
Special to The Tampa Tribune
Published: November 13, 2014
Regarding “Don’t stifle FBI’s terror effort”

It is easy for editors who are not attorneys and have not represented hundreds of victims of FBI abuse to give ill-informed legal advice and advise the public to waive the constitutionally protected right to have an attorney present when approached by the FBI.

America is one of the few nations in the world whose Constitution assumes that the people should take precautions to hold the government accountable. Exercising one’s constitutionally protected right to have a lawyer present when approached by the FBI helps ensure agents are behaving both constitutionally and efficiently. Meanwhile, people who feel their rights are secured with legal counsel present will have the confidence to be more open.

Our concern with the FBI selectively targeting the Muslim community for interrogation and recruitment of agent provocateurs is primarily because it has been documented that such profiling is ineffective, a waste of resources and actually makes our nation less safe and less free. Law enforcement must invest our limited public resources conducting investigations based on probable cause, not religious profiling. Having a lawyer present ensures that the FBI has a legitimate investigative purpose for interrogating Americans and are not acting based on politically acceptable biases that merely serve to intimidate religious minorities and waste taxpayer dollars.

Even though the Trib failed to request any such evidence from us, it claimed “there is no evidence local FBI agents have been abusive.” I’ll wager that the Trib’s own police reporters would find this assertion patently naïve. The Founders did not write the Bill of Rights and then reject it because there was no evidence that the new American government was going to be abusive.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has documented how the FBI has targeted law-abiding American Muslims for interrogation and coerced recruitment as agent provocateurs. According to Trevor Aaronson, executive director of the Florida Center for Investigative Journalism, such FBI tactics are similar to that used by the Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) against the African-American civil rights movement decades ago and has included engaging in blackmail, extortion and threats of harm to self, family and friends. Coerced individuals are then forced into mosques to promote radical violent extremism — using taxpayer dollars — to unstable and mentally disturbed youths.

These programs are not only contrary to the protections enshrined in the Constitution, but are ineffective and make our nation less safe and less free. Even with the rise of Islamic State, those engaging in acts of terrorism on U.S. soil have more often attended churches or synagogue than mosques, and yet the FBI is not engaging in similar tactics against the Christian or Jewish communities — nor should they.

Engaging in criminal plans should make one the subject of a FBI investigation — not following a particular faith. When the FBI wastes resources in questioning individuals who have engaged in no wrongdoing, they may miss catching some of the overwhelming amount of criminals and terrorists who have nothing to do with that faith.

The Trib used Sami Osmakac as an example. The Trib does not mention that Osmakac would not have had the potential ability to harm our community without facilitation by paid FBI agent provocateurs or that in the same time frame several terrorist attacks were planned in Tampa by disturbed youths who, unlike Osmakac, were not Muslim.

Selective targeting of a religious minority by the federal government undermines the Constitution and harms America as a whole. CAIR has documented how many FBI agents have received false training that the entire Muslim community is a threat and that Muslims are not entitled to First Amendment rights. In Florida and nationwide, the Muslim community has often reported extremists espousing violence in mosques who turned out to be paid FBI agent provocateurs. Examples such as these abound.

Let us not forget that only last year an FBI agent who had a documented history of beating up suspects and witnesses and falsifying evidence, threatened several Orlando Muslims with false charges to pressure them to become informants, and then shot in the back and killed one of them after six hours of interrogation in their home three days later.

Counter-productive tactics that infringe upon the rights of religious minorities are not necessary to keep our nation safe. American Muslims are invested in the security of our nation and have a track record of voluntary cooperation with law enforcement on the rare occasion a threat should arise. Former FBI Director Robert Mueller told the U.S. House Judiciary Committee that “many of our cases are a result of the cooperation from the Muslim community in the United States.” The U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida also has repeatedly thanked the Muslim community for helping keep Florida safe.

