By Dan Vergano USA TODAY Anthrax-laced letters that killed five people, targeted U.S. senators and paralyzed post offices a decade ago have reshaped the nation’s biodefenses. While confidence is higher that the United States is better protected, there are continuing worries about potential threats in the coming era of “synthetic biology,” man-made designer microbes. Nationwide,…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com Are rapes recorded accurately? Apparently not, which is why the the FBI is in the process of changing the definition of rape for the first time in 80 years, reports the Baltimore Sun. The Sun reports that critics have insisted the definition is too narrow, resulting in fewer stats and less…
Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com The rumor mill has been working overtime involving the controversy between FBI and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Sheriff Lee Baca is fuming that the FBI didn’t tell him about its investigation into inmate abuse, or the fact that the FBI, in an undercover sting, paid a sheriff’s deputy about…
By Danny Fenster ticklethewire.com “Rebel Rider Ben” may ride no more. The 58-year-old of Alvarado, Tex., known to his mother as Benjamin Edward Neuner, sold five guns, 15 boxes of ammunition, smoke grenades and gun magazines to undercover FBI agents, reports the Star-Telegram newspaper. Neuner changed the rifling on the guns to make the bullets…
By Danny Fenster ticklethewire.com NPR has some new coverage of the anti-Muslim bias in FBI training. The radio station has obtained real-time emails from agents in the controversial Quantico training session which indicate that some agents, distressed by what they were being taught, complained to superiors and sought council from experts. “Generally, Mohammed was portrayed…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com A former Secret Service agent, who rose through the ranks to become a deputy assistant director, is on trial in federal court in Washington in what Bloomberg news reports is the first prosecution of a foreign bribery based on a government sting run inside the U.S. Ex-agent R. Patrick Caldwell is…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com The FBI on Wednesday busted a 26-year-old Massachusetts man in a sting in which he plotted to damage or destroy the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol “using large remote controlled aircraft filled with C-4 plastic explosives,” according to the Boston U.S. Attorney’s Office. Authorities also charged Rezwan Ferdaus, a U.S. citizen residing…
