Ellen Nakashima reports: For six years, Nicholas Merrill has lived in a surreal world of half-truths, where he could not tell even his fiancee, his closest friends or his mother that he is “John Doe” — the man who filed the first-ever court challenge to the FBI’s ability to obtain personal data on Americans without…
Tag: FBI
Consumer Watchdog Asks FBI, DEA to Explain Use of Google Earth
The FBI and DEA are now making extensive use of Google Earth, according to federal spending records. Consumer Watchdog is filing Freedom of Information Act requests with the agencies today to determine how the Internet giant’s digital mapping technology is being used for domestic surveillance, including whether it is used for racial profiling or other…
Judge Denies FBI Dismissal From Berkeley Raid Lawsuit
Michael Garcia reports: A federal judge denied a motion Monday to dismiss the FBI from a lawsuit filed by two Berkeley community organizations whose computers and storage devices were seized in an August 2008 raid. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White ruled that plaintiffs Long Haul Inc. and East Bay Prisoner Support can sue the investigative…
Loosening of F.B.I. Rules Stirs Privacy Concerns
Charlie Savage reports: After a Somali-American teenager from Minneapolis committed a suicide bombing in Africa in October 2008, the Federal Bureau of Investigation began investigating whether a Somali Islamist group had recruited him on United States soil. Instead of collecting information only on people about whom they had a tip or links to the teenager,…