How was your NICAR26?
Leslie Cauley of the USA Today found the “National Security Agency had been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth.” Cauley’s sources say the agency uses the call data to “analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity” but that…
Read MoreJean Rimbach and Kathleen Carroll of The (Hackensack, N.J.) Record analyzed audits of more than 100 state-funded preschools in New Jersey’s poorest communities, reviewed tax returns, financial documents and contracts and interviewed dozens of state and local officials, owners and teachers to show that seven years after New Jersey launched its landmark program for disadvantaged…
Read MoreIn a continuation of the “Conduct Unbecoming” series, Lewis Kamb of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer examined “state pension and payroll records of eight King County sheriff’s deputies and found example after example of how such problem officers continued drawing salaries and earning service credits for years.” The investigation also found that “taxpayers have paid hundreds of…
Read MoreTroy Anderson of the Los Angeles Daily News reviewed records to show that in recent years county employees’ firings or suspensions were softened by the Civil Service Commission. The commission overturned or reduced discipline recommended by county departments in nearly half of cases from 2001 to 2004. “Out of 17 sheriff’s cases the commission considered…
Read MoreDaniel Lathrop and John Perry of The Center for Public Integrity used FOIA to obtain e-mail records of former FEMA head Michael Brown, showing that “while many residents were awaiting rescue from rooftops or wading through toxic floodwaters, it was business as usual in the world of money, power and government inside the Washington beltway.”…
Read MoreKevin Begos and Doug Stanley of The Tampa Tribune analyzed records to show that the campaign finance reform legislation backed by Senate President Tom Lee would have a serious effect on only about 5 percent of soft money groups in the state, leaving vast loopholes in other places. “Of the 816 soft money committees listed…
Read MoreGina Edwards, Deirdre Conner and Kori Rumore of the Naples Daily News analyzed real estate transactions culled from property appraiser records to show how the real estate market has shifted. In 2003, in Collier County, Fla., almost 60 percent of single-family homes on the market — more than 4,500 — sold for less than $300,000.…
Read MoreTracy Weber and Charles Ornstein of the Los Angeles Times used interviews, internal memos and transplant records to show that 25 Kaiser Permanente patients in Northern California were denied the chance for new kidneys that were nearly perfectly matched to them last year during the troubled start-up of the giant HMO’s kidney transplant program in…
Read MoreDavid E. Kaplan of U.S. News & World Report identified nearly a dozen cases in which city and county police, in the name of homeland security, have surveilled or harassed animal-rights and antiwar protesters, union activists, and even library patrons surfing the Web. The inquiry found federal officials have funneled hundreds of millions of dollars…
Read MoreDeirdre Shesgreenand and Jaimi Dowdell of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch used campaign records to show that leadership PACs, set up separately from regular re-election accounts, are an increasingly popular tool politicians use to rake in extra campaign dollars that they then dole out to their colleagues — usually the party’s most vulnerable incumbents or top…
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