Texas constable admits ordering bugging

chron.com

DALLAS (AP) — A small-town Texas constable told the FBI he secretly bugged other officials' offices after they were accused of illegally forcing motorists to forfeit their cash, according to a search warrant affidavit.

The affidavit, based on interviews conducted by FBI agents and Texas Rangers, quotes Shelby CountyConstable Fred Walker as saying he authorized the installation of hidden surveillance cameras and digital recorders even though he didn't have legal authority. It also includes a statement from a witness who claims Walker helped organize a scheme to sell drugs seized from suspects.

It's just another chapter in a longtime drama in Tenaha, a town of 1,160 near the Louisiana border, where seizures of cash from motorists stopped for traffic violations along U.S. Highway 59 — a well-known drug route that runs from the U.S.-Mexico border to Canada — have led to lawsuits and a federal criminal investigation.

Walker, 53, was Tenaha's city marshal at the time the alleged bugging occurred. He was elected constable in 2010.

In a brief phone interview, Walker said he knew nothing about the affidavit, filed in U.S. District Court in Lufkin on Feb. 6. When asked if he arranged to have offices bugged, he hung up.

Walker's attorney, Bassey Akpaffiong of Houston, said prosecutors have told him to expect an indictment. Akpaffiong said Walker was never involved in selling drugs and never told the FBI he authorized the installation of secret listening devices.

Malcolm Bales, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Texas, declined to comment.

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Police group members react to Anonymous hacking

news10.net
SACRAMENTO, CA - A day after Anonymous hacked into California Statewide Law Enforcement Association's website, CSLEA members are still learning about the security breach.

Plus, the CSLEA homepage is still down.

RELATED STORY: Thousands affected after Anonymous hacks police union website

The well-known international hacking group released the names, home addresses, and phone numbers of public safety professionals, many of them police officers. It also exposed credit card information on purchases made in their online gift shop.

Anonymous claimed on their post that they have 2,500 names and passwords, and in some cases, credit card numbers. The hacker group justified releasing the information asserting, "California law enforcement officers are notorious for brutality."

Union president Alan Barcelona said CSLEA had information taken in November. All members who had their information breached then were contacted by phone or letter. The letter, dated Nov. 10, "confirms that credit card information of customers of the CSLEA online store had been compromised"

It stated, "Fortunately, most of the credit cards that were compromised had expired." And, it went on to state, "Additionally, all of the information which was previously maintained on the site has been purged."

Teresa Dobbins, an employee of the Department of Justice, never got word of the breach in November. And she wasn't informed that her personal information, including her email address, phone number, and home address, were leaked onto the web New Year's Day, until News 10 contacted her.

"If they were aware of it, they should have tried to notify me before the media did," Dobbins said.

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Hudson Woman Charged With Felony in Alleged Eavesdropping Incident

hudson-wi.patch

A Hudson woman has been charged with a felony in an alleged eavesdropping incident at the St. Croix County Government Center on May 2, 2011.

Patt A. Colten of Hudson was formally charged on Friday, Sept. 30, with intercepting wire/electronic communication, a Class H felony. Her initial appearance was Oct. 27 and she posted a $1,000 signature bond.

The charge stems from a May 2 incident at the St. Croix County Government Center in which two individuals allege that Colten was listening to and recording a conversation they were having with an attorney in one of the building's conference rooms, according to the criminal complaint.

Colten and the two complainants have been involved in a property dispute over their lot boundaries for at least two years, and on May 2, all three of them were in court for a pretrial conference with Judge Edward Vlack. After the conference, the complainants met with an attorney in a conference room just outside the courtroom to discuss the case's developments. That's when Colten allegedly eavesdropped on their conversation, according to the criminal complaint.

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Illinois Wiretapping Law Reaching A Boiling Point

pixiq.com

Illinois police officers have to be the most smug cops in the nation knowing they have the power to arrest citizens on felony charges for recording them in public while they themselves have every right to record citizens.

That smugness is very evident in the latest case to emerge from the Land of Lincoln.

Watch the below video, and read more here...

Julian Assange faces arrest in Australia over unredacted WikiLeaks cables

guardian.co.uk



Julian Assange could face prosecution in Australia after publishing sensitive information about government officials amongst the 251,000 unredacted cables released this week.

