Free Republic

'Flag@Whitehouse.Gov' A Snitch Line Is the White House Compiling an Enemies List? The Obama administration seems to have committed another political misstep when it set up an email address, 'flag@whitehouse.gov', in order to allow supporters to report on "misinformation" on health care reform. According to Fox News, "The White House is under fire for a blog post asking supporters to send "fishy" information received through rumors, chain e-mails and casual conversations to a White House e-mail address, 'flag@whitehouse.gov'." .... [snip] ....

In 2010 the BATFE raided the S&W booth at SHOT Show arresting 21 people, including Smith & Wesson executives for beaching the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a law which prohibits US corporations, citizens and residents from bribing foreign officials. Those arrested were charged with conspiring to bribe officials in the African state of Gabon as part of a deal to sell $15 million of equipment to the 1,800 man strong Gabon Presidential (Republican) Guard. Washington, D.C. law firm Miller & Chevalier have published a number of reports on the “SHOT Show Sting”. Their first report on the case appeared shortly...

By almost anybody's standards, Joshua Allan Jackson is bad news. A felon with a lengthy history of violence against women, Jackson was sentenced to 10 years in prison April 13 for sexually abusing an 18-year-old woman and holding her against her will for days inside a cheap South Seattle motel last year. The woman told investigators Jackson forced her to audition for a porn film and at one point choked her so hard she almost lost consciousness. As part of the case, Jackson also admitted to criminal impersonation on various occasions when he told the victim and seven other people...

It was supposed to be a fun night on the town: three off-duty Fresno police officers and their friends celebrating a birthday in the Tower District. They hired a limousine driver -- and not just any limo driver, but a police informant in a high-profile murder-for-hire case. The night, however, didn't turn out as planned. First, they fought among themselves, a Fresno police report said. Then, when a bouncer from the Laughing Buddha Bar & Grill tried to break up the fight, two of the officers and one of their wives fought him, the report said.

The Center for Public Integrity is reporting that an unnamed former ABC News journalist was an FBI informant during and after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, passing along tips and revealing a source. We know who it is...

Did Ronald Reagan secretly give the FBI names of people he suspected were communists when he was a movie star and Hollywood labor chief in the 1940s? This allegation resurfaced in the media just before Thanksgiving when the San Jose Mercury News, which published excerpts from Reagan's FBI file to great international acclaim in 1985, ran a column revisiting its original story about Reagan the snitch. It implies that Reagan was a shadowy operator in cahoots with the notorious FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover, orchestrating their next Hollywood Red scare. The answer? Maybe. But Reagan was hardly betraying friends and...

A new federal rewards program dishes out cash to people who turn in friends, relatives and employers for fudging their tax returns. For 24 years Vincent A. Spondello toiled away as an accountant for a group of related companies known as Monex, a large Newport Beach, Calif. precious metals dealer. A trusted employee, he prepared tax returns and was given such tasks as overseeing the destruction of old corporate documents. It turns out that some records that were supposedly destroyed he took home instead. In May Spondello sent 25 boxes of original Monex papers to the Internal Revenue Service--documents that...

Solomon Dwek is the kind of guy who can get you a kidney. He's also the kind of guy who authorities say knew how to get dirty money cleaned and could easily navigate the backrooms of New Jersey politics. He is, after all, a self-described member of the "green party," where "green is cash." The FBI put Dwek's knowledge to use, and that has placed him at the center of a corruption case that is unprecedented by even New Jersey's notorious standards. Relying largely on Dwek's work as an informant, authorities in July arrested 44 people — seven of whom...

A computer hacker who was once a federal informer and was a driving force behind one of the largest cases of identity theft in U.S. history pleaded guilty Friday in a deal with prosecutors that will send him to prison for up to 25 years. Albert Gonzalez, 28, of Miami, admitted to pulling off some of the most prominent hacking jobs of the decade -- invading the computer systems of such retailers as TJX, BJ's Wholesale Club, OfficeMax, Boston Market, Barnes & Noble and Sports Authority. Federal authorities say tens of millions of credit and debit card numbers were stolen....

In 2002, Al Pacino starred in a movie called S1M0NE about a Hollywood director whose star actress walks off the set after a dispute with him. The director is so obnoxious, no other actresses will work with him. To complete the film, the director substitutes a computer-generated character for the live actress. The movie becomes a great success and the public becomes enamored with this new shining star named Simone (short for Simulation One). The director's scheme begins to fall apart when he's unable to fulfill requests for live interviews with Simone. Someone also figures out that the scenic backgrounds...

