Tag: fbi

FBI, DEA Deployment of AI Raises Privacy, Civil Rights Concerns

A required audit of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) efforts to integrate AI such as biometric facial recognition and other emerging technology raises significant privacy and civil rights concerns that necessitate a careful examination of the two agencies’ initiatives.

The 34-page audit report – which was mandated by the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act to be carried out by the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Inspector General (IG) – found that the FBI and DEA’s integration of AI is fraught with ethical dilemmas, regulatory inadequacies, and potential impacts on individual liberties.

The IG said the integration of AI into the DEA and FBI’s operations holds promise for enhancing intelligence capabilities, but it also brings unprecedented risks to privacy and civil rights.

The two agencies’ nascent AI initiatives, as described in the IG’s audit, illustrate the tension between technological advancement and the safeguarding of individual liberties. As the FBI and DEA navigate these challenges, they must prioritize transparency, accountability, and ethical governance to ensure that AI serves the public good without compromising fundamental rights.

While the DEA and FBI have begun to integrate AI and biometric identification into their intelligence collection and analysis processes, the IG report underscores that both agencies are in the nascent stages of this integration and face administrative, technical, and policy-related challenges. These difficulties not only slow down the integration of AI, but they also exacerbate concerns about ensuring the ethical use of AI, particularly regarding privacy and civil liberties.

One of the foremost challenges is the lack of transparency associated with commercially available AI products. The IG report noted that vendors often embed AI capabilities within their software, creating a black-box scenario where users, including the FBI, lack visibility into how the algorithms function or make decisions. The absence of a software bill of materials (SBOM) — a comprehensive list of software components — compounds the problem, raising significant privacy concerns as sensitive data could be processed by opaque algorithms, potentially leading to misuse or unauthorized surveillance.

“FBI personnel … stated that most commercially available AI products do not have adequate transparency of their software components,” the IG said, noting that “there is no way for the FBI to know with certainty whether such AI capabilities are in a product unless the FBI receives a SBOM.”

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George Mason University Student Charged With Planning ‘Mass Casualty Attack’ Against Jews in New York

A student at George Mason University was arrested this week over claims he was planning a “mass casualty attack” on the Consulate General of Israel in New York, according to court records.

Abdullah Ezzeldin Taha Mohamed Hassan, an Egyptian national who is only 18, allegedly operated several social media accounts that were promoting “radical and terrorist-leaning behavior.”

While the accounts were run anonymously, investigators managed to trace it back to Hassan using his provided email address, phone number and IP address.

According to prosecutors, Hassan regularly posted about “revering Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al Zawahiri” and operated “several pro-ISIS and al Qaeda accounts that promoted violence against Jews.”

After developing an obsession with terrorism, Hassan eventually began the process of planning a “mass casualty attack at the Consulate General of Israel using an explosive device and rifle.”

Hassan discussed his plan in great detail with an FBI informant he believed to be an admirer of his ideological mission.

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FBI Detains Possible Accomplice to 15-Year-Old Female Christian School Shooter

CBS 8 in California reported Wednesday that the FBI detained a 20-year-old man for plotting a mass shooting at a government building with the 15-year-old girl who would go on to attack the Abundant Life Christian School on Monday—killing another student and a teacher, and wounding six others before killing herself.

According to CBS, FBI agent served a gun violence restraining order on the man, Alexander Paffendorf, after discovering that he had been in contact with the 15-year-old shooter, Natalie Rupnow, online.

CBS 8, which obtained a copy of the restraining order, reported that Paffendorf admitted to having contact with Rupnow to FBI agents in an interview.

“During an FBI interview, Paffendorf admitted to the FBI agents that he told Rupnow that he would arm himself with explosives and a gun and that he would target a government building,” the two-page restraining order from the Carlsbad Police Department states, according to CBS 8.

The order said that FBI agents “saw the messages from Paffendorf to Rupnow.” A San Diego Superior Court Judge approved the restraining order on Tuesday night, the day after Rupnow’s attack.