We are not a nation of fearful people. Our rights are not things to be cast aside because someone scary threatens us. Groups such as IS strip people of t

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Scott Camil - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Camil
Scott Camil (born May 19, 1946 in Brooklyn, New York, United States) is a noted ... Recognized by the FBI as an "extremist and key activist," Camil was on ...
freedom
http://www.jou.ufl.edu/pubs/onb/f98/freedom.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Scott Camil lay bleeding on a Gainesville Street. .... documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the FBI was keeping tabs on Camil and referred ...
: : ORANGE BLUE MAGAZINE : : SPRING 2004 EDITION
http://www.jou.ufl.edu/pubs/onb/f04/8.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
In 1970, the FBI tried to kill him. They failed. Scott Camil still believes in government and wants to make it better. ... Scott Camil used to kill people for a living.
S

SCOTT CAMIL ARCHIVE -- (John Kerry's would-be assassin ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1102880/posts" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Mar 22, 2004 - In 1971, Scott Camil, a Vietnam Vet who was radicalized by Jane Fonda ... The revelation of the FBI files has recently caused the Kerry 2004 ..

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Ted Stevens Case Looms Over DOJ's Handling of Alleged FBI Misconduct

Zoe Tillman
11/17/2014

see link for full story

http://m.nationallawjournal.com/module/ ... 1725646460" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, in his own words, doesn’t play around when it comes to prosecutors’ obligation to turn over favorable evidence to defense lawyers—he presided over the prosecution of the late Sen. Ted Stevens, which collapsed amid revelations that prosecutors withheld information. That legacy has loomed large over recent proceedings before Sullivan about an FBI agent's alleged misconduct.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Washington has dismissed drug cases against more than two dozen defendants following revelations that an FBI agent, Matthew Lowry, allegedly tampered with evidence. Prosecutors said they expected to seek more dismissals in the coming weeks.
Federal prosecutors in Philadelphia are leading the investigation into Lowry’s actions. During hearings on Nov. 14 and 17, Sullivan—one of several judges in the D.C. federal courthouse presiding over cases affected by the scandal—demanded transparency about how information was flowing from prosecutors in Philadelphia to their counterparts in Washington, and how prosecutors in Washington were complying with their ethical obligations under Brady v. Maryland.
The judge angrily chastised Jonathan Malis, the head of the criminal division in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, last week and on Monday for failing to provide the Philadelphia office with a copy of an order the judge issued this month regarding the disclosure of information to defense lawyers. Under the new order, the judge would review information that prosecutors didn’t believe was material to a particular case.
Over Malis’ protests that he explicitly discussed the Brady requirements with the Philadelphia office and provided copies of Sullivan’s other orders, Sullivan said during Monday’s hearing that the failure to send a copy of the new Brady order was “almost inexcusable” and “defies understanding.”
Malis’ “knee-jerk reaction” should have been to send a copy of the order to Philadelphia, Sullivan said, especially since prosecutors knew that Sullivan “is not playing around with Brady, as we know, right?”
A judge in the federal district court for the District of Columbia since 1994 and a judge in the city’s local courts since 1984, Sullivan made headlines for his handling of the Stevens case. After dismissing the Stevens indictment in 2009 at the government’s request, Sullivan ordered an independent investigation and said that he thought the government’s missteps in the case were a symptom of a much broader problem when it came to Brady disclosures.
On Friday, Malis referenced the Stevens case as he explained to the judge that prosecutors were sensitive to the ethical issues at play.
Malis said the U.S. attorney’s office so far had filed notices about the Lowry investigation in cases affecting more than 150 defendants that had some connection to the agent. That doesn't mean the government intended to dismiss all of those cases, however. In the multidefendant case before Sullivan, prosecutors have said that Lowry’s involvement was minimal and that they didn’t think it merited dismissal.
During Monday’s hearing, Malis’ counterpart in the Philadelphia office, Peter Schenck, told Sullivan that although his office was in charge of investigating Lowry, it was sharing all information with prosecutors in Washington. The D.C. office was then responsible for deciding what information should be shared with defense lawyers.
But defense lawyers on Monday complained that they had received almost no information from the government. Most of what they learned came from The Washington Post’s coverage of the investigation, according to A. Eduardo

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http://www.logandaily.com/comment/edito ... l?mode=jqm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


A shift in who is responsible for the killing of J.F. Kennedy - Editorials -




A shift in who is responsible for the killing of J.F. Kennedy
Posted 20 hours ago

Many of us think about the tragedy in Dallas 51 years ago this month. Last May I visited the Texas School Book Depository on the corner of Houston and Elm Streets in Dallas, Texas and read the government’s inscription on the wall of the building, “On November 22, 1963, The building gained national notoriety when Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly shot and killed President John F. Kennedy from a sixth story window as the Presidential motorcade passed.”

