Judge Orders FBI To Return $57,000 Seized From A US Private Vaults' Customer Since It Apparently Can't Justify Keeping It

from the broad-speculation-isn't-probable-cause dept

The judge, who blocked the FBI from moving forward with forfeiting property from certain US Private Vaults' customers who haven't been accused of crimes, is now ordering the FBI to return money to one of the people contesting the seizures.

The FBI raided US Private Vaults in March, claiming customers, if not the owners of the business themselves, were involved in a host of crimes, including drug trafficking and money laundering. It's now August and no one has been charged. The FBI, however, has millions of dollars in currency and other property in its possession and is refusing to give any of it back.

The FBI's warrant specifically said agents would only search the content of safety deposit boxes to determine ownership. The contents were to be inventoried but the FBI's affidavit suggested the agents performing the raid would not be searching the contents for evidence of criminal acts.

That self-imposed restriction was ignored. And the FBI was able to move forward with seizures even without bringing criminal charges because civil asset forfeiture remains a thing in this country: the taking of people's property using only the unproven assertions that they may be the result of illegal activity. This vagueness didn't sit well with Judge R. Gary Klausner, who blocked the FBI from moving forward with some forfeitures early last month.

The FBI insists it is right to keep this process in motion. However, as the judge points out in his latest order [PDF], its insistence hasn't been accompanied by any plausible justifications. (h/t FourthAmendment.com)

The facts of this case raise two questions of constitutional import: first, "Why does the Government have [Joseph] Ruiz's $57,000?"; and second, "Why won't the government give it back?"

According to the government, the why is self-explanatory. A grand jury convicted the business of conspiring with customers to launder money, distribute drugs, and structure transactions to hide income from the IRS. The judge says the FBI's decision to seize the contents of boxes makes sense, given that it had to seize property containing many small boxes of property.

Though the Court makes no ruling as to the constitutionality of the Government's March 22, 2021 search and seizure, the Government's story makes practical sense. Assuming the Government was authorized to seize the nests of safety deposit boxes at USPV, then, by necessity, the Government was authorized to seize Ruiz's nest egg which was locked up in Box 7622.

That answers the first "why," and that answer largely rests on the assumption the search and seizure was proper, which the court assumes for the sake of argument, but not as a matter of law.

The second "why," however, has not been answered satisfactorily by the FBI.

The Government goes on at length as to the general difficulties in returning peoples' property to them, but the upshot of the Government's argument is that returning property to hundreds of people is a slow bureaucratic process.

As to the justification for continuing to seize the $57,000 found in Box 7622, the Government's answer falls flatter still. The Government asserts, without further explanation, that it is keeping Ruiz's $57,000 because "the cash is the subject of [] pending in rem forfeiture proceedings."

But why? The FBI notice sheds little light on the issue.

The court points out the notice only informs Ruiz his cash has been seized because of suspicion violations of US laws. But the laws referenced cover up to 35 different crimes and the government has yet to state which specific crimes it suspects Ruiz has committed. It's not enough to say things are the way they are because things are the way they are, as the FBI has done here.

Why has the Government kept the $57,000 now that Ruiz has come forward and sworn under the penalty of perjury that it is his? The Government doesn't really say. Instead, the Government states that it continues to seize Ruiz's property because "the cash is the subject of… pending in rem forfeiture proceedings." This explanation is not a justification. Merely stating that the Government has initiated forfeiture proceedings against the property does not offer any insight into how the Government's continued retention of the $57,000 complies with the dictates of the Fourth Amendment.

The result is an order for the FBI to justify this seizure or give back the money within seven days. This order follows 106 days of the FBI keeping Ruiz's cash without justification.

The FBI has chosen to try to justify the seizure. However, the assertions made in its affidavit don't offer any better explanations for the continued seizure. All the affidavit [PDF] does is declare the FBI can't say for sure how Ruiz ended up with this money. And, according to the FBI, this uncertainty should be all it needs to maintain permanent control of Ruiz's cash.

The affidavit claims agents can find no legal records pertaining to insurance/injury settlements that would add up to the $57,000 Ruiz claims came from insurance payouts. It also points out Ruiz hasn't filed a tax return since 2018, which it assumes means Ruiz has made no legitimate money since that point. Of course, this could simply mean Ruiz has made income he hasn't paid taxes on, but that's not included in the statutes listed in the government's forfeiture notice.

It also claims Ruiz is connected to unlicensed distribution of marijuana paraphernalia. But it also points out this potentially illegal business does NOT generate much cash flow, so by its own admission, the FBI is stating that the money seized could not have come from this.

On USPV Executor/Conservator paperwork, which Joseph RUIZ (“RUIZ”) left in the box, he listed his email address as [email protected]. Holysmokescrafts@yahoo is an on-line marijuana paraphernalia business, specializing in turning liquor bottles into marijuana smoking devices. On-line businesses do not typically generate cash, but this business suggests RUIZ may be involved in the cannabis industry in other ways. According to the California Department of Cannabis Control, RUIZ is not licensed in California to participate in the cannabis industry in any way.

The FBI also absurdly suggests that the mere existence of a bank account in Ruiz's name means he has a way to pay for living and medical expenses even without the $57,000 the FBI took from him.

