Sunday, Sep 29th
Last update06:31:21 AM GMT
Domestic Glance
The bill requires all Internet service providers to save their customers' IP addresses — or online identity numbers — for a year. The bill's stated purpose is to help police find child pornographers, but critics say that's just an excuse for another step toward Big Brother.
The number of successful child pornography prosecutions has skyrocketed in recent years. Prosecutors are hardly at a disadvantage, says forensic technologist Jeff Fischbach.
A Maryland rabbi described as the "Jewish Indiana Jones" is accused of fraud for allegedly making-up stories of finding Torahs in former concentration camps.
Menachem Youlus, 50, was arrested Wednesday in New York City on federal fraud charges for allegedly misrepresenting the origin of Torahs sold through his "Save a Torah" organization and then pocketing some of the money, The New York Times reported.
Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the NYPD has become one of the country's most aggressive domestic intelligence agencies. A months-long investigation by The Associated Press has revealed that the NYPD operates far outside its borders and targets ethnic communities in ways that would run afoul of civil liberties rules if practiced by the federal government. And it does so with unprecedented help from the CIA in a partnership that has blurred the bright line between foreign and domestic spying.
Neither the city council, which finances the department, nor the federal government, which contributes hundreds of millions of dollars each year, is told exactly what's going on.
Eric T. Schneiderman, the attorney general of New York, has come under increasing pressure from the Obama administration to drop his opposition to a wide-ranging state settlement with banks over dubious foreclosure practices, according to people briefed on discussions about the deal.
In recent weeks, Shaun Donovan, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and high-level Justice Department officials have been waging an intensifying campaign to try to persuade the attorney general to support the settlement, said the people briefed on the talks.
Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein has hired high-profile Washington defense attorney Reid Weingarten, according to a government source, as the Justice Department continues to investigate the bank.
Blankfein, 56, is in his sixth year at the helm of the largest U.S. investment bank, which has spent two years fending off accusations of conflicts of interest and fraud.
Chanting “Yes we can,” about 65 protesters held a third consecutive day of sit-in protests in front of the White House on Monday morning, calling for the Obama administration to block approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada.
The demonstration lasted 19 minutes before the U.S. Park Police issued a final dispersal order and began making arrests just before 11:30 a.m. Seven protesters left before being arrested. Meanwhile, 65 more demonstrators arrested Saturday prepared to be released from jail Monday afternoon.
Ever since 9/11, counterterrorism has been the FBI's No. 1 priority, consuming the lion's share of its budget—$3.3 billion, compared to $2.6 billion for organized crime—and much of the attention of field agents and a massive, nationwide network of informants.
After years of emphasizing informant recruiting as a key task for its agents, the bureau now maintains a roster of 15,000 spies—many of them tasked, as Hussain was, with infiltrating Muslim communities in the United States. In addition, for every informant officially listed in the bureau's records, there are as many as three unofficial ones, according to one former high-level FBI official, known in bureau parlance as "hip pockets."
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