Bob Egelko reports: After years of wrangling over legal procedures, the lawyer for a defunct Islamic charity laid out his case Wednesday that former President George W. Bush’s secret wiretapping program was illegal – an argument that an Obama administration attorney refused to discuss. “May the president of the United States break the law in…
Category: Surveillance
‘Sneak-and-peek’ searches being used for regular crimes
Raw Story reports: The Justice Department made 763 requests for “sneak-and-peek” warrants in 2008, but only three of those had to with terrorism investigations, Sen. Russ Feingold told a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday. “Sneak-and-peek” warrants allow law enforcement officials to break into homes and businesses and search the premises without the investigated party…
FBI’s Data-Mining System Sifts Airline, Hotel, Car-Rental Records
Ryan Singel reports: A fast-growing FBI data-mining system billed as a tool for hunting terrorists is being used in hacker and domestic criminal investigations, and now contains tens of thousands of records from private corporate databases, including car-rental companies, large hotel chains and at least one national department store, declassified documents obtained by Wired.com show….
Leahy introduces legislation to reauthorize expiring PATRIOT Act provisions
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) Tuesday introduced legislation to address expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act, which are slated to sunset on December 31. The Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on the expiring provisions of the Patriot Act on Wednesday, September 23. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), the chair of…