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The FBI is investigating hackers affiliated with the group Anonymous that obtained the personal information of some West Virginia police officers and posted the information online, in what the hackers called a warning against police brutality, reports ABC.

The group of hackers, referred to as the CabinCr3w by the West Virginia Chiefs of Police Association’s President William Roper, obtained the personal information of more than 150 police officers, according to ABC. The police association has a new website, but the hackers were able to access databases kept on an old association site which still had the information stored.

In an online message, the CabinCr3w wrote:

“We are here to remind you that we the taxpayers pay your exorbitant salaries, and those salaries of your officers. Your job is to protect and serve, not brutalize the very people that pay your wages. Muzzle your dogs of war, or we will expose more of your sensative (sic) information.”

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By Danny Fenster

A US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agent has pleaded guilty to leaking information to relatives involved in drug trafficking, authorities said.

Jovana Deas, 33, of Rio Rico, Ariz., pleaded guilty to all 21 counts against her, the FBI said in a statement on Monday. Deas was an agent with the HSI Nogales office.

Deas admitted to using her credentials to illegally obtain and disseminate government documents classified as Official Use Only, said the FBI. Some of the documents were later found on the laptop of her former brother-in-law–who is associated with drug trafficking groups in Mexico–by Brazilian law enforcement. Deas further admitted to illegally accessing, stealing, and transferring sensitive U.S. government documents, and to obstructing HSI investigations. She pled guilty to seven felony violations–punishable by up to five years each–and 14 misdemeanors, punishable by up to one year each.

Deas’s sister, Dana Maria Samaniego Montes, was also charged with violations of federal law. Montes is a former Mexican law enforcement official with alleged ties to drug trafficking organizations, but is a fugitive believed to be at large in Mexico.

Deas’s sentencing is set for April 11.

A Chicago cab driver pled guilty on Monday to giving money to a long-time acquaintance after learning that acquaintance was working for al Qaeda, the FBI said in a statement.

Raja Lahrasib Khan, Pakistani-born but naturalized as a US citizen in 1988, was arrested in March of 2010. On Monday he pled guilty to one count of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.  He remains in federal custody until sentencing, which has been set for May 30, 2011.

Khan, 58, of Chicago’s north side, never posed any imminent domestic danger, law enforcement officials said at the time of his arrest. He remains in federal custody while awaiting sentencing, which U.S. District Judge James Zagel scheduled for 2 p.m. on May 30. The plea deal calls for a sentence of between five and eight years, along with Khan’s future cooperation with the FBI.

Khan admitted to meeting with Ilyas Kashmiri, a leader of the Kashmir independence movement, twice within the last decade. On the second meeting, in 2008, Khan, having reason to believe Kashmiri was working with al Qaeda, gave Kashmiri between $200 and $250 worth of Pakistani rupees in his fight against India.

Khan then sent about $930 worth of rupees from Chicago to a person in Pakistan on on Nov. 23, 2009, via Western Union, according to the FBI. He told the recipient to give Kashmiri about $300 of it. “Although Khan intended the funds to be used by Kashmiri to support attacks against India, he was also aware that Kashmiri was working with al Qaeda,” the FBI said in a statement.

Undercover agents contacted Khan seeking to send money to Kashmiri, “but only if Kashmiri was working with al Qaeda.” Khan agreed to send the $1,000 agents offered to Kashmiri, giving it to his son who was traveling to the UK, where he would later retrieve it. His son was searched and arrested at a UK airport upon arrival, where seven of the ten bills were found on him. Khan, hearing about his son, tried to plea with one of the undercover agents to let him out of the scheme, offering $800 back.

A Brooklyn cop caught up in an FBI sting pleaded guilty Monday in a smuggling case involving guns, cigarettes and slot machines, the Associated Press reported.

Officer William Masso was among five NYPD cops charged in the smuggling case. Others included three retired NYPD officers and a New Jersey correction officer, AP reported.