Social activist, organizer ... and FBI informant It was all about stopping violence, says Austin man who revealed alleged firebomb plot at GOP convention. By David Hanners ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS Saturday, January 03, 2009 ST. PAUL, Minn. — In a federal courtroom in Minneapolis this month, the public transformation of Brandon Darby of Austin will become complete. In four years, he has gone from a never-trust-the-government activist to the confidential informant who helped the FBI arrest two Austin men on suspicion of building firebombs during the Republican National Convention in St. Paul in September. "I feel like, as an...

During the Republican convention in St. Paul, many of us expected to see a level of violence similar to that of the Seattle WTO riots a few years back. When that violence never materialized, we knew that law enforcement managed to penetrate the organizations of tinhorn terrorists who have to rely on bombs and rocks to make their arguments. The trial of two conspirators has revealed one successful penetration that saved lives and property — and of course the nutcase Left in Texas considers the HERE

WASHINGTON, Aug. 19, 2008 – A suspected member of an Iranian-backed “special group” turned into an informant for coalition forces today, and Iraqi and coalition forces detained 16 suspected terrorists and several weapons caches in operations over the past three days, military officials reported. The special groups suspect turned into an informer this morning during operations in Qasarin, about 30 kilometers north of Baghdad in Diyala province. Coalition forces were pursuing a man affiliated with the "Asaib al Haq" criminal ring, a Shiite group that broke away from Muqtada al-Sadr's militia. According to information provided by suspects already in custody,...

NAPLES (Reuters) - An Italian businessman who was helping police break organized crime gangs that operate waste disposal rackets in Naples was gunned down on Sunday in an apparent mafia hit, police said. The latest killing in the southern Italian city, which in recent months has become as famous for its piles of trash as for its reputation for crime, came on a day that thousands of people attended a rally against plans to open new rubbish dumps. Police said Michele Orsi, a businessman with mafia links who had turned informant, was shot three times near his home by assailants...

When U.S. authorities got their hands on terrorist Mohammed Mansour Jabarah in May 2002, he agreed to inform on some of the most influential al-Qaeda leaders. So instead of being sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or a high-security CIA detention facility, Jabarah was housed with relatively lax security at Fort Dix, N.J., where he was allowed to watch television and movies, speak to his family in Canada by telephone, go for walks and even make his own meals, all under 24-hour FBI watch. That arrangement soon proved to be a major problem for the bureau. In court papers filed in...

When we first read the newspaper today, we were intrigued by the article about a website called www.whosarat.com. The story describes the site as an information clearinghouse about confidential informants who have participated with government investigations and helped put people behind bars. Many of these informants have their own criminal histories and some of the defendants and defense attorneys can use this information to try to save themselves, or their clients, from prosecution. The first thing we did was check out the site for ourselves. We barely got past the front page when we were asked to spend $7.99 for...

A paid FBI informant was the man behind a neo-Nazi march through the streets of Parramore that stirred up anxiety in Orlando's black community and fears of racial unrest that triggered a major police mobilization. That revelation came Wednesday in an unrelated federal court hearing and has prompted outrage from black leaders, some of whom demanded an investigation into whether the February 2006 march was, itself, an event staged by law-enforcement agencies. The FBI would not comment on what it knew about the involvement of its informant, 39-year-old David Gletty of Orlando, in the neo-Nazi event. In court Wednesday, an...

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuela President Hugo Chavez said Sunday he has received warnings from within the White House that the Bush administration is plotting to assassinate him or topple his left-leaning government. Citing what he said were warnings from an alleged White House informant, Chavez told thousands of supporters at a campaign rally that President Bush has ordered him to be killed before he leaves office in 2008. Bush "has said that before he goes, Hugo Chavez shouldn't be the president of Venezuela," Chavez told the crowd. "The president of the United States has said it, especially in recent days....

Jefferson case informant files complaint with policeShe says odd 'things' occurred after FBI tip Tuesday, August 29, 2006 By Bruce Alpert WASHINGTON -- A Virginia woman told police that "things have been happening" since she went to the FBI 17 months ago with a complaint that led to the continuing corruption probe against Rep. William Jefferson, D-New Orleans. Lori Mody, who wore a hidden microphone to tape conversations with Jefferson, said in her July 24 complaint to the Fairfax County (Va.) Police Department that the toilet in a McLean, Va., home she is getting ready to sell broke between July...

TORONTO – The surprise announcement by a prominent Muslim leader here that he was an informant who helped authorities arrest 17 Muslims on terrorism charges has raised questions in the Muslim community over the ethics of informing versus a responsibility to stop violence. Since outing himself as an informant who infiltrated and trained with the suspects, Mubin Shaikh has come under harsh criticism by some Toronto Muslims and sparked a debate about how far citizens should go in aiding police investigations, even as he has been hailed as a hero in the mainstream media.