Finally, the February 26, 2021 CTR by J.P. Morgan Chase, referenced above, demonstrates that RUIZ had an active bank account at J.P. Morgan Chase within weeks of the execution of the USPV seizure warrant, suggesting that he had a readily available avenue to pay for rent, groceries and other expenses.

I'm not sure if the Special Agent is aware of this, but the bank does not pay for these expenses. The bank merely holds a person's money and gives them a convenient way to pay for these using their own money, not the bank's. The FBI has Ruiz's money at the moment, not the bank. And I have no doubt that if there were any significant amount of money in that account, the FBI would be trying to seize that too.

This is going to be a tough sell in front of this judge. The FBI is saying the absence of evidence backing Ruiz's claims about the money's origin is the same thing as evidence of criminal wrongdoing. The FBI obviously doesn't know where the money came from but it wants to use a list of 35 federal crimes as probable cause for keeping it. The judge has already smacked the FBI twice for its vague justifications. Presenting a lack of evidence as culpatory evidence of criminal acts likely isn't going to fly.

Filed Under: civil asset forfeiture, fbi, forfeiture, in rem, legalized theft, safety deposit boxes, warrants
Companies: us private vaults

Oversight Unable To Discover Which FBI Agents Leaked Clinton Investigation Info Because Goddamn Everyone Was Leaking Stuff

from the selective-transparency dept

Selective leaking has always been a part of the federal government's day-to-day business. When there are narratives to massage, controlled leaking is tolerated. Leaks that make the government look bad tend to result in prosecutions, but leaks that act as highly unofficial PR or align with the motivations of the agencies they're leaked from are largely ignored.

Every so often, though, oversight is asked to keep an eye on leaking, if only to make it appear that all leaks are considered equal. In the interest of perceived fairness, the FBI's Office of the Inspector General has taken a look at the incidents surrounding the selective release of information about the investigation of Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email server during her stint at the State Department under Barack Obama.

There were questions about political motivations -- ones not helped at all by selective leaks about the investigation. This was on top of supposedly official actions, like then-FBI director James Comey's decision to hold a press conference to announce the outcome of the FBI's investigation. In the agency's determination, what Clinton did was unwise and gave the appearance of impropriety, but was not illegal.

That would have been it. But shortly before the 2016 election, James Comey decided it was time for him to act unwisely and give off an air of impropriety by announcing the FBI would be reopening its investigation of Clinton and her email server, thanks to developments in an unrelated case. Comey's actions were also questionable, but apparently not actually illegal.

The OIG tried to dig into the FBI's use of selective leaking during this time period. And it has arrived at the conclusion that it's almost impossible to accurately point fingers, much less discourage powerful federal agencies from doing whatever the hell they want to, policies and laws notwithstanding. (h/t Brad Heath)

The report [PDF] leads off with a summary of the undoubtedly frustrating investigation. First, it points out how things should be handled…

Among the issues we reviewed in that report were allegations that FBI employees improperly disclosed non-public information regarding the FBI’s investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. FBI policies strictly limit the employees who are authorized to speak to the media, and require all other employees to coordinate with or obtain approval from the FBI’s Office of Public Affairs (OPA) in connection with such communications.

And follows that up with a resigned statement about how things actually are…

Nonetheless, as described in our 2016 pre-election report, we found that these policies appeared to be widely ignored during the period we reviewed. Specifically, in our analysis of FBI telephone records, FBI email records, FBI text, and Microsoft Lync instant messages, we identified numerous FBI employees, at all levels of the organization and with no official reason to be in contact with the media, who were nevertheless in frequent contact with reporters.

The Federal Bureau of Sunk Ships (feat. Loose Lips). This would be a national embarrassment if it weren't so hilarious. The FBI screws over public records requesters on a regular basis and issues tight-lipped "no comments" or Glomars whenever it's being scrutinized by critics. But apparently everyone on staff is handing out secrets to half the Rolodex whenever they're feeling particularly chatty about politically-tinged investigations.

And if this seems damning, imagine what the OIG would have found if it was actually engaged in an investigation determined to root out criminal activity.

Because this was a non-criminal administrative misconduct review, there was no legal basis to seek a court order to compel Internet service providers to produce to the OIG the content of any personal email communications for these FBI employees.

As much as I'd like to see some federal agents suddenly jobless, I appreciate the restraint of the OIG, which would have been treading into First Amendment waters by seeking content of communications with journalists. All the same, it appears the FBI doesn't really need to keep paying people to staff its Public Relations department. It has all the unofficial help it needs to get the word out.

Those who were caught chatting it up with reporters tended to pass the buck, offering the Inspector General facts not in evidence to justify their casual disregard of FBI policy.

Employees interviewed by the OIG generally claimed that they believed their contacts were either authorized by OPA or a field office Special Agent in Charge (SAC) or Assistant Director in Charge (ADIC) to provide background about an FBI initiative or completed investigation, or were personal in nature. Given the absence, in most instances, of any documentary evidence reflecting the substance of these communications, the OIG was unable to determine whether these communications were consistent with the explanations provided by the FBI employees or instead involved the sharing of non-public information with reporters.