WikiLeaks published its entire cache of US diplomatic cables without redactions to protect those named within, a move condemned by all five of the whistleblowing website's original media partners.

Australia's attorney general, Robert McClelland, confirmed in a statement on Friday that the new cable release identified at least one individual within the country's intelligence service. He added it is a criminal offence in the country to publish any information which could lead to the identification of an intelligence officer.

"I am aware of at least one cable in which an ASIO officer is purported to have been identified," he said. "ASIO and other Government agencies officers are working through the material to see the extent of the impact on Australian interests.

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Court Affirms Legality Of Recording Police Officers

wbur.org

Last Friday, the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling that affirmed, stronger than ever, the rights of individuals to openly record the actions of police officers.

In 2007, a young lawyer named Simon Glik was walking through Boston Common when he saw three police officers arresting a teenager. Glik thought the officers were getting a little rough, so he flipped open his cellphone camera and started shooting video.

The officers arrested Glik for, in their minds, violating the state’s wire-tapping law, even though the whole incident happened out in public and Glik didn’t try to conceal the fact that he was recording.

The ACLU took up Glik’s cause and the courts threw out the charges against him. Since then, the Boston Police Department has been instructing personnel that the state’s wiretapping law does not apply to people making unconcealed audio or video recordings in public. But Glik and the ACLU have pressed on, suing the BPD and the individual officers for violating his First Amendment rights.

The officers moved to have the suit dismissed, saying they were just enforcing an interpretation of the law that was handed down to them by their superiors. But on Friday, the federal court disagreed.

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Warrantless cell phone searches spread to more states

cnn

(CNN) -- Think about all the data -- photos, videos, text messages, calendar items, apps, call log, voice mail, and e-mail -- on your cell phone right now. If you're arrested, could the police search your cell phone? And would they need a warrant?

That depends on which state you're in.

In California, it is legal for police to search an arrestee's cell phone without a warrant -- ever since a January decision by the California Supreme Court.

California civil rights advocates are pushing back. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is supporting California Assembly Bill SB 914, which would require police in that state to get a warrant before searching an arrestee's cell phone.

EFF also recently filed an amicus brief in the Oregon case of James Tyler Nix, a criminal suspect who was arrested and placed in a holding cell.

According to EFF, "Forty minutes after the arrest, without a warrant, an investigator fished through the suspect's cell phone looking for evidence related to his alleged crime. Law enforcement officials claim they didn't need a warrant because the search was 'incident to arrest' -- an exception to the warrant requirement intended to allow officers to perform a search for weapons or to prevent evidence from being destroyed in exigent circumstances."

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Police Charge Man With 'Wiretapping' Because He Made A Phone Call During Traffic Stop

From the you-can't-be-serious dept..techdirt.com
We've covered the disturbing trend of police, prosecutors and the courts to abuse wiretapping laws to charge people with "wiretapping" for recording police in public. The latest such case is even more ridiculous than most. Found via Slashdot, it involves a guy charged with wiretapping the police during a routine traffic stop, because he made a phone call, to which a voicemail system recorded the call at the other end. The guy who was arrested, William Alleman, had just left a gathering of libertarians, meeting in support of an arrest of a local restaurant owner. The police were apparently waiting outside, and Alleman claims he was followed. As he got pulled over, he called the phone number of an answering service for Libertarian activists who are "in trouble with the police" and then used that to record the call. The police claim this was illegal wiretapping.

This is, of course, patently ridiculous. Recording a police officer as he has stopped you is not and should never be considered a crime.

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House Fails to Extend Patriot Act Spy Powers

wired.com

The House failed to extend three key expiring provisions of the Patriot Act on Tuesday, elements granting the government broad and nearly unchecked surveillance power on its own public.

The act was hastily adopted six weeks after the 2001 terror attacks. Three measures of the act are set to expire at month’s end, and the House’s lack of a two-thirds vote on Tuesday failed to move the sunsetting deadline to Dec. 8, as proposed. The vote was 277-148.

The failure of the bill, sponsored by Rep. James F. Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wisconsin), for the time being is likely to give airtime to competing measures in the Senate that would place limited checks on the act’s broad surveillance powers. The White House, meanwhile, said it wanted the expiring measures extended through 2013.

The three expiring Patriot Act provisions are: More...