TMZ reported Thursday that Paffendorf’s neighbors said he “exhibited seriously creepy behavior—never talking, avoiding eye contact, always wearing his hood up, and other unsettling anti-social habits.”

“In fact, his behavior was so bizarre, she claims it was even brought to his parents’ attention during one particularly eyebrow-raising incident—but they didn’t do anything about it,” TMZ reported.

That Rupnow would be in contact with a “creepy” 20-year-old man isn’t surprising, given her other online affiliations. As Headline USA reported Wednesday, Rupnow, who went by the name Samantha, Rupnow is closely linked to Satanic chat groups known for grooming teenagers to commit crimes, self-mutilation and other acts of depravity.

Rupnow’s links to Satanic chat rooms were exposed Tuesday, when a journalist published her apparent manifesto, which came from the shooter’s Twitter/X account.

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IG Report Reveals FBI Could Still Be Spying On Congress And Leaking To Help Democrats

Can you imagine the danger to our republic if the Executive Branch could secretly, for months on end, and without any clear and compelling justification, surveil the very people in Congress conducting oversight of those agencies?

That chilling constitutional nightmare transpired. And we’re only getting the details about the separation-of-powers-eviscerating, civil liberties-undermining, and transparency-imperiling activity seven years after it started.

The revelations come in a recently released Justice Department Inspector General report. Like much of this corrupt activity, the story begins with Russiagate. In the spring and summer of 2017, the first year of the Trump presidency, CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post published articles containing classified information concerning Trump and Russia.

Among the unauthorized disclosures to emerge was that a FISA warrant had been issued to surveil Trump’s foreign policy adviser Carter Page. The dubious warrants would be renewed four times.

Page was framed as a Russian agent through authorities’ omission of critical exculpatory information and reliance on the dodgy Steele dossier that federal investigators could never corroborate. An official would later be prosecuted for doctoring information about Page used to justify FISA warrant renewal.

Page’s reputation was destroyed, and his rights violated, all as part of a fishing expedition into Trump world that had the added benefit from the perspective of the Deep State of fueling the narrative that the president too was a Russian agent. Indeed, the revelations added smoke to the phony Trump-Russia collusion fire that would consume the first two years of his administration.

Federal authorities went on a mole hunt for the Russiagate leaker. Between 2017 and 2018, prosecutors issued subpoenas for non-content records for phone numbers and email addresses covering two members of Congress and 43 staffers — Democrats and Republicans alike — on grounds they may have accessed the classified information before it wound up in the papers.

The justification in most cases was simply “the close proximity in time between that access and the subsequent publication of the news articles,” the IG found.

The records included information like text message logs, email recipient addresses, and call detail records indicating who initiated communications, with which numbers, dates, times, durations, etc. The records would have provided a map to the professional and personal lives of those surveilled.

In myriad instances the feds sought non-disclosure orders from courts too. The NDOs prevented communications companies from apprising the congressmen and staffers that their records had been subpoenaed. In other words, they ensured the surveilled overseers of those doing the surveilling were kept in the dark.

The DOJ obtained 40 NDOs, approximately 30 of which were renewed at least once, and most of which were repeatedly renewed — some extending up to four years.

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Interactive map reveals mystery drone hotspots as FBI issues warning

An interactive map has revealed hundreds of sightings of mysterious drones and Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) throughout the Northeast. 

Since mid-November, the region has been plagued by an ongoing, unexplained drone ‘invasion.’ The unidentified aircraft have been reported in multiple states, prompting a federal investigation that has yet to yield any answers. 

‘FBI has received tips of more than 5,000 reported drone sightings in the last few weeks with approximately 100 leads generated,’ according to a joint statement from the agency and several other federal bureaus released Tuesday.

The map, created by the commercial UFO sightings alert network Enigma Labs, compiles reports from residents of New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and other states made during November and December. 

US Coast Guard licensed captain and New Jersey resident Paul Sprieser, 56, is one of many whose eyewitness reports were included in the map. 

