The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has announced the arrests of dozens of individuals involved in a “nationwide conspiracy that facilitated cheating on college entrance exams and the admission of students to elite universities.” Athletic coaches, parents, and exam administrators have been charged.

On March 1, 2019, the Federal Labor Relations Authority issued a press release stating that it was inviting amici curiae briefs on an issue in U.S. Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Michael E. DeBakey Medical Center, Houston, Texas, and American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), Local 1633, Case No. 0-AR-5354. The issue involves whether the Federal Labor Relations Authority should reconsider relying on the factors in Allen v. U.S. Postal Service, 2 M.S.P.R. 420 (1980), when considering awards of attorney’s fees.

It was early morning on October 12, 2000, when I received word from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) anti-terrorism alert center that there had been an accident off the coast of Aden, Yemen, involving a Navy ship, the USS Cole. I was the director of NCIS at the time.

Rocky Mountain National Park Rangers and Colorado Parks and Wildlife officers have been working on several cases relating to illegal elk poaching. While some of these efforts have led to the arrests in recent weeks, Rocky Mountain National Park Rangers continue to request information on poaching in their park.

“Absolute consistency of belief is not a prerequisite to proving predisposition” to overcome an entrapment defense, the Fourth Circuit recently held in a case involving a former law enforcement officer who supported militant Islamism, Nazism, and white supremacy.

In the wake of the partial government shutdown, financial planning has been on the minds of federal employees everywhere.  Tune in to FEDtalk this Friday at 11 am EST for a discussion on financial planning pre- and post-retirement.

WAEPA (Worldwide Assurance for Employees of Public Agencies), a nonprofit Voluntary Employee Benefits Association which offers Group Term Life Insurance* exclusively to Civilian Federal Employees, made headlines in January when they announced they were waiving January’s premiums for all their members, including those for Members not impacted by the partial Government Shutdown, which went on for 35 days from December 21, 2018 to January 25, 2019, and affected approximately 22% of Federal workers.

The Medicare Fraud Strike Force has successfully dismantled Medicare fraud schemes in Florida and Mississippi. Special agents in the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General (HHS OIG) and Department of Justice (DOJ) criminal investigations division have teamed up with agencies across the federal law enforcement community to investigate and uncover Medicare fraud schemes.

When asked about the exhibits in the National Law Enforcement Museum, something I like to talk about that tends to surprise people is the wide variety of jobs that exist within the law enforcement profession.

A joint venture by the Coast Guard Investigative Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigations, and the Department of Justice has resulted in the arrest of a Coast Guard Lieutenant for domestic terrorism. According to the court documents, the lieutenant, Christopher Paul Hasson, harbored extremist views and was planning “to murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country.”

Retired federal law enforcement officers are entitled to the same state tax benefits as “similarly situated” retired state law enforcement officers, the U.S. Supreme Court held this week.

Presidents’ Day is the perfect opportunity for a trip through time to celebrate some of our nation’s formative leaders. This week on FEDtalk, historians will come together to discuss how our early presidents shaped the role of the executive and how that role continues to change over time.

In December, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) introduced Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) aimed at reducing the number of asylum seekers living in the U.S. awaiting immigration court proceedings. These directives have come under fire by civil liberties groups claiming a lack of due process protections. Now, DHS Secretary Kirstjen M. Nielsen is working to clarify the MPP rules to avoid further legal scrutiny.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Wednesday that a former U.S. service member and counterintelligence agent has been indicted by a grand jury for conspiracy to deliver and delivering national defense information to the Iranian government. Monica Elfriede Witt, the individual charged, remains at large.

Last week, the Fifth Circuit utilized the common-law trespass test to find that a state trooper’s tapping of a car tire was a search.

A three-day successful operation called Operation Callout produced well over 100 drug and firearm related arrests in Louisiana last week. City, parish, state, and federal law enforcement agencies came together to combat drug violence, and in this investigation their close cooperation paid off.

Recently, the Ninth Circuit held that officers may not extend a lawfully initiated traffic stop because a passenger refuses to identify himself absent reasonable suspicion that the individual committed a criminal offense.

The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund has named Officer Joseph Grasso, of the North Brunswick (NJ) Police Department, as the recipient of its Officer of the Month Award for January 2019.

The U.S. borders have inundated news cycles in recent months.  To find out what’s really going on, tune in to FEDtalk to hear a group of federal law enforcement professionals discuss what they experience at the border and what they need to do their mission.

As the President of FEDS, I didn’t know whether to celebrate the agreement to fund agencies through mid­February or to commiserate over the uncertainty that lies ahead.