FBI Tweets
April 3rd, 2009 | Information Technology Justice | Posted by Elise Castelli
Earlier this week I wrote about how FDA was using Twitter to tweet about product recalls. But that’s not the only agency that uses Twitter to share information in a crisis.
The FBI tweets too. And is tweeting right now to let folks know that agency hostage negotiators are on their way from Albany to Binghamton, N.Y. to respond to the shooting and ongoing hostage situation there.
Tags: FBI, social media, twitter
Updated: AP reports federal CIO on leave
March 12th, 2009 | Information Technology Justice | Posted by Elise Castelli
Update 2: The Associated Press is reporting that Federal CIO Vivek Kundra is on leave “until further details of the case become known” following the raid of his former office this morning.
While the raid was going on Kundra spoke at an IT conference today. He set out bold plans for reforming federal IT by opening up more information to the public for review and feedback.
During today’s White House press briefing, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs declined to comment on the investigation into Kundra’s old office.
Stay tuned.
Update 1: The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia released some court documents related to today’s raid at the District of Columbia’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer.
The documents accuse D.C. employee, Yusuf Acar of conspiring with a contractor, Sushil Bansal, to steal from city taxpayers. Both Bansal, president of Advanced Integrated Technologies Corporation, and Acar were arrested today.
According to the documents, Acar, acting chief security officer for the D.C. government, allegedly approved work orders for products and services from Bansal’s company that were in excess of what the city actually received. The difference between the actual cost to Bansal’s company and what the D.C. government paid was split by the two defendants, according to the documents filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Until February, the office where Acar worked was led by the new Federal Chief Information Officer, Vivek Kundra. Kundra is not mentioned in the court documents and sources said he is not under investigation.
View the original post after the jump.
Tags: chief information officer, FBI, Vivek Kundra
FBI salaries = wasteful pork?
February 3rd, 2009 | Congress Economic Stimulus | Posted by Steve Losey
House Republicans yesterday unveiled a list of spending items in the stimulus bill that they called wasteful. One item in particular jumped out at me: “$75 million for salaries of employees at the FBI.”
Gregg Carlstrom last week highlighted Republican reluctance to pay for new cars for federal employees, but Republicans have also criticized many more line items affecting feds. Even though the construction industry is facing its own hardships in the economy, the GOP feels that building, renovating or repairing facilities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health, Homeland Security Department, State Department and Public Health Service would also be wasteful.
Tags: construction, FBI, Republicans, stimulus
FBI's Mark Felt, AKA Deep Throat, dead at 95
December 19th, 2008 | Justice | Posted by Steve Losey
Mark Felt, the former associate director of the FBI who helped break the Watergate scandal, died yesterday at 95.
Felt, who for decades hid his role in the scandal and was known only as Deep Throat, was the consummate whistleblower. As a career agent and the number two man at the FBI, Felt had firsthand knowledge of how the Nixon administration tried to sabotage the Bureau’s investigation into the Watergate burglary. He used that information to guide Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein as they dug into the scandal.
Felt’s “Deep Throat” moniker, which was given to him by a Post editor, has since become a slang phrase for any well-placed source, especially one in the government.
Side note: Watergate aficionados can visit the parking space where Woodward and Felt held their late-night meetings in the bottom level of the parking garage at 1401 Wilson Blvd. in Arlington, Va.
In July, I met with Brad Bunn, the program executive officer in charge of the Pentagon’s National Security Personnel System, in his office at that location. As our interview began, Bunn told me about the garage’s historical importance. I then suggested that Bunn and I put on trenchcoats and continue the interview downstairs.
Bunn nixed my idea. “It’s way too hot for trenchcoats,” he said.
Tags: FBI, whistleblowers, White House
Business the Postal Service could do without
December 17th, 2008 | Postal Service State | Posted by Tim Kauffman
Update: Fifteen embassies have received envelopes containing white powder, State Department deputy spokesman Robert Wood said in a press briefing this morning in Washington.
The embassies are: Berlin; Bern, Switzerland; Brussels, Belgium; Bucharest, Romania; Copenhagen, Denmark; Dublin, Ireland;Â Luxembourg; Madrid, Spain; Oslo, Norway; Paris; Riga, Latvia; Rome; Stockholm, Sweden; Tallinn, Estonia; and The Hague, Netherlands.Â
Tests have come back negative in all cases save for The Hague, where results are still pending. Wood said the department has no information on a possible motive for the mailings.
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Looks like the U.S. Postal Service is busy sending more than just Christmas cards and packages this holiday season. Envelopes containing suspicious white powder have turned up at several U.S. embassies overseas and more than 40 governors’ offices stateside in the past week or so.
The white powder in each of the letters has been field tested and come back negative for any harmful material, the FBI said in a statement released this morning. All of the letters have been postmarked from Texas and are similar in nature, the FBI said. An ABC News report says 11 U.S. embassies in Europe have received the letters.
The FBI and Postal Inspection Service are investigating the case. Meanwhile, the FBI has told governors and the State Department to be on the lookout for additional letters.
Tags: embassies, FBI, letters, Postal Inspection Service