Behold the Federal Office of the Future! It's not just telecommuting and flexible staffing. It's also paper trail-less, which probably helps the environment in some way. God bless America.

In conclusion: holy shit.

Our ability to identify individuals who have improperly disclosed non-public information is often hampered by two significant factors. First, we frequently find that the universe of Department and FBI employees who had access to sensitive information that has been leaked is substantial, often involving dozens, and in some instances, more than 100 people.

Second, although FBI policy strictly limits the employees who are authorized to speak to the media, we found that this policy appeared to be widely ignored during the period we reviewed. We identified numerous FBI employees, at all levels of the organization and with no official reason to be in contact with the media, who were nevertheless in frequent contact with reporters. The large number of FBI employees who were in contact with journalists during this time period impacted our ability to identify the sources of leaks. For example, during the periods we reviewed, we identified dozens of FBI employees that had contact with members of the media.

Forget FOIA. Maybe all anyone needs is a barely targeted "request for comment." And it would be ridiculous to believe the FBI is the only agency that behaves this way. The federal government -- as multiple presidents have discovered -- is staffed by the leakiest bunch of leakers who ever leaked. The problem isn't the leaks. It's the selective prosecution of leaks. If the leaks serve the government, they're just part of the public service infrastructure. But if they embarrass the government or expose wrongdoing, they're suddenly criminal acts. And that unequal treatment cannot be addressed by internal investigations. It's a mindset problem -- one the government has no intention of changing, no matter who's occupying the Oval Office.

Filed Under: doj, fbi, hillary clinton, inspector general, james comey, journalism, leaks, oversight, reporting, transparency

Court Docs Appear To Show FBI Informants Contributed Two-Thirds Of The Conspirators To The Michigan Governor Kidnapping Plot

from the crime-continues-to-pay,-but-mostly-for-informants dept

The FBI's proclivity for inside jobs has not gone unnoticed here at Techdirt. The FBI primarily considers itself a counterterrorist agency these days, which has led to a lot of undercover work that closely resembles entrapment.

Utilizing a large number of informants (some coerced into this work by threats of visa revocation, travel restrictions, etc.), the FBI has gone into the business of radicalization, turning internet loudmouths (and the occasional nursing home denizen) into would-be terrorists -- going so far as to come up with all the plans, provide all the funding, and supply all the necessary items to engage in terrorism, foreign or domestic.

The focus has largely been on the nation's Muslim population, operating on the assumption that the next threat to this nation will be like the last confirmed threat to this nation -- the one observed on September 11, 2001. The FBI has been late in arriving to the domestic terrorism party -- largely because, like other law enforcement agencies, it chose to believe white nationalists and other far right extremists were less of a threat than residents with darker skin.

But now that this domestic threat can no longer be ignored, the FBI has apparently thrown itself into its new work. The tactics -- quasi-entrapment utilizing a large number of informants -- haven't changed. BuzzFeed has two reports on the FBI's involvement in the plot to kidnap and kill Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer -- one that was hatched as the nation underwent the growing pains of dealing with a pandemic while "led" by a president who claimed the virus killing thousands of US residents was either a hoax, a Chinese-led conspiracy to dethrone him, or an exaggerated threat.

A handful of the defendants facing federal charges in the kidnapping case are now asking the courts to take a closer look at the FBI's involvement, claiming what happened here was more entrapment than a grassroots movement to forcibly remove a state official from office.

The government employed at least a dozen confidential informants to infiltrate groups of armed extremists who allegedly plotted to kidnap the governor of Michigan, according to a new filing in federal court on Monday.

The filing, made by one of the five defendants in the federal case, asked that prosecutors be ordered to share more information about those informants, their relationship with the FBI, and the specific roles they played in building the case. It came among a blizzard of 15 new defense motions in the high-profile case, including requests to move it to a different district, to suppress evidence from a search warrant, and to try at least one defendant separately from the others.

For those keeping score at home: if these allegations are true, the number of FBI informants involved in this case outnumbered the non-FBI informants by a ratio of more than 2-to-1. Twelve (alleged) informants. Five (5) regular people charged in the kidnapping conspiracy. Now, I'm no expert on peer pressure, but even if the conspiracy was a straight-up democracy, the ayes would have carried the motion to kidnap, even if those votes were limited to people being paid by the FBI.

There are even more details in the follow-up report, compiled by BuzzFeed after taking a look at the flurry of filings by the defendants in this case.

Here's just one example of how this plot unfolded day-by-day:

“Everybody down with what’s going on?” an Iraq War veteran in the group demanded to know when they ended their recon mission, well past midnight, at a campsite where they were all staying.

“If you’re not down with the thought of kidnapping,” someone else replied, “don’t sit here.”

The men planned for all kinds of obstacles, but there was one they didn’t anticipate: The FBI had been listening in all along.

For six months, the Iraq War vet had been wearing a wire, gathering hundreds of hours of recordings. He wasn’t the only one. A biker who had traveled from Wisconsin to join the group was another informant. The man who’d advised them on where to put the explosives — and offered to get them as much as the task would require — was an undercover FBI agent. So was a man in one of the other cars who said little and went by the name Mark.

The informants were anything but passive. They did far more than observe and report. They moved plans forward, supplied intel and items, and -- according to these documents -- possibly instigated the plot to kidnap the Michigan governor.

