By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com A Justice Department investigation into Rupert Murdoch-owned media companies won’t result in charges following allegations of voicemail hacking and payments to public officials in the U.K., the USA Today reports. News Corp. and 21st Century Fox were under investigation after hacking the voicemail accounts of sources, celebrities and politicians. They also…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com A license plate tracking program established to seize cars and money to combat drug trafficking has gone far beyond its original scope and has led to the collection and storage of millions of records about motorists, Reuters reports. Not only is the database being used to track drug dealers, but state…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com The problems with Justice Department employees getting drunk and acting out 20 years ago have not been sufficiently addressed and are failing to curtail boisterous off-duty conduct, the Inspector General found. The Washington Times reports that the department never followed through on recommendations from as far back as 1996 to adequately…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com An FBI agent testified Wednesday that there is no direct evidence that an ex-CIA officer leaked classified information to a New York Times reporter, the Associated Press reports. But the agent said CIA man Jeffrey Sterling was often in contact with journalist James Risen as prosecutors finished up their case based…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com A controversial tactic by federal investigators from the DEA to create a bogus Facebook page using real information from a suspect has turned into a $134,000 settlement for the woman targeted on the social media page, the Associated Press reports. In the settlement with Sondra Arquiett, the DEA still did not…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com A lot more people are going to learn about missing children after the Justice Department created a partnership with Facebook to send AMBER alerts to its users, WJCL reports. A similar deal was reached with Bing. Attorney General Eric Holder said this is a big step to finding more children before…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com James Risen, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who pledged to go to jail before revealing a government source, won’t be called to testify in the case of the former CIA officer suspected of being the leak, the Washington Post reports. Since the ex-CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling was charged with leaking the information…
By Denver Post Editorial Board All of the conciliatory talk from the Justice Department about leaving journalists out of its war on leaks appears to be just that — talk. That’s the only logical answer to the question of why New York Times reporter James Risen was on the witness stand in federal court Monday, being asked…
