Sometime in 2012, I will begin the ninth year of my life under an FBI gag order, which began when I received what is known as a national security letter at the small Internet service provider I owned. On that day in 2004 (the exact date is redacted from court papers, so I can’t reveal it), an FBI agent came to my office and handed me a letter. It demanded that I turn over information about one of my clients and forbade me from telling “any person” that the government had approached me. Read full article > >

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How the Patriot Act stripped me of my free-speech rights

When John Barry Badini wrote his will in 2007, the Clinton man decided he would leave more than $1 million to the Shriners hospitals and $20,000 to his stepdaughter. In August 2010, he typed a note raising Alicia Decatur’s inheritance to $50,000, court papers show. Then, on March 28 — the day he killed himself — he penned a note to the executors of his estate: “Please change Alicia’s monetary inheritance from $50,000 to $100,000.” Read full article > >

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Maryland man’s notes leaving $100,000 to stepdaughter disputed by Shriners

A Northern Virginia man has been indicted on charges of working as an agent for the Syrian intelligence service and gathering information about people protesting the rule of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, according to court papers unsealed Wednesday morning. Mohamad Anas Haitham Soueid, a 47-year-old from Leesburg, was arrested Tuesday and is scheduled to make an initial appearance before a federal judge in Alexandria Wednesday afternoon. He was charged with conspiring to act in the United States on behalf of a foreign government. Read full article > >

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Va. man worked for Syrian intelligence, U.S. says

About 6,000 packages of rat and cockroach poison were seized from small shops and street vendors during an undercover investigation, officials and court papers indicate.

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12 Arrested in Illegal-Pesticide Case in Chinatown

Drug-dealing isn’t the only problem up at Columbia University these days: Political science professor David Epstein has been charged with incest. According to court papers, he carried on a relationship with a female relative over a three-year period….

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Columbia Prof Charged with Incest

Pharmacies in Utah and Illinois are at the heart of an illicit nationwide network providing prescription drugs over the internet, federal agents state in court papers filed in two cities.

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Feds crack down on online pharmacies