And this wasn't the only plot the FBI had a hand in. One informant organized similar meetings of minds all over the country, apparently hoping to find enough far-right extremists willing to take the next step towards criminal activity if adequately goaded by the FBI's network of informants.

Because of this, multiple defendants in this case are hoping a judge sees the FBI's involvement as far more than investigatory. The allegations made -- coupled with some of the evidence handed over to defendants -- appear to show FBI informants were the prime movers in these plots, pushing and cajoling reluctant targets into doing more than simply being extremely online.

To be sure, there are some dangerous individuals out there. But the five rounded up here with the involvement of 12 FBI informants, for the most part, weren't. Here's BuzzFeed's description of one of the accused kidnappers, Pete Musico:

Musico bragged that he had thrown Molotov cocktails in cops’ homes and showed off a lump of something he claimed was C-4. But there was no proof he’d ever attacked any officers and the plastic explosives later turned out to be fake. All the tough talk had never gotten beyond jokes and disturbing but vague rhetoric.

And here's only a small part of the FBI's involvement in turning this online smack-talking into a reality:

A few weeks later, [FBI informant] Dan drove five Watchmen and 6,000 rounds of ammunition to Cambria, Wisconsin, for a national training exercise organized by Robeson. He rented a Suburban for the weekend, paid for gas, and subsidized food and lodging for the group, all courtesy of the FBI.

This led to the involvement of even more FBI employees.

By this point, Dan had managed to insert an undercover FBI agent — “Red,” a supposed explosives expert — into the group. A second undercover agent, known as Mark, had also joined up, after a woman posing as his girlfriend had approached Fox’s then-fiancé, saying they wanted to train.

Dan set them up to buy $4,000 in explosives. The only non-FBI members of this group he took with him only managed to put together $298. Despite being completely unable to buy the explosives they wanted, they were arrested by FBI agents during the so-called "buy."

The entire article is a fascinating read, detailing the FBI's extremely heavy involvement in this case. It may well be a plot to kidnap the Michigan governor would have been carried out without the FBI's encouragement and funding, but the idea may also have died the swift death of thousands of other heated online conversations.

Then there's this disturbing postscript:

An FBI agent at the center of the investigation into the plot to kidnap and kill Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is accused of smashing his wife's head against a nightstand and choking her after a dispute stemming from their attendance at a swingers' party, according to court records.

Special Agent Richard Trask, 39, of Kalamazoo, was charged Monday with assault with intent to do great bodily harm, less than murder following the alleged incident Sunday.

An affidavit filed by the Kalamazoo County Sheriff's Office in Kalamazoo County District Court said Trask's wife had bloody lacerations to the right side of her head and "blood all over chest, clothing arms and hand," as well as "severe" bruising to her neck and throat.

This won't help the FBI. This is something the defense can use to attack the agent's credibility -- something that can potentially undermine his testimony and statements, as well as his personal integrity. It also raises questions about how much leeway the FBI gives its agents and informants, and how much it overlooks as long as they produce results.

There's still a long way to go in these prosecutions. But this doesn't look good. There may have been some people out there willing to kidnap and kill a politician they disagreed with, but this plot appears to have involved more people pretending to be conspirators than actual conspirators.

Filed Under: doj, domestic terrorism, entrapment, fbi, gretchen whitmer, informants, kidnapping, michigan, own plot

Phones Backdoored By The FBI Are Being Sold To Unsuspecting People Just Wanting A Cheap Replacement Device

from the retooling-the-tools-of-the-trade dept

Now that it's been revealed the FBI -- along with an unnamed conspirator linked to encrypted phone development -- created a honeypot device to harvest communications between suspected criminals, the backdoored devices are making their debut in the (non-criminal) public domain.

Following the exposure of the FBI-created "Anom" chat service -- a backdoored service placed on secure phones supposedly only sold to members of large criminal organizations -- multiple law enforcement agencies announced the arrest of dozens of suspected criminals. The devices, however, are still out there. And they're showing up on classified ad sales sites and potentially suckering in people just looking for a cheap Android device.

Whatever the price is, you're getting screwed, as Joseph Cox reports for Motherboard.

Unlocking the Google Pixel 4a with a PIN code reveals some common apps: Tinder, Instagram, Facebook, Netflix, and even Candy Crush. But none of those apps work, and tapping their icons doesn't do anything. Resetting the phone and typing in another PIN opens up an entirely different section of the device, with a new background and new apps. Now in place of the old apps sit a clock, a calculator, and the device's settings.

Clicking the calculator doesn't open a calculator—it opens a login screen.

The devices have a sole purpose: to enable secure chats between owners of these devices. Their original usefulness was subverted by law enforcement agencies able to intercept the compromised communications. Now that they're ostensibly free of law enforcement meddling, they're equally useless. The only option is a chat app known to be a honeypot for law enforcement investigators. Whether or not they're still being monitored no longer matters. That the service itself is compromised makes it an untenable option.

If you want a phone that doesn't do phone stuff, these pre-compromised devices are an option, I guess.