Former cop in court on corruption charge

abc.net.au

A former WA police officer has appeared in the Perth Magistrates Court accused off tipping off a police suspect that his phone was being bugged.

42-year-old Robert Critchley was working in the State Intelligence Division January last year when he is alleged to have told the person who was under investigation that his phone calls were being intercepted.

It is also alleged that between May 2009 and January 2010, Mr Critchley accessed the details of people on the police data base when he was not authorised to do so.

Police say the two incidents are not linked.

They say Mr Critchley, who had been with the force for six years, resigned in September last year after his alleged misconduct came to the attention of the Police Commissioner.

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Who would want to bug Charlotte's town offices?

“Everyone around here was scratching their heads. Some of us were amused; some of us were disturbed,” Bloch said. “There was no way to track it down. It was a little titillating at the time, but at this point, it’s a dead end.”

Amused? Really? It's hard to tell HOW LONG these "Officials" were collected against... What damage was done? How many confidential meetings were compromised?

Don't wait until you need my services. "Counterespionage Assurance" is only a phone call away! Contact me, I can help. JDL


burlingtonfreepress.com

Patrolman Chris Morrell of the Shelburne Police Dept. holds a listening device that was discovered in the ceiling panels of the clerks office at Charlotte Town Hall during a recent renovation project.


CHARLOTTE — Two wireless listening devices hidden in Charlotte Town Hall allowed eavesdropping on town clerk business and private selectboard sessions, town officials said Tuesday.

Neither device was functioning when workers found the bugs in October, nor have authorities determined when, why or by whom they were installed, Town Planner and Selectboard Assistant Dean Bloch said.

The bugs were discovered during an energy retrofit of a dropped ceiling. Selectboard members were briefed on the matter, but did not discuss it during regular meetings, Bloch said.

“Everyone around here was scratching their heads. Some of us were amused; some of us were disturbed,” Bloch said. “There was no way to track it down. It was a little titillating at the time, but at this point, it’s a dead end.”

The Shelburne Police Department, which serves Charlotte, confirmed it has a cold case on its hands. The lack of timely evidence and a plausible motive, coupled with a likely statute of limitations on invasion-of-privacy laws, frustrates further investigation, Officer Chris Morrell said.

“Whoever did this is probably never going to own up to it,” he continued.

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4th Amendment Wear– Because everyone loves passive – aggressive protests

cg
f you’ve gone anywhere by plane recently you will no doubt have passed by the dreaded TSA body scanners. If you haven’t been anywhere lately, I’m sure you are still very aware of all the controversy being caused by this invasion of privacy, designed to um, *cough* keep us all safe.

Well, you don’t have to just stand there and take it anymore. A new line of silent protest undergarments are headed your way, allowing you to get your point across, without ever saying a word.

4th Amendment Wear, white undergarments printed with metallic type that shows up on TSA scanners quietly evokes the 4th Amendment. Surely you remember the 4th Amendment, don’t you? It guards against unreasonable search and seizure. The amendment also requires that search warrants be supported by probable cause. Huh. Sounds like a great idea.

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Santiago’s latest scandal: spy microphones found in the Mayor’s office

dominicantoday.com

SANTIAGO.- The Santiago City Council dismantled an espionage system of several high tech miniature microphones which had been secretly installed in the office of mayor Gilberto Serrulle and other areas.

The Mayor confirmed the finding, but downplayed the case, affirming that he has nothing to hide or fear.

A source quoted y diariolibre.com affirms that it was an enemy of Serrulle, who wasn’t identified, who sought to obtain confidential information which could jeopardize the municipal executive.

The scandal is the latest episode in the Santiago City Council, where the previous Mayor, Jose Enrique Sued was charged with misappropriating more than RD$100 million.

DAS wiretap witness murdered

colombiareports.com

A former official at intelligence agency DAS, who was due to give evidence regarding illegal wiretapping carried out by the agency, was assassinated Thursday afternoon in Medellin, reports Caracol Radio.

David Antonio Ballen Garcia, a former DAS detective who left the agency three years ago, was shot by unknown gunmen on motorcycles while on his way to work, riding in a vehicle in the Patio Bonito area of El Poblado in Medellin. The driver of the vehicle and two other passengers, a woman and another former DAS employee, were injured.

