Government Corruption News Stories

Excerpts of Key Government Corruption News Stories in Major Media

Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable news media sources. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.

Note: This comprehensive list of news stories is usually updated once a week. Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.

U.S. military sources have given the FBI information that suggests five of the alleged hijackers of the planes that were used in [the 9/11] terror attacks received training at secure U.S. military installations in the 1990s. Three of the alleged hijackers listed their address on drivers licenses and car registrations as the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Fla. -- known as the "Cradle of U.S. Navy Aviation," according to a high-ranking U.S. Navy source. Another of the alleged hijackers may have been trained in strategy and tactics at the Air War College in Montgomery, Ala., said another high-ranking Pentagon official. The fifth man may have received language instruction at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Tex. Both were former Saudi Air Force pilots who had come to the United States, according to the Pentagon source. The five men were on a list of 19 people identified as hijackers by the FBI on [September 14]. The three foreign nationals training in Pensacola appear to be Saeed Alghamdi and Ahmad Alnami, who were among the four men who allegedly commandeered United Airlines Flight 93. That flight [ended in] rural Pennsylvania. The third man who may have trained in Pensacola, Ahmed Alghamdi, allegedly helped highjack United Airlines Flight 75, which hit the south tower of the World Trade Center. Military records show that the three used as their address 10 Radford Boulevard, a base roadway on which residences for foreign-military flight trainees are located.

Note: For more on this vitally important news, see this Washington Post news article and this Los Angeles Times news article. Several of the alleged hijackers also contacted US media shortly after 9/11 to report that they were alive and were not on the hijacked planes, as reported in this BBC article and this Times of London article. Yet the 9/11 Commission Report lists these men as the official hijackers. Explore many other major media news articles suggesting that rogue elements of government were involved in 9/11. See also our excellent 9/11 Information Center.

Goldman Sachs defended a range of trading practices currently under regulatory scrutiny, including dark pools and short selling, in a report to the Securities and Exchange Commission and a series of postings on its Web site. In defending dark pools, private venues where large blocks of securities are traded anonymously, Goldman said they are simply the result of technology improving on the kind of non-displayed liquidity that has always existed in the market. Dark pools have been criticized by lawmakers and targeted by regulators seeking a better idea of how much trading takes place away from exchanges. While it reiterated its support for regulation of abusive, or "naked" short selling, Goldman said further regulation isn't necessary and could actually hurt the market. As for high-frequency trading, SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro at a Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association conference ... reiterated that she has asked SEC staff to propose ways the agency can collect more information about high frequency traders, noting that lightning speed trading now represents more than 50% of trading volume.

Note: To read this article without a subscription to the WSJ, click here. Is it a surprise that Goldman Sachs wants to keep its secret deals hidden? Full transparency for the banks would almost certainly reveal major manipulations.

The disclosure that the Federal Bureau of Investigation withheld documents from Timothy McVeigh's lawyers seems certain to ignite a controversy that will burn for years, perhaps decades. ''If any questions or doubts remain about this case, it would cast a permanent cloud over justice,'' said Attorney General John D. Ashcroft in delaying Mr. McVeigh's execution until at least June 11. But for some people the cloud has been there all along, and always will be. They will never accept the government's assertion that the withholding of the documents was simple human, bureaucratic error. And so the 1995 bombing of a federal office building in Oklahoma City seems likely to join the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as events whose truth -- in the eyes of some Americans -- is forever untold. ''Gee, how did that happen?'' Charles Key, a former member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives, said in sarcastic response to the news that the McVeigh defense team had been denied evidence held by the government. Mr. Key, who lives in Oklahoma City, said he has always been convinced that Mr. McVeigh had accomplices beyond Terry Nichols, the other person convicted in the bombing. The government has not pursued the case aggressively, he said, because the full truth would be too damning.

Note: There is an abundance of solid information that the Oklahoma City bombing was manipulated in major ways. For two revealing AP articles on the FBI concealing evidence, click here and here. For news reports that there were undetonated bombs in the building, sharply contradicting the official story click here and here.

Leon Panetta, director of the CIA, revealed there was a 25 minute blackout during which the live feed from cameras mounted on the helmets of the US special forces was cut off. A photograph released by the White House appeared to show President Barack Obama and his aides in the situation room watching the action as it unfolded. In fact they had little knowledge of what was happening in the compound. In an interview with PBS, Mr Panetta said: "Once those teams went into the compound I can tell you that there was a time period of almost 20 or 25 minutes where we really didn't know just exactly what was going on. We had some observation of the approach there, but we did not have direct flow of information as to the actual conduct of the operation itself as they were going through the compound." The President only knew the mission was successful after the Navy Seals commander heard the word “Geronimo” on the radio, a code word from commandos reporting that they had killed bin Laden. The absence of footage of the raid has led to conflicting reports about what happened in the compound.

Note: The White House photo was fake and the original news was quite distorted. Hmmmm. Who do we trust here? WantToKnow team member David Ray Griffin's book establishing the likelihood that Osama bin Laden died in December 2001, Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive?, is available here. For a brief summary of reliable information from major media sources raising serious questions about what happened on 9/11, click here.