He does not believe all the sightings can be explained by commercial aircraft or other sanctioned activities, as federal officials have suggested. 

‘There’s a large percentage of them that are not commercial aircraft, like these stationary objects in the sky that are the size of an SUV that are just hanging out there for five or six hours, or seven hours,’ Sprieser told DailyMail.com. 

State and local officials are echoing the concerns of their residents, demanding answers from the federal government as this bizarre phenomenon appears to be spreading into new areas. 

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House GOP accuses Liz Cheney of tampering with J6 witness, ask FBI to investigate criminality

The House Administration Oversight Subcommittee and its chairman Barry Loudermilk on Tuesday released an interim report on the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, concluding the attack was preventable and also asking for an investigation into former Rep. Liz Cheney for criminally tampering with a witness during the Democrat-led congressional inquiry of the tragedy.

“Based on the evidence obtained by this Subcommittee, numerous federal laws were likely broken by Liz Cheney, the former Vice Chair of the January 6 Select Committee, and these violations should be investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” the report released by the House Administration Oversight Subcommittee and its chairman Barry Loudermilk stated.

“Evidence uncovered by the Subcommittee revealed that former Congresswoman Liz Cheney tampered with at least one witness, Cassidy Hutchinson, by secretly communicating with Hutchinson without Hutchinson’s attorney’s knowledge.,” it added. “This secret communication with a witness is improper and likely violates 18 U.S.C. 1512. Such action is outside the due functioning of the legislative process and therefore not protected by the Speech and Debate clause.”

Federal law criminalizes witness tampering of varying degrees, and subjects a defendant to as many as 20 years in prison.

You can read the full report here.

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The report also took direct aim at former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, Cheney’s star witness at the nationally televised hearings, alleging that Cheney encouraged false testimony about a handwritten document and noting her sensational claim that former President Donald Trump tried to commandeer his presidential limousine that day to take it to the Capitol was directly refuted by the Secret Service.

Loudermilk’s report suggested Cheney also bore responsibility for Hutchinson’s testimony.

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Startling image of mystery drone over US air base in UK revealed as bombshell report claims FBI has known about swarms over military sites for a year

Unauthorized drones have been zipping across US military bases at speeds of up to 170mph, easily dodging radar and signal-jamming systems.

But contrary to the non-answers intelligence officials have been dishing out as New Jersey residents panic about ‘car-sized’ drones flying over their homes for the past month, the government has been aware of this threat for over a year, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal.

Exclusively obtained images show one craft photographed by specialist military units over a US airbase in England last month. DailyMail.com also obtained excerpts from a joint US Air Force, NASA and FBI report on previous airbase incursions, and an account from a senior officer briefed on the incidents. 

This news follows repeated widespread sightings of drones near military bases in New Jersey and other states over the past month.

And a public outcry over the swarms prompted a stunning admission from FBI chiefs to Congress – they don’t know where these craft are coming from.

DailyMail.com obtained an internal government report showing federal agencies knew about incursions from apparent advanced drones over a year ago but have failed to put a stop to them.

Langley Air Force Base in Virginia was swarmed with dozens of drones for weeks in December 2023, creating a security panic. The incident was kept secret until it was revealed by defense magazine The Warzone in March this year.

A report authored by the Air Force, FBI and NASA – which has a facility next to Langley air base – said that their ‘detection equipment’ and ‘signal jamming’ had ‘failed’, in a presentation slide titled ‘lessons learned,’ DailyMail.com can reveal.

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DEVELOPING: FBI Spied on Kash Patel, Secretly Vacuumed Up His Emails and Phone Records

The FBI spied on Trump’s nominee for FBI Director Kash Patel, according to the Justice Department’s Inspector General report.

Last month, President Trump officially nominated Kash Patel for the role of FBI Director in his next Administration.

Kash Patel played an important role exposing the Russiagate hoax when he spearheaded the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into the Hillary-funded Steele dossier under Devon Nunes.