The word “allegedly” grabbed me, as it was an admission that even the government was not certain, without some level of doubt, that Oswald did the deed or acted alone.

Most serious scholars on the assassination view the Warren Commissions review of the data with great skepticism (some with contempt) especially in light of its numerous omissions, as for example the testimony of Dr. Charles Crenshaw who placed Kennedy in the coffin at Parkland Hospital and testified years latter that the neck wound had been tampered with to look like an exit rather than an entry wound. An entry wound would have proved more than a single assassin and provoked more investigation. Also, why did they seal the unpublished portion of their findings for 75 years?

Finally, 13 years later The United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) in 1976 concluded that “President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.”

They, like the Warren Commission, did their investigation mostly in secret. Unbelievably they too sealed their evidence for 50 years under Congressional rules. Withholding evidence feeds conspiracy theories. As the years fly by, and new data surfaces from the hundreds of books on the subject, it is increasingly more difficult to dismiss, as an accomplice, Lyndon Baines Johnson and his CIA/FBI friends.

My journalist friend, Don Clark, has personally read most of the 2,000 books on the subject and is a noted speaker on the assassination. He told an audience in San Francisco that while the government has not, or will not, pursue the subject, private investigators have done so and we do not have to wait for the sealed records. He has a recommend list of “must reads” on the subject and they follow.

First, get the directors cut of the motion picture JFK by Oliver Stone. Despite the profanity the “movie contains more spoken words, more script, than any film in history.”

Second, On the Trail of the Assassins by Jim Garrison (a former FBI agent) treats Oswald’s time in New Orleans and four government agents identified as “handlers” that seemed to “shadow” him.

Third, read JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters. A stunning piece of original research published in 2008, by James Douglass.

Fourth, read MARY’S MOSAIC: The CIA Conspiracy to Murder John F. Kennedy, Mary Pinchot Meyer, and Their Vision for World Peace, by Peter Janney. The work published in 2012 found that the author’s own “CIA father, was among the conspirators orchestrating the deaths of Kennedy and his friend Mary Pinchot Meyer. The latter’s death is also “in a veiled way” in the recent movie, An American Affair.

Fifth, read JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy, by Air Force Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty, who served at the time of Kennedy’s death, as the key liaison between the Pentagon and the CIA.

Sixth, tying together many loose ends the following three books will help. Revealing the secret links between the most powerful law firm in Texas and the criminal rise to power of Lyndon Johnson is Blood, Money, & Power: How LBJ Killed JFK by Barr McClellan. LBJ: Mastermind of the JFK Assassination by Phillip Nelson. Texas in the Morning by Lyndon Johnson’s long-time mistress, Madeline Duncan Brown “takes you to the meeting the night before the assassination. She reveals the identities of the men in that room. She shares the story of Lyndon Johnson coming late to the meeting, then emerging in a fury, grabbing her by the arms so hard it hurt, and swearing in a rage, ‘After tomorrow, those goddamn Kennedy’s will never embarrass me again---and that’s not a threat, that’s a promise!’ ”

In light of decades of intensive reading, Clark poses the question, “Was it devious, desperate Lyndon Johnson, the viper in the nest, the Brutus to Kennedy’s Caesar, who with the help of J. Edgar Hoover had blackmailed his way onto the 1960 presidential ticket, who knew he was about to be dumped from the 1964 ticket, who knew he was about to be indicted and probably go to prison for his probable role in the Bobby Baker and Billy Sol Estes scandals, whose lifelong lust and endless scheming for the presidency would stop at nothing to get to that office, least of all murder?” Perhaps it is time to speak the unspeakable and be more inclusive of the new data in

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http://dissidentvoice.org/2014/11/mark- ... speakable/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Mark Udall and the Unspeakable
by David Swanson / November 22nd, 2014

President Obama, who is just now un-ending again the ending of the endless war on Afghanistan, has never made a secret of taking direction from the military, CIA, and NSA. He’s escalated wars that generals had publicly insisted he escalate. He’s committed to not prosecuting torturers after seven former heads of the CIA publicly told him not to. He’s gone after whistleblowers with a vengeance and is struggling to keep this Bush-era torture report, or parts of it, secret in a manner that should confuse his partisan supporters.