"I bought this phone online, for ridiculously low price, now I understand why," that second person said. That person also provided Motherboard with photos and a video of their device. In that case, the Anom login screen appeared inaccessible, but other settings such as the decoy PIN code remained. "Probably this phone was used by some drug dealer :D," they said.

Hobbyists and other developers are trying to help people who've purchased phones that do nothing more than offer them the opportunity to share their communications with law enforcement agencies around the world. If they can get them to work like other Android devices, purchasers may find themselves with potentially more secure devices once they abandon the Anom app crafted by FBI agents.

There appears to be no way to activate location tracking (or turn it off, for that matter), suggesting these phones do not harvest this data. A built-in option allows for PIN scrambling that randomly rearranges digits to defeat shoulder surfing when detained perps input their passcodes. Users can also set up a wipe code that will wipe the device from the lockscreen or perform this task automatically if the phone is not logged into after a certain amount of time. This feature can be accessed from the status bar, making it ideal for quick deletion of incriminating content.

But those features can only be trusted if one assumes the limited OS is not also compromised. Given what we know about the built-in chat service, only the ignorant would assume any of these features would actually prevent investigators from recovering data.

So, if you're in the market for a pre-compromised phone, there are options out there. But most people looking for a cheap phone aren't going to be happy with the limitations of this device and even less so when they discover these are little more than an investigational tool for law enforcement agencies around the world.

Filed Under: anom, backdoors, doj, fbi, honeypots, resale market, used phones

FBI Cites Guidelines That Don't Actually Forbid Social Media Monitoring As The Reason It Was Blindsided By The January 6 Attack

from the some-monitoring-is-more-equal-than-others dept

The FBI has spent thousands on social media monitoring software. These contracts are public, making it literally unbelievable the agency has managed to stave off FOIA requests by handing out "neither confirm nor deny" non-answers. A court didn't buy the FBI's excuse for its Glomar, pointing out that confirming public information would not give criminals a heads-up on surveillance software the FBI is currently using.

The FBI's inability to honestly discuss its social media monitoring programs continues. The January 6th raid on the US Capitol building has resulted in hundreds of arrests. A lot of the evidence for these prosecutions has come from social media posts by members of the ad hoc raiding party.

The FBI continues to provide contradictory responses when questioned about its social media monitoring programs. Its Congressional testimony has kind of eluded direct questions about the FBI's incursions into First Amendment territory -- something the FBI is now using to explain why it wasn't more aware of the impending threat prior to January 6th.

Quinta Jurecic's post for Lawfare points out the FBI lack of awareness was somewhat stunning, given the vast amount of publicly available information circulating social media prior to the Capitol raid.

The only document the FBI produced warning about Jan. 6 was a single bulletin issued by the bureau’s Norfolk, Virginia, field office. This absence of warning is particularly striking given that a significant amount of the planning for the Jan. 6 riot took place in public on social media platforms like Facebook, Gab and Parler. Anyone with a Twitter account and an hour of time to kill could have warned about the potential for violence on Jan. 6—and many did.

FBI Director Chris Wray has been questioned about the FBI's lack of preparedness. And his responses haven't cleared much up. According to Wray, FBI guidelines forbid agents from camping out on social media and searching for evidence of potential criminal activity.

“We’re not allowed to ... just sit and monitor social media and look at one person’s posts … just in case,” Wray told the House Judiciary Committee recently.

But that's not strictly true. The agency's guidelines do not strictly forbid this activity. The FBI can monitor social media platforms. It just usually doesn't. Wray says guidelines prevent agents from "collecting First Amendment activities," but there's nothing in the rules that says the FBI can't monitor open-source information like public posts.

This has been Wray's line through several hearings this year. But the guidelines say something completely different.

[A]ssessments may be undertaken proactively with such objectives as detecting criminal activities; obtaining information on individuals, groups, or organizations of possible investigative interest, either because they may be involved in criminal or national security-threatening activities or because they may be targeted for attack or victimization by such activities; and identifying and assessing individuals who may have value as human sources. For example, assessment activities may involve proactively surfing the Internet to find publicly accessible websites and services through which recruitment by terrorist organizations and promotion of terrorist crimes is openly taking place…

So, perhaps the problem was the January 6th raid was carried out by the wrong kind of terrorists. The FBI is certainly proactive when it comes to monitoring the Muslim community "just in case." When it comes to white insurrectionists, the agency apparently just hangs back and lets things take their course until it becomes imperative for the FBI to get involved.

Wray, at best, is only partly right.

In other words, Wray is correct that the bureau needs an authorized purpose to review social media, and that First Amendment considerations are involved. But his testimony leaves out the fact that the DIOG specifically authorizes FBI employees to review social media posts potentially protected by the First Amendment under certain circumstances—circumstances that could well have been met in the case of the soon-to-be Capitol rioters. After all, wouldn’t Facebook posts announcing plans to invade a government building raise criminal or national security concerns under the FBI’s definition of “authorized purpose”?

It's not that we should be encouraging the FBI to engage in more proactive monitoring of social media -- something that's sure to raise some First Amendment issues. It's that the FBI has never been shy about focusing this attention on certain kinds of people while appearing to ignore others who haven't historically been considered a threat to national security by the agency.

