U.S. tech companies and government agencies are racing to develop defenses against potential terrorist drone attacks, a threat that has security experts increasingly concerned as they’ve watched the rise of drone warfare in Israel, Ukraine and Yemen.
U.S. tech companies prepare for potential drone attacks as international strikes spark concern
Sponsored by Raytheon or something like that. /s
The Department of Justice is shelling out more than $6 billion to private companies to manage its asset forfeiture investigations, raising alarm from one nonprofit law firm that accuses police of “treating ordinary Americans like ATMs” and seizing their cash.
DOJ eyeing Americans ‘like ATMs,’ spending over $6 billion to aid civil asset forfeitures, watchdog says
H/T: Steve Lehto
The Internal Revenue Service is hiring special agents who shouldn’t be afraid of using “deadly force.”
The IRS is hiring special agents prepared to use ‘deadly force’ if needed and is paying up to $95,000
H/T: Steve Lehto
A Front Company and a Fake Identity: How the U.S. Came to Use Spyware It Was Trying to Kill.
The secret contract — which The New York Times is disclosing for the first time — violates the Biden administration’s public policy, and still appears to be active. The contract, reviewed by The Times, stated that the “United States government” would be the ultimate user of the tool, although it is unclear which government agency authorized the deal and might be using the spyware. It specifically allowed the government to test, evaluate, and even deploy the spyware against targets of its choice in Mexico.
…
The secret November 2021 contract used the same American company — designated as “Cleopatra Holdings” but actually a small New Jersey-based government contractor called Riva Networks — that the F.B.I. used two years earlier to purchase Pegasus. Riva’s chief executive used a fake name in signing the 2021 contract and at least one contract Riva executed on behalf of the F.B.I.
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The deal unfolded as the European private equity fund that owns NSO pursued a plan to get U.S. government business by establishing a holding company, Gideon Cyber Systems. The private equity fund’s ultimate goal was to find an American buyer for the company.
Related:
Read More »If it can conceivably be considered a “third party record,” the government is going to seek warrantless access to it. The Third Party Doctrine — ushered into existence by the Supreme Court in 1979 — says there’s no expectation of privacy in information shared with third parties. That case dealt with phone records. People may prefer the government stay out of their personal conversations, but the Smith v. Maryland ruling said that if people shared this info with phone companies (an involuntary “sharing” since this information was needed to connect calls and bill phone users), the government could obtain this information without a warrant.
More Mass Surveillance: FOIA Docs Reveal Illegal Snooping On US Residents’ Financial Transactions
By Andrew P. Napolitano
It gives me no joy to write this piece.
Even a cursory review of the redacted version of the affidavit submitted in support of the government’s application for a search warrant at the home of former President Donald Trump reveals that he will soon be indicted by a federal grand jury for three crimes: Removing and concealing national defense information, giving NDI to those not legally entitled to possess it and obstruction of justice by failing to return NDI to those who are legally entitled to retrieve it.
Donald Trump will soon be indicted. Here’s why
By Thomas Knapp | CounterPunch | May 6, 2021
“The Biden administration,” CNN reports, “is considering using outside firms to track extremist chatter by Americans online.”
The Biden Administration Wants to Partner with Criminals to Spy on You
U.S. Schools Are Buying Phone-Hacking Tech That the FBI Uses to Investigate Terrorists
In the case New Jersey v. T.L.O, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that schools do not necessarily need a warrant to search students so long as officials have a reasonable belief a student has broken the law or school policy, and the search is not unnecessarily intrusive and reasonably related in scope to the circumstances under which the search was originally justified. The “reasonableness” standard is extremely broad, largely deferential to the whims of school officials, and can serve as the basis for fishing expeditions; courts have only rarely ruled that school searches violate the Fourth Amendment.
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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