"Treating OWS as 'potential criminal and terrorist threat' was exactly the right thing to do."

"No one knew whether these protests were going to stay peaceful or not. OWS certainly wanted it to turn into a phenomenon of national civil unrest. Why the FBI wasn't supposed to treat it as if it had the potential to go that way is beyond me."

Writes one Metafilter commenter, who gets 3 "favorite" votes from the community and — 8 minutes later — this response:

Treating OWS the Tea Party movement as "potential criminal and terrorist threat" was exactly the right thing to do. No one knew whether these protests were going to stay peaceful or not. OWS The Koch Bros. certainly wanted it to turn into a phenomenon of national civil unrest. Why the FBI wasn't supposed to treat it as if it had the potential to go that way is beyond me.

FTFY

The response now has 33 "favorite" votes.

"FBI Investigated 'Occupy' As Possible 'Terrorism' Threat..."

According to documents obtained by a FOIA request by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund.

"Fred is a passionate kind of guy."

"He’s kind of an obsessive type. If he locked his teeth onto something, he’d be a bulldog."

Fred = Frederick W. Humphries II, the FBI agent who opened the Petraeus investigation.

"FBI agents investigating CIA Director David Petraeus's affair were shocked when told by bureau officials..."

"... that despite the national security implications, no action would be taken on their findings until after the presidential election: Only then would President Obama ask for Petraeus’ resignation."

“The decision was made to delay the resignation apparently to avoid potential embarrassment to the president before the election,” an FBI source told me. “To leave him in such a sensitive position where he was vulnerable to potential blackmail for months compromised our security and is inexcusable.”

"[A] steady subculture of racist and anti-Semitic rock bands has existed on the margins of punk and heavy metal in Europe and the United States since at least the 1970s."

Writes the NYT, in the aftermath of the Sikh temple shoootings.

In an interview posted on the Web site of the record company Label56, [Wade M.] Page mentioned going to Hammerfest, an annual white-supremacist festival well known to civil rights advocates. He also said he played in various neo-Nazi bands, including Blue Eyed Devils, whose song “White Victory” includes the lines: “Now I’ll fight for my race and nation/Sieg Heil!” The company removed the interview from its site on Monday.

Analysts for the F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland Security routinely monitor violent extremist Web sites of all kinds, including those attracting white supremacists, according to former officials of both agencies. But the department’s work on the topic has been criticized. In 2009, conservatives in Congress strongly objected to a department report titled “Rightwing Extremism,” which speculated that the recession and the election of a black president could increase the threat from white supremacists.

Janet Napolitano, the homeland security secretary, withdrew the report and apologized for what she called its flaws. Daryl Johnson, the homeland security analyst who was the primary author of the report, said last year that after the flap, the number of analysts assigned to track non-Islamic militancy had been reduced sharply. Homeland Security Department officials denied his assertion and said the department monitored violent extremism of every kind, without regard to its religious or political bent.

The Sikh temple shooter was a 40-year-old former soldier named Wade Michael Page.

It's still not clear why the FBI is treating the murders as domestic terrorism. Perhaps the targeting of Sikhs by a non-Sikh is reason enough to investigate it as terrorism.

The neighbor says, as she understood it, the suspect had lived in the apartment with his girlfriend until their recent break-up. The suspect had then moved into another apartment nearby two weeks ago. She says he had returned to the old apartment and was banging on the door of his old apartment, demanding to be let in. The neighbor also said she believed the suspect had a 9-11 tattoo.

Of course, Sikhs had nothing to do with 9/11, though people sometimes mistake Sikhs for Muslims (and mistake Muslims generally for the subgroup of Muslims behind 9/11), but in a planned killing where someone goes to the place of worship, it would be harder to make the mistake.

ADDED: The FBI special agent in charge of the investigation said: "We are looking at ties to white supremacist groups."

Bloodhounds, beagles, and a ferret search mobster's backyard for famous paintings.