Ballen Garcia appears on a list of witnesses made by the Prosecutor General's Office in the case of illegal wiretapping carried out by DAS against political opponents, journalists and human rights activists. He was allegedly about to supply key information in the case to authorities.

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Hotel room security defeated by a piece of wire

This video clip is pretty alarming - it shows how easy it is for a stranger to enter your hotel room, using nothing more than a piece of wire. As you can see in the clip, the wire goes under the door, and is used to open the door from the inside. In all my years of staying in hotels, I never realized how simple it could be.

De-Bugging Experts Caught Leaving Stroger's Office

myfoxchicago.com - It may sound like cloak and dagger fiction, but FOX Chicago News has learned something very odd happened Wednesday night on the fifth floor of the Cook County building.

The latest bizarre twist in the ongoing corruption scandal in Stroger's office involves high-tech surveillance experts caught leaving the office of Cook County Board President's office.

A deputy sheriff patrolling the building stopped a group of five men leaving Todd Stroger's office around 9:30 p.m. Wednesday.

One of the men identified himself as the county's Homeland Security Director David Ramos. The other four men were asked to provide identification.

They did, and at least three of them have experience in surveillance and counter-surveillance. Two of the men were identified as Jim Salp and Mike Dennis, former FBI agents who own a Chicago company specializing in "countermeasures and electronic surveillance," according to their website.

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US wants to ease telecom wiretapping: report

economictimes.indiatimes.com
WASHINGTON: An Obama administration taskforce is seeking to overhaul a federal law requiring telephone and broadband carriers to ensure their networks can be wiretapped, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

Law enforcement and counterterrorism officials from the Justice and Commerce Departments, the FBI and other federal agencies told the Times tougher legislation was necessary because some telecommunications firms have launched new services and system upgrades that impede surveillance.

As part of their draft legislation to expand and strengthen the 1994 law, the officials want more legal incentives and penalties to push AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and other carriers to make sure any changes to their networks will not disrupt efforts to conduct wiretaps, the report added.

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Woman Faces Tampering, Stalking Charges While Placing Tracking Device On Ex's Car

fox4kc.com
KANSAS CITY, MO - A Kansas City, Missouri, woman faces tampering and stalking charges after allegedly trying to place a GPS tracking device on an ex-boyfriends' vehicle, causing a downtown parking garage to be shut down while the KCPD Bomb Squad investigated.

Andrea L. Villines, 32, was charged with felony tampering, misdemeanor stalking and misdemeanor disturbing the peace after the incident on Tuesday afternoon. According to prosecutors, Villines was discovered by her ex-boyfriend putting a GPS tracking device on the man's car while he was parked in the garage at 12th and Oak. Police and KCPD Bomb Squad officers closed the garage while they determined whether or not the device was explosive.

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Court allows warrantless cell location tracking

news.cnet.com

The FBI and other police agencies don't need a search warrant to track the locations of Americans' cell phones, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday in a precedent-setting decision.

In the first decision of its kind, a Philadelphia appeals court agreed with the Obama administration that no search warrant--signed by a judge based on a belief that there was probable cause to suspect criminal activity--was necessary for police to obtain logs showing where a cell phone user had traveled.

A three-judge panel of the Third Circuit said (PDF) tracking cell phones "does not require the traditional probable-cause determination" enshrined in the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits government agencies from conducting "unreasonable" searches. The court's decision, however, was focused on which federal privacy statutes apply.

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Updated: statement from Chief Paul Cielselski concerning device found in Deputy Chief Bill Benjamin's office.

fox59.com

Fox59 News has learned someone may have bugged the office of IMPD Deputy Chief William Benjamin, who is at the center of an investigation.

Indianapolis —

Update: Fox 59 News received a statement from Chief Paul Cielselski concerning this case.

"Last evening, investigators in the Professional Standards Unit uncovered information that the device found in Deputy Chief Benjamin's desk had inadvertently been left there by an officer who had previously occupied that desk.

The device was very unsophisticated technology, in pieces, requiring a 9 volt battery to operate and was in fact not operable in its current condition.

Everyone familiar with the device knew it was inoperable and of very poor quality when it was reported to me."

Fox59 News has learned someone may have bugged the office of IMPD Deputy Chief William Benjamin, who is at the center of an investigation.

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