Anonymice strike again

You have no law we need take notice of.




Associated Press: FBI investigates ACORN for voter fraud

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because Justice Department regulations forbid discussing ongoing investigations particularly so close to an election.

The Justice Department officials knew that they were breaking the law by leaking this to the Associated Press, and the reporter knew that she was collaborating in a crime by running the story. What's next? Are we going to blow a CIA case officer's cover? Oh right ...

The era of e-Discovery and evidence recovery has begun

F.B.I. Looks Into 4 Firms at Center of the Economic Turmoil

F.B.I. officials said Tuesday that the total number of corporate fraud investigations at the bureau was 26, an increase from the 24 open cases cited just a week ago by Robert S. Mueller III, director of the F.B.I. That number stood at 21 as recently as July, but the bureau has not named most of the targets.

Mr. Mueller told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that the major corporate investigations are aimed at companies that “may have engaged in misstatements in the course of what transpired during this financial crisis.”

He added that “the F.B.I. will pursue these cases as far up the corporate chain as is necessary to ensure that those responsible receive the justice they deserve.”

In addition to the major corporate cases, the bureau said it had about 1,400 open investigations into smaller companies and individuals suspected of mortgage fraud.

e-Discovery and litigation support software companies are going to do very well indeed.

Public Relations and the Fourth Amendment

Fourth Amendment

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Internet Archive founder breaks gag order, detailing FBI's secret demand for user's personal information and the resulting lawsuit challenging the subpoena

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has withdrawn a secret demand that the Internet Archive, an online library, provide the agency with a user's personal information after the Web site challenged the records request in court.

The FBI sent a national security letter, or NSL, to the Internet Archive in November and included a gag order barring site founder Brewster Kahle from talking to anyone other than his lawyers about the request. Kahle, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit to challenge the subpoena, arguing that the NSL program is unconstitutional, and the FBI withdrew the NSL on April 22.

The settlement between the FBI and the Internet Archive allowed Kahle to break the gag order, a standard part of an NSL request. The Internet Archive's challenge of the NSL is only the third case that the ACLU is aware of in which an NSL has been challenged in court, said Melissa Goodman an attorney for the civil liberties group's National Security Project.

Resisting a request for information from the federal government is an extremely serious matter. In general I would advise against it in the strongest possible terms. However, there comes a time when it is painfully obvious that the government is abusing its power. Others, more gifted that I, will speak to the political, constitutional, and moral, aspects, of this case. I will confine myself to the PR of such resistance. By this act, the Internet Archive has established itself as the faithful keeper of information and its proper use. It's conduct stands in stark contrast to the shameful conduct of Telecommunications companies.

Peabody and Sherman would be proud.

Business you should never bid on

FBI raids special counsel's office

Investigators say Bloch is suspected of hiring an outside company to scrub his computer amid a federal investigation of alleged misconduct in his office.

He hired an outside company because there isn't a civil servant in the entire federal government dumb enough to go to jail for Bloch. The private company which did this has a name, I have no doubt we will be learning its name in the near future.

This is a great time to be in e-discovery and records management, because the investigations into this maladministration will produce business for years to come.

It is also a good time to be a government IT reporter, because one else will have the unique combination of knowledge or politics, the civil service, and technology that will make it possible to tell these stories. Entire careers are going to be made out of this.

Edit -

The Legal Times and Project on Government Oversight comment.

Edit ii
FireDogLake: The Bloch Raid: A Mafia Turf War?

Studios, FBI Teach Swedish Cops to Hunt File Sharers

Daniel Goldberg, Computer Sweden

The FBI and the MPAA, with the Swedish antipiracy organization Antipiratbyren, are training Swedish law enforcement officers in copyright and piracy matters.

So the FBI is content to play enforcer for a trade association and the Swedish government is going along with it? Not what you would call citizen centric is it?

First responders and the Dept. of Homeland Security

Chuck Archer, PJ Doyle and Thomas Reinhardt

State and local law enforcement officials, through the statutorily established FBI Advisory Policy Board (APB), inform the federal government of their information needs to accomplish their mission. The states are broken into regions, with regional representation on the board. Believe it or not, the FBI generally delivers, without “inclusiveness” issues. Everyone in the policing community knows who is in charge of establishing the information requirements, and it is not the FBI.

Most people do not put much thought into the information and communications infrastructure that enables a police officer on the side of the road to enter into his mobile computer either a driver’s license number or a vehicle license plate number and determine if he is dealing with a wanted person or a stolen vehicle. The information, drawn from both federal and state and local databases, is returned to the officer generally in less than two seconds. One of the reasons that it has worked well for so long is that the users own and operate the infrastructure, and the Feds make their databases available to that infrastructure.

This article is seventeen months old and reflects something that Paul Garrett addressed in his presentation to NCC AIIM. Our current system of sharing arouse out of frustration with the federal government.