https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/07/deep-dot-web-arrests/

The FBI have arrested several people suspected of involvement in running Deep Dot Web, a website for facilitating access to dark web sites and marketplaces.

Two suspects were arrested in Tel Aviv and Ashdod, according to Israel’s Tel Aviv Police, which confirmed the arrests in a statement earlier in the day. Local media first reported the arrests.

Arrests were also made in France, Germany and the Netherlands. A source familiar with the operation said a site administrator was arrested in Brazil.

Deep Dot Web is said to have made millions of dollars in commission by offering referral links to dark web marketplaces, accessible only at .onion domains over the Tor Network. Tor bounces internet traffic through a series of random relay servers dotted across the world, making it near-impossible to trace the user.

Its .onion site displayed a seized notice by the FBI, citing U.S. money laundering laws. Its clear web domain no longer loads.

Tuesday’s arrests follow an operation by U.S. and German authorities earlier in the week that took down the Wall Street Market, one of the largest remaining dark web marketplaces. Thousands of sellers sold drugs, weapons and stolen credentials used to break into online accounts.

Efforts to reach Deep Dot Web over encrypted chat were unsuccessful.

A spokesperson for the Justice Department did not have comment, while the FBI declined to comment. A spokesperson for the Israeli consulate in New York did not respond to a request for comment.

https://fcw.com/articles/2019/05/07/senate-nsa-bulk-surveillance.aspx

The Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General has quietly closed a years-long probe examining how the FBI used information collected through the program and passed on by the NSA.

Since 2015, the IG's semiannual reports on civil liberties complaints have listed an ongoing review to examine the FBI's "procedures for receiving, processing, and disseminating" leads the NSA develops from the program, how FBI field offices respond to those leads, the scope and type of information field offices collect as a result of any investigative activity initiated and the impact the program has played in FBI counterterrorism efforts.

However, the last two versions of the report released in September 2018 and March 2019 contain a passage saying the IG has discontinued its review "because of significant changes in the law under the USA Freedom Act, which effectively ended the government's bulk collection of telephony metadata [under FISA]."

The USA Freedom Act was passed in 2015, and it's not clear why the review was listed as ongoing for years after the law's passage, when it officially stopped or what it may have found. In response to questions about when the review was halted, the type of investigative activities auditors engaged in and whether the office planned to produce a report detailing its findings, Senior Counsel John Lavinksy, referred FCW back to the passage detailed in the semiannual report.

https://www.oversight.gov/sites/default/files/oig-reports/1903.pdf