Terrorism
Email shows effort to shield bin Laden photos
According to the Associated Press, “A newly-released email shows that 11 days after the killing of terror leader Osama bin Laden in 2011, the U.S. military’s top special operations officer ordered subordinates to destroy any photographs of the al-Qaida founder’s corpse or turn them over to the CIA.” When the AP initially asked for emails…
Read MoreThe NYPD Division of Un-American Activities
After 9/11, the New York Police Department built in effect its own CIA — and its Demographics Unit delved deeper into the lives of citizens than did the NSA. The appointments of David Cohen, a former senior CIA officer, and Larry Sanchez, a CIA analyst, represented a major shift in mind-set at the NYPD. Cohen and Sanchez’s guiding idea was…
Read MoreDocuments show NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per year
The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to a report from The Washington Post. Based on an internal audi and other top-secret documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, The Washington Post…
Read MoreOKC bombing survivors’ requests for funds being denied
“The Tulsa World reports that nearly 18 years after the Oklahoma City bombing, more than $12 million in donated funds remains but survivors say the foundation in charge of most of it has denied requests for surgery, tuition and other needs donors intended to be funded.”
Read MoreExtra Extra Monday: Teacher absences, prescription painkillers, complaints at for-profit care centers
Welcome to IRE’s roundup of the weekend’s many enterprise stories — the last one of 2012 — from around the country. We’ll highlight the document digging, field work and data analysis that made their way into centerpieces in print, broadcast and online from coast to coast. Did we miss something? Email tips to web@ire.org. The…
Read MoreFBI to agents: “Mainstream” Muslims are “terrorists in waiting”
Spencer Ackerman, of WIRED.com Danger Room, has acquired dozens of FBI training materials on counter terrorism and Islam. The training material argues that it does not matter whether or not American Muslims are law abiding citizens, “the Islamic “insurgency” is all-encompassing and insidious. In addition to outright combat, its “techniques” include “immigration” and “law suits.” So…
Read MoreFood anti-terror plan costing billions, but is it working?
After the attacks on September 11, 2001 President George Bush told the nation that he would make certain that the food we eat would be safe from chemical terrorist threats from the ‘farm to the fork’. However, with no single agency in charge of policing our farms, factories, warehouses, or grocery stores, this multi-headed bureaucracy…
Read MorePost-9/11 laws blurring the line of terrorism
“The Sept. 11 attacks prompted almost every nation to adopt or toughen anti-terror laws. Until now, no one followed up to see who was impacted. In an unprecedented 9-month investigation, journalists in more than 100 countries found that at least 35,000 people have been convicted on terror charges since 2001, from bombers to bloggers.AP National…
Read MoreThe foggy 13-year hunt for Osama bin Laden.
Caren Bohn, Mark Hoseball, Tabassum Zakaria, and Missy Ryan from Reuters report on the grueling, and sometimes questionable, plan to kill Osama bin Laden. The 13-year quest to find and eliminate bin Laden, from the November 1998 day he was indicted by a federal grand jury for his role in the East Africa embassy bombings,…
Read MoreIdentity revealed in fatality at CIA secret prison
The name of the only known fatality from a secret prison network that the CIA operated overseas after the 9/11 attacks is finally known, due to an Associated Press investigation of his imprisonment and death. Gul Rahman, a suspected militant imprisoned in a CIA compound code-named the Salt Pit near Kabul, was found dead in…
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