But the depth of elected officials’ obedience to a permanent war machine is usually a topic avoided in polite company — usually, not always. Back in 2011, the dean of the law school at UC Berkeley, a member of Obama’s transition team in 2009, said publicly that Obama had decided in 2009 to block prosecutions of Bush-era criminals in part because the CIA, NSA, and military would revolt. Ray McGovern says he has a trustworthy witness to Obama saying he would leave the crimes unpunished because, in Obama’s words, “Don’t you remember what happened to Martin Luther King?” Neither of those incidents has interested major media outlets in the slightest.

As we pass the 51st anniversary of the murder of President John F. Kennedy, many of us are urging Senator Mark Udall to make the torture report public by placing it into the Congressional Record, as Senator Mike Gravel did with the Pentagon Papers in 1971. Gravel is alive and well, and there’s every reason to believe that Udall would go on to live many years deeply appreciated for his action. But there is — let us be honest for a moment — a reason Udall might hesitate that we don’t want to speak about.

The general thinking is that because Udall’s term ends this month, he doesn’t have to please those who fund his election campaigns through the U.S. system of legalized bribery, and he doesn’t have to please his fellow corrupt senators because he won’t be working with them any longer. Both of those points may be false. Udall may intend to run for the Senate again, or — like most senators, I suspect — he may secretly plan on running for president some day. And the big payoffs for elected officials who work to please plutocracy always come after they leave office. But there is another consideration. The need to please the permanent war machine ends only when one is willing to die for something — what Dr. King said one must be willing to do to have a life worth living — not when one leaves office.

Presidents and Congress members send large numbers of people to risk their lives murdering much larger numbers of people in wars all the time. They have taken on jobs — particularly the presidency — in which they know they will be in danger no matter what they do. And yet everyone in Washington knows (and no one says) that making an enemy of the CIA is just not done and has not been done since the last man to do it died in a convertible in Dallas. We’ve seen progressive members of Congress like Dennis Kucinich leave without putting crucial documents that they thought should be public into the Congressional Record. Any member of Congress, newly reelected or not, could give the public the torture report. A group of 10 of them could do it collectively for the good of humanity. But nobody thinks they will. Challenging a president who does not challenge the CIA is just not something that’s done.

To understand why, I recommend reading Jim Douglass’ book JFK and the Unspeakable. Douglass is currently writing about three other murders, those of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert Kennedy. Distant history? Something that doesn’t happen anymore? Perhaps, but is that because we’ve run out of lone nuts with guns? Clearly not. Is it because the permanent war machine has stopped killing its enemies? Or is it, rather, because no one has presented the same challenge to the permanent war machine that those people did? Peace voices are no longer allowed in the U.S. media. Both political parties favor widespread war. War has become a matter of routine. Enforcement has become unnecessary, because the threat, or other influences that align with it, has been so successful.

I recommend checking out ProjectUnspeakable.com, the website of a play by Court Dorsey that recounts the killing of JFK, Malcolm, Martin, and RFK. (Or check out a performance in Harlem planned for February 21.)

The play consists almost entirely of actual quotes by public figures. While no attempt is made, of course, at including a comprehensive collection of information, enough evidence is included in the play to completely erase belief in the official stories of how those four men died. And evidence is included showing who actually killed them, how, and why.

As if that weren’t enough to persuade the viewer that our society is mentally blocking out something uncomfortable, the glaring obviousness of what happened in those years of assassinations is highlighted. President Kennedy was publicly asked if he might be murdered exactly as he was, and he publicly replied that it could certainly happen. His brother discussed the likelihood of it with Khrushchev for god sake. The killing of Malcolm X was not the war machine’s first attempt on his life. He and King both saw what was coming quite clearly and said so. Bobby Kennedy knew too, did not believe the official account of his brother’s murder. King’s family rejects the claim that James Earl Ray killed MLK, pointing instead to the CIA killer shown in the photographs of the assassination but never questioned as a witness. A jury has unanimously agreed with King’s family against the government and the history books.