AP reported that authorities used an undercover agent who dished out more than $100,000 for the cops to moonlight as gun runners while under FBI surveillance.

The Supreme Court has ruled and the FBI is responding.

USA Today reports that the FBI has started cutting back on the use of GPS surveillance in wake of a Jan. 23 Supreme Court ruling which said law enforcement needs court authorization to attach a GPS to a vehicle.

The paper reported that the FBI implemented the change the day after the court ruling which said that mounting the device secretly on a car amounted to a search protected by the Fourth Amendment.

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By Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The FBI has been paying closer attention to ‘sovereign citizen’ extremists around the country out of concerns that they will react violently when they interact with government officials.

Sovereign citizens are people who reject their U.S. citizenship and don’t recognize government authority, like laws and taxes. In 2009, the FBI started paying closer attention to the movement, which previously had been grouped with the militia movements in the bureau’s domestic counterterrorism operations. Many people who claim to be followers of this movement are involved in white collar crimes like tax evasion schemes and making fraudulent documents, the FBI said.

“We started to notice a heightened potential for violence,” said Stuart McArthur, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division.

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By Danny Fenster

An Oregon man is defending his innocence after being banned from flying back into the United States, reports FOX News.

After flying to Libya, Jamal Tarhuni’s native country, to distribute medicine and supplies during the country’s recent violent revolution, the 55-year-old naturalized citizen of the US was barred from boarding a flight homeward bound from an airport in Tunisia on Jan. 17, according to FOX. There, FBI agents interrogated Tarhuni for reasons he says he does not know.

“I very strongly believe the FBI violated my constitutional rights as an American citizen,”said Jamal Tarhuni.

The story was first reported by Kari Huus of MSNBC.com.

To read more click here.

When Whitey Bulger was captured last year, he’d spent close to 20 years on the run — and on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.

Bulger was the head of an Irish gang terrorizing the streets of South Boston. The Massachusetts State Police wanted him gone, but curiously couldn’t touch him.

Why? Bulger was a confidential FBI informant, and the bureau shielded him for years.

Robert Fitzpatrick, the author of Betrayal: Whitey Bulger and the FBI Agent Who Fought to Bring Him Down, says Bulger was widely known to be an unsavory character.

“He’s a stone killer, has been known to be a hit man for the Mafia out of Providence, and he’s also known to be the head of the Winter Hill gang, a bunch of Irish guys trying to take over the rackets, extortion and the drug stuff up in Boston,” Fitzpatrick tells weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz.

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Federal agents and prosecutors know too well the frustration of investigating something for a long long time, only to come up empty handed.

Well, that’s just what happened in Lubbock, Tex.

A  nearly four-year-long FBI investigation of the city and its former healthcare administrator  has resulted in no charges, according to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.

“After the careful evaluation of many factors, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas is no longer pursuing its investigation of the city of Lubbock,” said a statement released by Kathy Colvin, public information officer with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, according to the paper.

Dozens of agents raided the Lubbock City Hall in May of 2008, seizing computers, electronic storage and communications devices and boxes of documents with a warrant alleging conspiracy, false statements, wire fraud and health care fraud. Now, all of that property is being returned to the city.

“The FBI called and told the outside council to come pick up all the records that were seized four years ago,” Lubbock Mayor Tom Martin said.

By Danny Fenster

A New York city councilman is recanting comments he made over the weekend critical of the FBI, reports the New York Post

City Councilman Peter Koo (D-Queens) likened an FBI investigation looking into the campaign finances of his friend Comptroller John Liu  to “political entrapment” on a radio show over the weekend. “The FBI used some sting operation, they offered cash to people,” Koo said. “It’s like political entrapment to me.”

But talking to the Post this week, Koo said he “didn’t mean to criticize the FBI.”

“It’s one of the most respected law-enforcement agencies in the country and the world,” said Koo. “Maybe I misused the word,” he said, referring to the entrapment comment.

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