The paintings by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Degas and Manet are worth more than a half-billion dollars.

The mobster's wife says "They’re treating him like a dog." A dog. Not a ferret.

A neighbor said that if Gentile had buried a half-billion-dollar’s worth of art in his backyard, “there would have been scuttlebutt... Things get around, no matter how tight lipped you are.”

Here's some background on that art heist (which happened in 1990):

Investigators believe the first nabbed was Rembrandt's iconic "Storm on the Sea of Galilee," measuring about 5-by-4 feet and dating to 1633. The frame was laid on the floor where one of the thieves neatly sliced it from its frame.

Next was "Landscape with an Obelisk" by Govaert Flinck. Other stolen masterpieces included a second Rembrandt also cut from its frame, "A Lady and Gentleman in Black" from 1633.

The most valuable piece was Vermeer's "The Concert," an oil painting measuring about 2 1/2-by-2 feet from 1660 - one of only 36 known works by the Dutch master and valued at more than $250 million...

A Rembrandt self-portrait from 1629 - one of the museum's most valuable paintings - was removed from the wall, but then left untouched while one of the crooks patiently unscrewed and removed from its frame a tiny Rembrandt etching slightly larger than a postage stamp....

After the heavier works of art were removed from the walls, the thief in charge - possibly the older of the two - might have let the other thief take what he wanted.

Amore believes the second thief found his way to a nearby gallery, lifting smaller Degas drawings of horses while passing up more valuable works of art including one by the Italian painter Botticelli.

The thieves also tried to remove a flag of Napoleon's First Regiment from its frame before giving up and making off with a bronze finial in the shape of an eagle from atop the flag - ignoring more valuable letters with Napoleon's signature.

Then came a final puzzle.

The thieves found their way to a gallery on the first floor, again passing more valuable works of arts, to seize a "Chez Tortoni," a Manet painting of a man in a top hat and a departure from the Dutch paintings - all without triggering a motion detector.

"If we ever speak to the thieves, which is secondary, I would like to say, 'Why did you take that? Why did you pass by the Raphael?'" Amore said.

"Did 'The Woz' Slag Steve Jobs In FBI Interview?"

Asks The Smoking Gun.

(But nothing quoted from the FBI file tells us anything we don't know from reading the biography "Steve Jobs.")

"Juggalos are traditionally fans of the musical group the Insane Clown Posse."

Says the FBI in its 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment. Jesse Walker at Hit & Run comments: "I'd love to learn more about those non-traditional Juggalos who are not fans of Insane Clown Posse."

"I’d like to remind you that the 2 people whose images were put together using parts of my face have since been assassinated."

"I’m going to sue the FBI because they have not made things right apart from offering a weak apology through clenched teeth."

"Former Walker aide shaken, embarrassed following FBI raid, denies any wrongdoing."

"[Cynthia] Archer said law enforcement has ordered her to not discuss the case, and officials with the FBI and the Milwaukee County district attorney's office are not saying anything either. The information vacuum has led to a minor media frenzy, with reporters trying to figure out if this has anything to do with Walker."

Sorry I've failed to contribute to the frenzy. I don't like to post to say hey, look at that. I feel like I have to add some value. So I'll just say... what's with the secrecy combined with conspicuousness? The woman's reputation is besmirched by the conspicuous raid, and the governor of our state is collaterally damaged. But she's supposed to keep quiet, why?

"I'm not worried," Archer said. "I don't even have a lawyer. I don't need a lawyer. I did nothing inappropriate."

Why not? The FBI search your house for hours and you don't need a lawyer? Just because you think you've done nothing wrong doesn't mean you don't need a lawyer! Assuming Cynthia Archer is not an idiot, on what theory does she not need a lawyer?

"The political scandal over the failure of Solyndra, the politically connected solar-panel maker, just got a lot more interesting."

"The FBI raided the company's Fremont, California offices yesterday and executed a search warrant."