Mr. Patel detailed how Paul Ryan rigged his Russiagate investigation before he even started it in an exclusive post for TGP here.

According to the Inspector General’s report, the FBI secretly scooped up Kash Patel’s emails and phone records starting back in 2017 when he was investigating the Trump-Russia hoax.

Corrupt career federal prosecutors forced Google and Apple to hand over Kash Patel’s communications from September 2017 and March 2018 when Andrew McCabe was the Acting FBI Director.

The court orders prevented Google and Apple from notifying Kash Patel so he had no idea the FBI was spying on him.

“The IG probe reveals that the FBI had renewed the subpoenas each year, snooping on congressional staffers for up to five years. That means McCabe’s successor, Christopher Wray, signed off on the continued collections,” Paul Sperry reported.

FBI Director Christopher Wray announced he will be resigning before Trump takes office next month.

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Whistleblower: FBI Deputy Director Abbate Told Agents to Hide Dozens of January 6 Informants from Public – Knew It Would Be “Too Embarrassing” for Agency to Tell the Truth to Americans

According to a 2023 whistleblower, FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate told subordinates at the agency to hide the identities of dozens of January 6 government informants. He said it would be too embarrassing for the agency if the information was leaked out. So they hid this from the American public.

Kerry Picket reported on this at the time.

An FBI agent told the House Judiciary Committee that Deputy Director Paul Abbate suggested that at least 25 FBI confidential human sources, or informants, involved in reporting to the bureau from the Jan. 6, 2021, protest should not be publicly acknowledged.
According to the… https://t.co/JmVCTSmWTd

— Kerry Picket (@KerryPicket) December 13, 2024

In July 2023, investigative reporter Kerry Picket from The Washington Times.

An FBI agent told the House Judiciary Committee that Deputy Director Paul Abbate suggested that at least 25 FBI confidential human sources, or informants, involved in reporting to the bureau from the Jan. 6, 2021, protest should not be publicly acknowledged.

Many FBI whistleblowers have come forward with their concerns about the bureau as Director Christopher A. Wray is testifying before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

They are making allegations of politically motivated investigations, politically biased leadership and misconduct by senior officials at America’s premier law enforcement agency.

According to the whistleblower disclosure sent to the committee, Mr. Abbate notified one or more of his subordinates that the more than 25 informants were too problematic or embarrassing for the FBI to have their existence made known to the public and that the existence, activities and identities of these FBI confidential human sources should not be released.

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FBI had 26 informants at Jan. 6 Capitol riots — and most were involved, bombshell DOJ report confirms

The FBI had at least 26 confidential informants on the ground in Washington, DC, during the Jan. 6, 2021 storming of the Capitol — most of whom engaged in illegal activity during the chaos, the Justice Department’s watchdog confirmed in a bombshell report. 

Leadership at the bureau had long been adamant that it did not have sources who “orchestrated” the riot. Questions about whether the FBI had informants involved in the riots were met with “conspiracy theory” labels by many mainstream media outlets.

“If you’re asking if the violence at the Capitol was part of some operation orchestrated by FBI sources or agents, the answer is no!” outgoing FBI director Christopher Wray told lawmakers back in July. Wray had long refused to divulge exactly how many informants were present that day. 

But the DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General found that of the FBI’s confidential sources on the ground, four entered the Capitol in the midst of the riot and 13 went into a restricted area. Only nine were not found to have engaged in illegal activity, according to a long-awaited report released Thursday.

Critically, that report also shot down unsubstantiated speculation that the bureau had agents stoking some of the mayhem that day, 

“We found no evidence in the materials we reviewed or the testimony we received showing or suggesting that the FBI had undercover employees in the various protest crowds, or at the Capitol, on January 6,” the report said.

Only three of its 26 informants present had been instructed to observe potential domestic terrorist suspects on the day of the riot, the DOJ watchdog found. The rest of the 23 appear to have gone to the Capitol of their own accord.

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