Operation Whistle Pig: Inside the secret CBP unit with no rules

Wikipedia. And while we're at it let's get rid of salt, pepper and other spices.

There is so much irony in this story, it makes my head want to pop. Guy exploits lack of policies and procedures to run a journalist through databases to uncover her sources - so the big, faceless machine gets to scour her and everyone in her life, and she has no recourse - nothing protects her from the faceless machine, it seems to run itself, and it turns up her life by hiding behind that there are no "written policies and procedures"...

Then he launches a coffee shop, and someone puts up posters that he's a fed and tried to blackmail a journalist, so he turns to the faceless machine there locally...and is alarmed to find himself as powerless as the journalist was to get them to investigate who is putting up the pictures, and that he has no recourse, even though in another case he was working the gears. He tries to hide behind that he was cleared by the same people who avoided writing policies and procedures specifically so they could do what they wanted, and for some odd reason in a heavily Latino area the local populace doesn't really buy his telling of events and consequences - almost like they disagree with the operation of the faceless machine, and have been bitten by it's gears for a long time and don't trust it.

Just... Cosmic.