Congress has been investigating the company, which received a $535 million government loan guarantee in March 2009 and announced August 31 that it is filing for bankruptcy. Yesterday's FBI raid is the first hint of a larger government probe, which is being conducted in cooperation with the Department of Energy's Inspector General. The FBI declined to comment. A Solyndra spokesman said it was surprised by the raid and is cooperating.

Political connections can come back to bite you, when the politicians you were connected to need to gnaw through that connection and run like hell.

ADDED:

“Officials from the Department of Energy have for months been sitting in on board meetings as ‘observers’ at Solyndra, getting an up-close view as the solar energy company careened towards bankruptcy after spending more than $500 million in federal loan money.” Probably felt just like being back at the federal government, which is careening toward bankruptcy after spending more than $15 trillion in loan money . . .

"FBI issues warning over Barbie 'Video Girl' which could be used by paedophiles to make child pornography."

The doll has a camera built into it.

"The FBI successfully thwarts its own Terrorist plot."

Was Mohamed Osman Mohamud entrapped?

Molly Norris, the "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" cartoonist, is "going ghost."

Her newspaper, Seattle Weekly, reports:

[O]n the insistence of top security specialists at the FBI, she is... moving, changing her name, and essentially wiping away her identity... in effect, being put into a witness-protection program—except, as she notes, without the government picking up the tab. It's all because of the appalling fatwa issued against her this summer, following her infamous "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" cartoon.

Terrible. My heart goes out to you, Molly, even though I was always opposed to the "everybody draw Mohammed" approach to protesting the threats against the cartoonists who had drawn Muhammad. I believe strongly in free speech rights, but I think people should, in deciding how to exercise their rights, think about the effect their speech has on others who don't deserve to be offended. I imagine (and hope) that Molly is drawing her adventures and telling her story in what will be a widely read comic book. She has a charming drawing style and a nice sense of humor — plus the panache of unjust persecution and danger. Good luck!

ADDED: There's a big Metafilter thread about it, which I'm reading after writing that. A surprising number of people are blaming Norris for bringing the death threats on herself.

Abdulmutallab is talking to the FBI.

FBI agents traveled to Nigeria and enlisted the help of his relatives, who "disagreed with his efforts to blow up American targets."

ADDED: Let's not forget all that criticism about telling Abdulmutallab about his Miranda rights:

Why are we reading Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab his Miranda rights instead of taking him somewhere and forcibly finding out where he got the explosive underwear and whatever else he might know about Al Qaeda? Isn’t this, as well as the forthcoming federal court trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, proof that the Obama administration doesn’t really regard the war on terrorism as a war?...

Republican critics like Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich have raised these questions in the past few days....

There were ways, apparently consistent with American criminal procedural rights, to milk Abdulmutallab for information. If the first-linked story is true, the success of the method used must be acknowledged and taken into account by those who say that terrorist suspects/enemy combatants must be treated differently from those accused of ordinary crimes.

"The FBI knew for nearly a year before his murderous Fort Hood rampage that psycho Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan had repeatedly contacted al Qaeda..."

"... but the blundering agency last night admitted it dismissed the lead."

For nearly a year? Then it's Bush's FBI too.  Disgraceful.

The FBI said Hasan -- who faces a court-martial -- first turned up on its radar in December 2008.

That's when he sent 10 to 20 e-mails to several terror-related Islamic figures, including Anwar Aulaqi, a radical imam from Virginia who has been openly propagandizing for al Qaeda in Yemen and who had ties to several of the 9/11 hijackers...

But no alarm bells went off because the communications were consistent with Hasan's research into how US combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan affect civilians, officials insisted. The e-mails never made explicit threats or discussed plots, they added....

Federal sources admitted that Hasan was so off their radar by that point that they hadn't even been aware of his gun purchases in Texas in August.

Investigators say they were still operating on the theory that Hasan, 39, acted alone.

Yeah? And what are they missing now?