Perhaps this take isn't accurate and the FBI takes a similar hands-off approach when keeping an eye on other potential threats involving less-white people. But given the FBI's long history of utilizing social media to radicalize local adherents of Islam into attempting to commit criminal acts, it hardly seems likely the FBI follows these guidelines (the ones that don't say what the FBI Director says they do) consistently. It has experienced this sort of colorblindness in the past. And the conclusion one can easily draw -- especially when the FBI hasn't offered up a better explanation for why it missed the warning signs for the January 6th attack -- is that the agency largely feels white people are nothing to worry about.

Filed Under: chris wray, fbi, insurrection, january 6th, public information, social media, social media monitoring

Judge Blocks FBI From Moving Forward With Forfeitures Of Property Seized In US Private Vaults Raid

from the get-your-shit-together,-g-men dept

Earlier this year, the FBI raided a privately owned safety deposit box business in Los Angeles. The business provided secure storage for customers' valuables, which were only accessible via biometric scans. The DOJ accused the company of engaging in drug trafficking and money laundering, but has yet to bring charges against any of the company's employees or its customers.

The FBI obtained a search warrant that limited agents to seizing items belonging to the company but, very expressly, not items belonging to customers. This restriction -- and the FBI's own inventory policy -- was ignored. Over the course of five days, FBI agents searched and seized the contents of nearly 1,000 boxes.

The warrant said the FBI would understandably take temporary possession of the boxes. But it forbade them from searching them for criminal evidence. The FBI's policy limited its inventory of the boxes' contents to doing only what was necessary to find information about the property's owner so they could be notified and allowed to retrieve their contents.

This didn't happen. The FBI walked away with millions of dollars and -- months after the seizures -- has yet to accuse any customer of criminal activity. Several customers sued. And a federal judge has just blocked the FBI from taking possession (via civil asset forfeiture) of some of the property seized in the raid.

In a 7-page ruling Tuesday, [Judge R. Gary] Klausner sided with plaintiffs and granted the temporary restraining order preventing the government from forfeiting Jeni, Michael, Joseph and Travis’ property.

To satisfy due process, the government must provide property owners notice of the statutes buttressing forfeiture proceedings, the ruling said, adding that the notices sent to plaintiffs failed to do so.

“The notices therefore fall woefully short of the government’s duty to provide ‘the specific statutory provision allegedly violated,’” Klausner wrote in the order.

As the judge's order [PDF] points out, the law requires specificity when notifying citizens of the government's desire to forcibly transfer ownership. The notices sent by the FBI weren't specific.

Rather than list the specific statutory provisions the Government maintains justify forfeiture of the specific property seized from each USPV box, the Government notices state:

Forfeiture Authority: The forfeiture of this property has been initiated pursuant to 18 USC 981(a)(1)(C) [sic.] and the following additional federal laws: 19 USC 1602-1619, 18 USC 983 and 28 CFR Parts 8 and 9.

The list of purported statutory bases for forfeiture is anything but specific. Title 18 USC 981(a)(1)(C) lists thirty-five sections of the United States Code. A violation of any one of those code provisions can provide a basis for forfeiture… These include code sections outlawing influencing a loan officer, forgery, counterfeiting, uttering counterfeit obligations, smuggling, loan fraud, computer fraud, and bank fraud, among others.

No specificity, no seizure. The FBI is blocked from moving forward with forfeiture belonging to the four plaintiffs until it can provide them with the proper notice -- one that specifies what criminal activity the government believes the seized property is linked to or the result of.

Given the total of the take from US Private Vaults raid, I would expect the government to give up this property rather than head into some litigation that may result in similar lawsuits or court orders affecting the dispensation of other seizures/searches that haven't been challenged yet. This could have been avoided if the government had followed its own warrant restrictions, its own internal policies, and the contours of the rights enshrined in the Constitution.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, civil asset forfeiture, civil asset seizure, doj, fbi, safety deposit box, seizure

'Press X To Apply Fourth Amendment:' Documents Show How GrayKey Brute Forces IOS Passwords

from the device-helpfully-backlit-to-combat-going-darkness dept

Consecutive FBI directors (James Comey, and Chris Wray) have declared a small scale war on encryption. Both of these directors relied on inflated numbers to make their case -- an error chalked up to software rather than rhetorical convenience. (The FBI has refused to hand over a correct count of encrypted devices in its possession for more than three years at this point.)

The FBI's narrative keeps getting interrupted by inconvenient facts. Proclamations that the criminal world is "going dark" are often followed by the announcement of new exploits that give law enforcement the ability to decrypt phones and access their contents.

Grayshift is one of the vendors selling phone-cracking tech to law enforcement agencies. The company has an ex-Apple security engineer on staff and has been duking it out with the device manufacturer for the past few years. It seems to be able to find exploits faster than Apple can patch them, leading to a tech arms race that law enforcement appears to be able to win from time to time.

Joseph Cox at Motherboard has obtained more documents about Grayshift's phone-cracking device, GrayKey. Apple prides itself on providing secure devices. But it appears GrayKey is still capable of bypassing iOS security features, enabling investigators to brute force device passwords. And it can still do this even if the targeted device is on the verge of battery death.

