Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy at press conference (Photo: ticklethewire.com)

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

DETROIT — Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy on Wednesday morning presented a mountain of evidence to defend the actions of ICE agent Mitchell Quinn who fatally shot Terrance Kellom, 20, in late April in Detroit during a raid at his home. He was wanted for armed robbery and other charges.

Worthy, using a power point with photos and schematics of the house, went step by step through the investigation at a press conference, as if she were delivering a closing argument in a case, and said that the shooting was justified and no criminal charges would be filed against Quinn, who was part of a fugitive task force. Her presentation included lab results.

She said the lengthy investigation conducted by the Michigan State Police-Detroit Police Department homicide task force backed up Quinn’s version of what happened: That Kellom came at him with a claw hammer and wouldn’t retreat even after being warned to back down and being shot once. He was shot a total of four times.

She also indicated that the investigation showed that Kellom’s father lied to investigators and gave conflicting versions of the unfolding events.

The shooting had the potential to turn ugly in the community, with the Kellom family and other activists demanding justice and a criminal charge against the ICE agent.

Kellom’s father had said that the agent shot his unarmed son after he had surrendered. Had the investigation confirmed that scenario, there’s a good chance criminal charges would have been filed.

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump wants to seal off the border.

But U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner R. Gil Kerlikowske says it’s not possible to keep everyone out of the U.S.

“You’re certainly not going to have a border as long as we have with the government of Mexico that is going to not ever have anyone cross illegally,” Kerlikowske said Tuesday while visiting the San Ysidro Port Of Entry south of San Diego, according to a report by the TV station 7 San Diego.

By Mark Rumold
Electronic Frontier Foundation

A federal judge in Los Angeles has given our clients, Human Rights Watch, the go-ahead to take discovery from the government in our ongoing lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the DEA’s bulk surveillance program. Friday’s decision is rare, and it’s a decisive victory—both for HRW and for the general public. EFF is not aware of any other case where discovery has been allowed into a government mass surveillance program. And the order forces the government to answer questions, under oath, about the steps it took to ensure that all illegally collected records have been fully purged from all government systems.

The case stems from the DEA’s disclosure in January of this year that it had secretly collected Americans’ international call records in bulk for over two decades. News reports described the program as massive—sweeping in billions of records of Americans’ calls to more than 100 countries around the globe, including Canada, Mexico, India, and Italy. The DEA relied only on an obscure administrative subpoena statute to obtain the records in bulk. That means, unlike the NSA’s bulk surveillance program, there was no judicial involvement whatsoever. Making matters worse, reports confirm that multiple agencies searched the illegally collected records for all kinds of cases—from terrorism, to drug trafficking, to export violations.

In April, immediately following a lengthy report in USA Today, EFF filed suit on behalf of Human Rights Watch against the DEA, DHS, FBI, and various unnamed agencies. The lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of the program, and seeks to ensure that the program is permanently stopped rather than merely suspended as claimed by DEA. The suit further asks the court to ensure that all illegally collected records are accounted for and destroyed.

To read more click here.

Jared Fogle

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

Ex-Subway pitchman Jared Fogle has reached a plea agreement that would see him serve between five and 12½ years in prison for child pornography and having sex with a minor, CNN reports.

Fogle was expected to make an appearance in federal court on Wednesday.

CNN reports that court documents show that the charges against Fogle are tied to his relationship with Russell C. Taylor, the executive director of the Jared Foundation, who was arrested more than two months ago on federal child pornography charges.

CNN reported that court documents said:

• Between 2011 and April 2015, Fogle received from Taylor multiple pornographic images of minors engaging in sexually explicit contact.
•  Fogle had conversations with Taylor about the child porn, but instead of alerting authorities, he “chose to benefit from such production by obtaining access to a significant amount of such material.”
• The images and videos were recorded by Taylor at his home through the use of hidden cameras.
•  Between 2010 and February 2013, Fogle traveled from Indiana to New York to pay to have sex with minors.
•  One victim told investigators she had sex with Fogle twice when she was 17 in exchange for money, once at the Plaza Hotel and once at the Ritz Carlton, both in New York City.
• The same minor also said that Fogle had sex with her three other times before 2012, when she was 16.
• Prosecutors say that text messages, travel records, hotel records and a search of Fogle’s home provided evidence of these arrangements.
•  The same minor said Fogle had sex with another 16-year-old girl on another occasion.