The attention to President Kennedy has always been so intense that fear and suppression have been required. The doctors said he was shot from the front. Everyone agreed there were more bullets shot than left the gun of the official suspect, who was positioned behind the target. But investigators and witnesses have died in very suspect circumstances. The other deaths have not been in exactly the same glaring spotlight. New evidence in the killing of Robert Kennedy emerges every few years and is chatted about as a curiosity for a moment before simply being ignored. After all, the man is dead.

Let’s try an analogy. I live in Charlottesville, Va., where the University of Virginia is. This week, Rolling Stone published an article about violent gang rapes of female students in a fraternity house. I had known that rape victims are often reluctant to come forward. I had known that rape can be a hard charge to prove. But I had also known that young women sometimes regret sex and falsely accuse nonviolent well-meaning young men of rape, and that UVA held rallies against date rape, and that opposition to sexual assault and harassment was all over the news and widely accepted as the proper progressive position. With California passing a law to clarify what consent is, I had assumed everyone knew violent assault had nothing to do with consent. I had assumed brutal gang attacks by students who are expelled if they cheat on a test or write a bad check could not go unknown. And now it seems there’s something of a widely known unspoken epidemic. In the analysis of the Rolling Stone article, women deny rape goes on to shield themselves from the fear, while men deny it in order to shield themselves from any discomfort about their party-going fun-loving carelessness. And yet some significant number of students knew and stayed silent until one brave victim spoke, just as every whistleblower in Washington exists alongside thousands of people who keep their mouths shut.

What if someone in Washington were to speak? What if the unspeakable were made speakable?

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"To mark the centenary of Arthur Miller's birth we will be premiering his play for the screen The Hook. It was a piece that was suppressed by the FBI during the politically volative McCarthy years of 50s America. They thought it could create real civil unrest in New York's docklands in the way it depicts the story of a man prepared to challenge the authorities but also the relationship in a close knit community between individuals and industry.

Read more: http://www.northampton-news-hp.co.uk/Br ... z3KKIa2vMb" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Follow us: @NorthamptonUK on Twitter | NorthantsHeraldPost on Facebook

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http://m.nationallawjournal.com/module/ ... 1727905314" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Defense Lawyer Pushes to Broaden FBI Evidence-Tampering Probe


12/01/2014


An investigation into alleged evidence tampering by an FBI agent is raising questions about the reliability of the agency’s evidence protocols, according to a criminal defense lawyer involved in one of the cases touched by the scandal.
In court papers filed on Monday, lawyer A. Eduardo Balarezo asked a federal judge in Washington to order prosecutors to turn over information about the FBI’s policies and procedures for handling evidence. Limiting the investigation to the individual agent “ignores that very real possibility of a systemic problem in the manner in which the FBI maintains evidence in any given case,” Balarezo wrote.
Federal prosecutors have already dismissed criminal cases against more than two dozen defendants in cases that involved Matthew Lowry, the FBI agent under investigation for allegedly tampering with drug and firearms evidence. Officials have said in court that they expect more cases to be implicated as the investigation continues.
A federal prosecutor in Philadelphia involved in the Lowry probe—the Washington office is recused because of its ties to Lowry—said during a court hearing on Monday afternoon that the government hoped to finish the investigation by the end of December.
Prosecutors told U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan during hearings last month that no other individual besides Lowry was under investigation. Balarezo and other defense lawyers have questioned the scope of the investigation, arguing that any shortcomings in how the FBI handled evidence could affect cases beyond those involving Lowry.
Balarezo, in requesting more information, wrote that the government had already disclosed that there were no video cameras in the evidence control center for the FBI’s Washington field office or in the evidence storage room for a regional task force. That disclosure suggested a lack of “strict evidence handling or securing procedures,” Balarezo wrote.
If the FBI wasn’t properly securing evidence, Balarezo said, that was evidence favorable to the defense that prosecutors were required to turn over.
“Obviously, if Lowry was able to avoid logging seized evidence, remove evidence for extended periods of time or to otherwise mishandle evidence with impunity, it stands to reason that the strict chain-of-custody claimed by the government in most cases is a sham,” he wrote.

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