The instructions describe the various conditions it claims allow a GrayKey connection: the device being turned off (known as Before First Unlock, or BFU); the phone is turned on (After First Unlock, or AFU); the device having a damaged display, and when the phone has low battery.

"GrayKey known to install agent with 2 to 3% battery life," the document reads, referring to the "brute force agent" GrayKey installs on the phone in order to unlock the device.

This suggests the agent doesn't demand too much from the processor when installing. It also suggests GrayKey's devices are portable, allowing cops to attempt to access phone contents while away from the office with limited options for charging seized devices.

The device includes a 1.5-billion word dictionary that can be utilized during brute force attacks to guess alphanumeric passwords. The instructions obtained by Motherboard also indicate the device has the power to extract metadata from "inaccessible" files -- something it can apparently do even if the device is still in a locked state.

And Grayshift truly cares about your rights, Joe and Judy Criminal Suspect.

"Prior to connecting any Apple mobile device to GrayKey, determine if proper search authority has been established for the requested Apple mobile device," the document reads.

Yeaaaaaahhhhh... that should do it. Grayshift has no way of enforcing this so cops are on the honor system. And we've all seen how great cops are at keeping themselves honest. This little nod towards Supreme Court precedent and Fourth Amendment doesn't even ask for something like a supervisor's passcode prior to operation to help ensure all the proper paperwork is in order. Left to their own devices, cops are bound to illegally access suspects' devices.

And if brute forcing doesn't work, there's another built-in option -- one covered here previously. GrayKey can surreptitiously install a very targeted keylogger that records the passcode when it's entered by the phone's owner. Cops can get their largesse on and give suspects back their devices so they can copy down phone numbers or let people know where they're at. And when suspects unlock their devices to this, cops are CC'ed by Grayshift's malware.

The battle between government contractors and device makers continues. And as long as it remains a battle in which neither party has proven to be able to hold a lead, it's disingenuous to claim -- as Chris Wray and James Comey have -- that encryption is a barrier impossible to overcome.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, cracking, doj, encryption, fbi, going dark, graykey, hacking, ios
Companies: apple, grayshift

Federal Judge Says FBI Obtained Twitter Employee's Emails Illegally

from the sliding-under-the-low-bar-of-probable-cause dept

In late 2019, the federal government indicted a Twitter employee, accusing him of acting as an agent of Saudi government. The allegations were pretty ugly.

Defendants Ahmad Abouammo, Ali Alzabarah, and Ahmed Almutairi were charged by Indictment on November 19, 2019 for acting as agents of the government of Saudi Arabia without notification to the Attorney General as required by law. Abouammo and Alzabarah, while employees at Twitter, accessed without authorization and provided to officials of the government of Saudi Arabia nonpublic information about Twitter users that were of interest to the government of Saudi Arabia, including dissidents and critics of the government.

No one needs to be helping the Saudi government hunt down dissidents. This is a government that has actually killed a journalist critical of the Saudi prince -- a killing followed by a dismemberment that occurred in the Saudi government's Istanbul consulate.

The accusations were that Abouammo used his position as media partner manager for Twitter's Middle East presence to access information about accounts the Saudi government wanted to spy on. The government has been pursuing a conviction for a couple of years now and has just been hit with a little bad news. It appears the FBI colored outside the constitutional lines while compiling evidence against Abouammo. Here's Nicholas Iovino with more details for Courthouse News Service:

In August 2016, the FBI seized Abouammo’s Google account records, which revealed that a Saudi foreign official had emailed the defendant around the same time Abouammo started suddenly and frequently accessing a prominent Saudi critic’s user account, according to federal prosecutors.

Prosecutors say the email exchange also coincided with Abouammo meeting the Saudi foreign official in London, receiving a $20,000 watch from that same official and having numerous phone conversations with the Saudi representative.

Abouammo asked U.S. District Judge Edward Chen to throw out that evidence, arguing the FBI failed to establish probable cause in a search warrant application before confiscating his personal data.

On Tuesday, Chen partly granted Abouammo’s request.

The ruling [PDF] says the FBI used a bit of guesswork in a warrant affidavit, allowing presuppositions to replace facts. That sort of thing doesn't comply with the Fourth Amendment.

Even assuming a deferential scope of review of the magistrate judge’s determination, see United States v. Wright, 215 F.3d 1020, 1025 (9th Cir. 2000), it is clear there was no probable cause to support the 2016 search. While there was probable cause to believe Defendant Ali Alzabarah accessed Twitter user information without authorization and that it was done at the behest of Foreign Official-1, there was no such probable cause with respect to Defendant Abouammo.

The indictment says one thing, but the affidavit the FBI used to obtain information says another.

There is no allegation that Defendant Abouammo, a U.S. citizen born in Egypt with no personal ties to Saudi Arabia, obtained unauthorized access to Twitter users, much less at the behest of the Saudi government. The circumstantial evidence of communications reveal little more than sporadic unremarkable communications with these subjects which does not fit any pattern with the illicit conduct of Defendant Alzabarah or Official-1.

And there may not even be any conspiracy… or at least none alleged sufficiently in the warrant affidavit seeking information from Google.

