Working on Our Night Moves: Two Evening Sweeps in the County Building

By JoshMogerman in News on Oct 23, 2010 7:00PM

Apparently, it has been a busy after-hours week at the Cook County Building and that has us thinking of Bob Seeger. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that the Cook County Board President’s office “underwent a hush-hush after-hours security inspection Wednesday night.” Despite assertions from Stroger’s spokesperson that the sweep had been planned for weeks, Cook County Homeland Security and Emergency Management Executive Director David Ramos and the two former FBI agents (now owners of a private security company) that accompanied him, still needed building management’s assistance to enter offices for Stroger and former Chief of Staff Carla Oglesby. Oglesby is awaiting trial for an array of contracting irregularities. The CST notes that Ramos is a key witness in the case.

The wee hours Wednesday sweep, which Michael Sneed claims (and Stroger’s office denies) was conducted in search of electronic listening devices, was not the only one this week. The Cook County Inspector General’s office ran their own follow-up operation on Thursday night out of concern that computers and other devices had been removed the night before. Sneed called the actions reminiscent of Watergate, and while we readily admit we don't know what the heck to make of these events and the curious crew involved with them, we don’t buy it. Sure, both may have something to do with bugs... But, Ramos and his guests signed in when they entered the building and asked for help opening doors---Watergate was a straight-up break-in to replace a broken listening device. And Nixon was they guy making the tapes back in the 70’s. Given the array of accusations and recent Illinois history, it is probably reasonable to believe that county employees are the targets of any tapes being made now…

Watch for more on this during the week as this story might be very entertaining as it develops... Maybe we will shift from references to "Night Moves" to other Bob Seeger classics like "Shakedown" or "Hands in the Air"?