Tag: fbi

NIKOLA TESLA PROBABLY DIDN’T INVENT A DEATH RAY, BUT THE FBI STILL TOOK ALL HIS STUFF

After he died in 1943, the FBI immediately searched his hotel room and squirreled away all his notes, drawings, and documents. They stored everything in the FBI vault. The conspiracies surrounding Tesla’s supposed invention and the FBI’s involvement have only added to the mystery of Nikola Tesla. Whether or not you believe he did create a death ray (which, most scholars suggest, was a ploy for funding, as Tesla died broke), Nikola Tesla is a character who only recently had another chapter added to his story.

This new chapter in Tesla’s story happened in 2000 when the FBI released some of the papers they had taken from Tesla’s hotel room, as well as their notes on Tesla’s death. Because of his possible weapon and the occurrence of World War II, the FBI saved almost every publication on Tesla, from newspaper clippings to case files. All these documents were digitally scanned into the vault over the decades of storage. Though these documents have been released to the public, many of the pages still have redacted information on them. Big, thick black lines ink out names of FBI agents and other people involved in the Tesla case. According to self-proclaimed Tesla historian Cameron Prince: “We know for sure that the redactions in the released material indicate that the government is still holding the master keys, at the very least.” 

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Ghislaine Maxwell Trial: Evidence from Jeffrey Epstein’s Safe Went Missing Following FBI Raid

In July 2019 the FBI raided Jeffrey Epstein’s home in New York City. The FBI agents found damning information and evidence throughout his 7-story residence. The evidence included “numerous black binders” with white labels that had “clear pages containing thumbnail photos with CDs attached.”

FBI agents also found several items in a safe including “binders with CDs, various items of jewelry, external hard drives, lose diamonds, large amounts of U.S. currency and passports.”

The FBI later said the evidence in the safe went missing. Chris Wray’s FBI said they went back a few days later and the evidence had disappeared.

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DC bar restores status of convicted ex-FBI lawyer who deceived the FISA court during Russia probe

Kevin Clinesmith, the former senior FBI lawyer who was placed on probation as a convicted felon for falsifying a surveillance document during the Trump-Russia investigation, has been returned to “good standing” as a member of the D.C. Bar Association. 

In August of 2020, Clinesmith pleaded guilty to doctoring an email that was then used to justify a surveillance warrant that targeted former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. As a result, Clinesmith was sentenced in January to 12 months probation, though the D.C. bar did not seek his disbarment. 

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A Peek Inside Anom, the Phone Company Secretly Used in an FBI Honeypot

A video shows a row of jet black phones laying side by side on a wooden table. A white cable extrudes from each phone, loops on itself up to the table, and connects with a mess of other cables before linking with a nearby desktop computer. The camera pans to the right, revealing a cheap looking keyboard and more phones. There are maybe around 15 in all.

The person filming the video stretches out their hand and touches one of the devices, as if to show off their handiwork. They turn around and show a second table with another 15 phones plugged into another computer. A small bonsai tree sits at the top edge of the desk.

Finally, the video shows stacks and stacks of boxes, positioned one on top of the other, ready to send the products out.

This is a peek inside Anom, an encrypted phone company that, unbeknownst to its staff, secretly sent a copy of every message on the phones to the FBI and Australian police. Anom’s clients were members of hundreds of different organized crime groups globally, according to court records. This particular video was filmed by an Anom seller who loaded phones with the company’s custom software to then mail out to customers.

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FBI Document Says the Feds Can Get Your WhatsApp Data — in Real Time

As Apple and WhatsApp have built themselves into multibillion-dollar behemoths, they’ve done it while preaching the importance of privacy, especially when it comes to secure messaging.

But in a previously unreported FBI document obtained by Rolling Stone, the bureau claims that it’s particularly easy to harvest data from Facebook’s WhatsApp and Apple’s iMessage services, as long as the FBI has a warrant or subpoena. Judging by this document, “the most popular encrypted messaging apps iMessage and WhatsApp are also the most permissive,” according to Mallory Knodel, the chief technology officer at the Center for Democracy and Technology.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has articulated a “​​privacy-focused vision” built around WhatsApp, the most popular messaging service in the world. Apple CEO Tim Cook says privacy is a “basic human right” and that Apple believes in “giving the user transparency and control,” a philosophy that extends to the company’s wildly popular iMessage app. For journalists, activists, and government critics who worry about government mass surveillance and political retribution, secure messaging tools can mean the difference between doing their work safely or facing imminent danger.

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FBI And Other Agencies Paid Informants $548 Million In Recent Years With Many Committing Authorized Crimes

Federal agencies paid out at least $548 million to informants working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), in recent years, according to government audits.

  • A few informants became millionaires, with some Amtrak and “parcel” delivery workers making nearly $1 million or more.
  • Many informants were authorized to commit “crimes” with the permission of their federal handlers. In a four-year period, there were 22,800 crime authorizations (2011-2014).
  • The FBI paid approximately $294 million (FY2012-2018), the DEA paid at least $237 million (FY2011-2015), and ATF paid approximately $17.2 million total (FY2012-2015) to informants.

Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com compiled this information by reviewing federal reports. While some of the data is several-years old; it’s apparently the most recent available.

The FBI spent an average of $42 million a year on confidential human sources between fiscal years 2012 and 2018. “Long term” informants comprised 20 percent of its intelligence relationships (source: DOJ IG 2019 report).

The ATF employed 1,855 informants who were paid $4.3 million annually (FY2012-2015). Therefore, on average, each informant made $2,318 for the year. (source: DOJ IG report 2017).

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FBI Conducts Search of New Jersey Landfill for Jimmy Hoffa’s Remains

In a surprising development surrounding one of America’s most enduring mysteries, the FBI recently conducted a search of a New Jersey landfill for the remains of missing Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa. The latest chapter in the legendary cold case, which began back in 1975 when the union president vanished without a trace, was reportedly brought about by a deathbed confession from a former worker at the site. The circuitous claim is that the man’s father had been tasked with burying Hoffa’s body in a steel drum at the Jersey City location which sits beneath a bridge known as the Pulaski Skyway. While the tale may sound like some kind of boastful last-minute claim to fame, it was apparently compelling enough for the FBI to take action.

Being understandably vague about the matter, the bureau confirmed that they had visited the landfill last month and conducted a search of the area, though they refrained from saying that they were looking for Hoffa’s remains. That said, given the very specific nature of the spot and that it came to light by way of the deathbed tip, which had generated considerable publicity over the last year or so, it is fairly obvious that the endeavor was connected to the case of the missing Teamster boss. It remains to be seen whether or not the deathbed confession ultimately leads to the mystery being solved after nearly five decades or if it winds being yet another fruitless fishing expedition like so many in the past.

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Hackers Compromise FBI Email System, Spams at Least 100,000 Recipients

Hackers compromised an external email system of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Spamhaus Project, a watchdog group tracking spam and similar cyber threats, announced Saturday.

“We have been made aware of “scary” emails sent in the last few hours that purport to come from the FBI/DHS [Department of Homeland Security],” announced the group on Twitter.

The messages came from a legitimate email address—eims@ic.fbi.gov—from the Law Enforcement Enterprise Portal (LEEP), which is owned by the FBI/DHS, the group said. It added, however, “our research shows that these emails *are* fake.”

The FBI, part of the Department of Justice, said in a statement that it and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) are both “aware of the incident this morning involving fake emails from an @ic.fbi.gov email account.”

The agency added that although the impacted hardware was “taken offline quickly upon discovery of the issue,” the situation is an ongoing one and it will not be providing additional information for now.

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