Other than being reciprocal Twitter followers, there is no evidence of any communication between Defendant Abouammo and Defendant Alzabarah. Similarly, there is little communication between Defendant Abouammo and Defendant Almutairi cited in the affidavit – i.e., two text messages in December 2014 prior to the alleged unlawful conduct of Defendant Alzabarah which started in January 2015.

From what the judge can see, there's hardly any connective tissue between the allegations made by the government and the justifications it put in its affidavit when seeking a search warrant.

Defendant Abouammo’s emails to other senior Twitter directors who were located in other countries (outside the U.S. and Saudi Arabia) in December 2015 and January and February 2016 also prove nothing. There is no allegation that these directors were involved in any unauthorized access to use accounts or were connected with Official-1 or the Saudi government. Furthermore, the emails were sent to these directors’ Twitter email accounts, hardly a way to solicit participation in an illicit scheme as the government now suggests. That certain Saudi officials (other than Official-1) were brought into conversations in email exchanges with one of the Twitter directors again proves nothing. The sporadic patternless communications described in the affidavit – which include no direct communications with Defendant Alzabarah and two early (2014) text messages with Defendant Almutairi – are insufficient to establish probable cause to believe Defendant Abouammo had accessed without authorization Twitter user accounts at the behest of the Saudi government.

The results of this search will be suppressed. The government simply doesn't have enough to justify this search. And the warrant is so deficient the court doesn't see how the government could say it relied on it in good faith. Everything derived from this search is suppressed.

But that doesn't mean Aboumammo is in the clear. Subsequent searches appear to have turned up other usable evidence and those still stand for the time being. The FBI's 2018 search warrant (and the results of that search) is still in play, even when everything derived from the 2016 search is stripped from the affidavit.

Given what's said in this short suppression order, it appears the FBI turned a hunch into a fishing expedition at Google HQ. If the government wants to prosecute federal crimes, it needs to remember all the rights it said were inalienable. Searches based on speculation aren't acceptable. And hey, FBI: maybe don't be evil.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, ahmad abouammo, ahmed almutairi, ali alzabarah, email, espionage, fbi, probable cause, saudi arabia, warrant
Companies: twitter

Disproving The Nonsense About The FBI & Jan. 6th Would Be Easier If The FBI Didn't Have A History Of Entrapping People In Made Up Plots

from the you-guys-made-this-worse dept

There's a very, very dumb conspiracy theory making the rounds -- and I want to be very clear on this -- that has zero evidence to support it, that the FBI was actually behind the January 6th invasion of the Capitol. It was originally reported by a wacky extremist news organization that I won't even bother naming here, and then got a lot more attention when Fox News made it a story via Tucker Carlson's show. The underlying confusion is that a (former Trump admin official who was let go after attending a conference with white nationalists but then later appointed to a new job within the Trump White House) reporter completely misunderstood what "unindicted co-conspirator" means in various charging documents.

What it generally means are people the government has not yet charged, and who they don't want to name so they don't tip them off (or where they don't yet know who they are, or don't have enough evidence to charge, or for a variety of other reasons). What it absolutely never means, is an undercover FBI agent or informant. Those people are not ever described as unindicted co-conspirator. But the reporter somehow got it into his head that this meant they were FBI agents, and then went to town with a conspiracy theory blaming the FBI for the insurrection, claiming that it was designed to "frame the entire MAGA movement."

As noted, this is false, and there is no evidence to support this. At all. It's a fiction of imagination from someone who has no idea what he's talking about, and of course Tucker Carlson ran with it, because that's what Tucker Carlson does.

But... here's the thing: it would be a hell of a lot easier to debunk this nonsense if the FBI (especially since 9/11) didn't have a depressingly long history of... setting up fake terrorist plots in order to entrap people to get big headlines around an arrest of someone who never had any means to actually carry out the attack. We've covered examples of these kinds of FBI activities for years. We've written about examples of this over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

No doubt, what the FBI does in those cases is disgusting and highly questionable. It often involves them searching out people who are either mentally troubled or really desperate, and then proposing they get involved in a completely fictional terrorist plot -- a plot that the individuals would have no possible chance of actually carrying out on their own. The undercover FBI agents (or the confidential informant working for the FBI) then proceed to do all the actual "planning" including buying any of the necessary materials and getting all the details in order. Then, after the planning has reached a certain point and the sucker is bought in on the plan, they're arrested, and the FBI claims it "stopped" a terrorist attack -- which usually gives the FBI lots of glowing press attention.

Of course, the reality is that there was no threat. There was no actual plot. There is never any ability to actually carry anything out. The weapons or bombs or whatever are all faked or never actually in existence. It's all a shadow play so the FBI can try to get some headlines and pretend they're doing something.

But that's clearly not what happened with January 6th. For one thing, the events of January 6th actually happened. The Capitol was actually invaded. Damage was actually done. If the FBI was planning it as per their usual homegrown plots, no actual attack would have happened. Also, if you look at the pattern of who the FBI has gone after with these plots... it's not really been the Trump supporting MAGA militia type.

Either way, though, people wouldn't have to be doing this big silly debunking of this kind of nonsense conspiracy theory if the FBI didn't actually have a track record of doing this kind of thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

So, you know, perhaps they should stop doing that.

Filed Under: conspiracy theory, doj, entrapment, fbi, january 6th, own plot, tucker carlson, undercover