The “Liberty City Seven” case served as a prototype for these terrorism sting operations. There is always a vast divide between the information in the initial news reports and the eventual reports after the government discloses all of the details in court. The Liberty City Seven were a group of young black males from one of the Miami’s poorest areas, Liberty City. They were approached by an undercover FBI criminal informant, Abbas al-Saidi who began his career as a drug snitch at the age of 16 and then transitioned into terrorism stings. He recruited the group to blow up the Sears Tower by offering to pay them $50,000, but there was no evidence that they would actually carry out “the plot.”…
During the American Revolution, brave soldiers signed up to fight or die for their right to have freedom from the tyrannical grip that England had on America. General George Washington, leader of the Continental Army, led the nation to victory. However, he did not just have help from his army of valiant soldiers. General Washington also had the assistance of completely normal citizens who were appointed to gather information from the British that would be critical to aiding the general. Some of these citizens acted alone in their missions while others were part of groups of fellow spies.…
He watched on as the FBI agents, supposedly, as they…
Just hours before sunrise on February 13, 2013, members of the Tuscaloosa Police Department in conjunction with the West Alabama Narcotics Task Force quietly assembled on the campus of the University of Alabama. Around 3:00am doors were being simultaneously knocked down across campus by officers wearing tactical vests and toting military style assault rifles. According to Connor Sheets of al.com, 61 students were taken into custody on drug charges that cold February night. With a few exceptions, the overwhelming majority of these arrests were for relatively small or trace amounts of marijuana. This night in 2013 began a snowball effect of further strained relations between U.A. students and Tuscaloosa P.D.…
In this report, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) is preforming an audit on the Phoenix Police Department (PPD). This is over the allegations that PPD had received over 300 kidnapping cases, that also lead to a 2.4 million dollar grant from the United States government (U.S. Department of Justice Office of Inspector General, 2012). In 2008, the Phoenix Police Department had proclaimed that Arizona, or more precisely, Phoenix was the, “Kidnapping Capital of America,” having supposedly handled 368 kidnapping incidents (U.S. Department of Justice Office of Inspector General, 2012). Therefore, having suspicions with the information presented to the DOJ, the Inspector General’s office had begun an audit of the PPD starting in January…
Local law enforcement officials arrested 22 people during an undercover sting called Operation Undertow. The sting took place from September 7, 2016 to September 11, 2016 in Florida. Undercover agents posed as teenagers on different websites and were contacted by people who agreed to meet the “teens” for sex. When the suspects arrived at the meeting location they were arrested. 22 men were arrested during the operation and the men targeted both male and female teenagers.…
Charles Katz was convicted in the Southern California District Court that charged him with wagering gambling information. The Appellate Court rejected the defendants’ disagreement because they concluded that Katzs’ Fourth Amendment right was not infringed upon because FBI agents never actually entered the telephone booth. Facts: Mr. Katz was seen placing calls between three different telephone booths on a daily basis which lead the FBI to place microphones on the outer roof of two of the three telephone booths. One of the telephone booths was out of order. This allowed the agents to intercept and record the phone calls he made regarding gambling information.…
The dealers at the highest levels are also facing decades in prison or life. Therefore, they have incentives to exaggerate the stature of their underlings. Furthermore, they will in many cases lie to implicate completely innocent people in order to produce more convictions for the prosecutors. As a result, it creates a chain reaction with more informants implicating other innocent people. There is no community that has been affected more by the informant system than the black community.…
“I Am Not a Crook” Political leaders of the United States were once idolized. However, the publishing of the Pentagon Papers and the Vietnam War made the public wary of their government’s internal motives. In 1972, five men were arrested for breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters, who were linked to President Richard M. Nixon. The public’s opinion of a corrupt government was solidified. Politics and journalism changed forever.…
Many thousands of Americans faced congressional committee hearings, FBI investigations, loyalty tests, and sedition laws; negative judgements in those arenas brought consequences ranging from imprisonment to deportation, loss of passport, or, most commonly, long-term unemployment” (Storrs,…
The Cocaine Cowboys documentary about drugs, more specifically drug use, drug trafficking, drug smuggling and money laundry in the 1960s and onward highlight specific issues the government has with the infamous war on drugs. Since there was no border control or patrol, as stated by the documentary, drugs came in and out of the harbor in Florida. In 1956, Miami was a quiet. The documentary stated that one police car patrolled Miami at night. There was “no money, no buildings, it was like down south”.…
One of the biggest issues concerning the criminal justice system is corruption. This corruption can lead the corrupted to personal gain at great expense to others and sometimes can be directly or indirectly, eventually causing harm to others as well. Corruption can be defined as “the exploit the powers of law enforcement in return for considering of private-regarding benefit and that violate formal standards governing his or her conduct” (William & Arrigo, 2012, p. 96). Furthermore, police officers have been put in situations where particular leverage can be easily generated through unethical and illegal means. The idea of corruption of can pertains to the film, “The Departed”, which involves a two police detectives, one who commits crimes…
In 1939, the term “white-collar crime” began to be associated with frauds committed by business and government professionals. The phrase was mentioned during a speech given by Edwin Sutherland to the American Sociological Society. Sutherland defined “white-collar” as “a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social stats in the course of his occupation” (White Collar Crime). However, white-collar crimes are described in various ways. The Justice Department characterize white-collar crimes as deceit, embezzlement, forgery, or a breach of trust that does not result in threatening into anything physical or violence (United States Justice Department).…
Injustice in the Justice System Conflict places an immense strain on society. A person faces a constant battle with conflict everyday. They deal internal with conflict, where inner controls are tested. They deal with conflict within a social group and where outer controls are challenged.…
It would cost some names of the gangs they were investigating, the feds always received more than they gave, but background checks would pull up horrendous records of the undercover team. They were ready to confront a soldier with some merit in the gang, he may have known the stripper’s murderer. The gang member hung out at a taco stand on 3rd Street, his crew was there, they watched the team approach. Tony was carrying the bag of dope he took from the other gang. Joey was packing a .38 Special, tucked in his trousers with the handle grip showing.…