President Obama, speaking of the operation to kill Osama bin Laden, said: "Justice has been done." It has been widely assumed that, if bin Laden is now dead, the person most responsible for the 9/11 attacks has been brought to justice. But the US government has never provided evidence that the attacks were carried out by bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organization. In September 2001, Secretary of State Colin Powell promised to provide this evidence, but the next day recanted, saying "most of [the evidence] is classified." In October, Prime Minister Tony Blair provided evidence that bin Laden and al-Qaeda planned and executed the 9/11 attacks. But he added: "This document does not purport to provide a prosecutable case against Osama Bin Laden in a court of law." The FBI's acts that made bin Laden a "Most Wanted Terrorist" do not include the 9/11 attacks. The FBI's chief of investigative publicity explained: "The FBI has seen no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11." Could al-Qaeda have carried out the attacks? Scientists for 9/11 Truth views the rapid, symmetrical, straight-down collapses of the Towers and nearby WTC 7 as consistent only with controlled demolition. And 1500 members of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth agree: The 9/11 attacks were not the work of al-Qaeda.

Note: CNBC removed this article not long after posting it. To read this critically important press release by WantToKnow.info team member and Nobel Peace Prize nominee David Ray Griffin in its entirety, click here. Dr. Griffin's 2009 book, Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive? presented compelling evidence that bin Laden died in December 2001 -- prompting a BBC documentary of the same name. Griffin was named among the New Statesman's "50 People Who Matter Today". For an abundance of reliable news articles, videos, and more showing major deception on 9/11, click here.

Some 36 hours after the world first learnt of the US commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden, the White House changed parts of its story. A woman was killed, its spokesman said, but she was not Bin Laden's wife – who survived after being shot in the leg. Bin Laden did not, as had earlier been claimed, use his wife as a human shield; she was injured when she tried to challenge one of the US commandos. And Bin Laden was not, after all, armed, although he did, the spokesman said, put up some resistance. The new version – no wife as human shield, no weapon – makes [bin Laden] more ordinary and more vulnerable. It also raises further questions. If the first version was incorrect, perhaps even to an extent "spun" for a certain effect, might there not be room for doubt about other aspects of the official narrative? About, say, whether the crucial intelligence about Bin Laden was extracted from al-Qa'ida operatives under torture, which might appear to justify such methods and lift some of the opprobrium from the previous US administration and the CIA. A no less pertinent question that the new version raises is whether Bin Laden was ever actually given a chance to surrender and whether he might have been taken alive rather than dead. When President Obama said that justice had been done, was this – strictly speaking – justice, or was it cold-blooded retribution?

Note: WantToKnow team member David Ray Griffin's book establishing the likelihood that Osama bin Laden died in December 2001, Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive?, is available here. For many other major media news articles showing clear deception and more by government officials, click here.

While much of America celebrated the dramatic killing of Osama bin Laden, the Sept. 11 conspiracy theorists still had questions. For them and a growing number of skeptics, the plot only thickened. Could the public trust bin Laden’s DNA samples? Why was [his body disposed of] in an undisclosed location in the northern Arabian Sea? “This has not put a single of the 9/11 questions to bed,” said Steven Jones, a retired Brigham Young University physics professor and contributor to the 9/11 Truth Movement. “I don’t know how you can have closure, when there are hundreds of contradictions to the stories that you were told. The story doesn’t end here because we are told bin Laden is dead,” said Mike Berger, who works with 911Truth.org, an organization founded to examine facts around the attack. Alex Jones, a radio personality out of Austin, who gives voice to the 9/11 Truth Movement and runs the Web site Infowars.com, sent out a Web headline, “Red Alert. Inside Sources: Bin Laden Corpse Has Been on Ice for Nearly a Decade.” He lists FBI officials and counterintelligence leaders from Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan who have said for years that bin Laden was dead. Former Council on Foreign Relations member Steve R. Pieczenik even told Jones on the air in 2002 that bin Laden had been dead for months.

Note: For intriguing BBC News reports from 2010 and 2007 which claim bin Laden was already dead at that time, click here and here. WantToKnow team member David Ray Griffin's book establishing the likelihood that Osama bin Laden died in December 2001, Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive?, is available here.

Osama Bin Laden's death is being celebrated, and everyone seems to repeat the old conspiracy theory that he was indeed the mastermind behind the terror attacks of 9/11. But that was never proven, and there is not even evidence hinting at such a connection according to the FBI. Osama Bin Laden was never formally charged, because the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation didn't deliver the necessary evidence to the Department of Justice. Read ... what Rex Tomb, FBI Director of Investigative Publicity, stated in 2006 about the FBI's position: “The FBI gathers evidence. Once evidence is gathered, it is turned over to the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice then decides whether it has enough evidence to present to a federal grand jury. In the case of the 1998 United States Embassies being bombed, bin Laden has been formally indicted and charged by a grand jury. He has not been formally indicted and charged in connection with 9/11 because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11." The connection between Bin Laden and the 9/11 attacks was made by the Bush-Cheney administration, [on] the morning of the attacks, before the first tower even collapsed. Nearly ten years later, after intensive investigation, a government commission, two wars and the interrogation under torture of some 750 people detained in Guantanamo Bay without charges, no hard evidence could be found that would confirm the initial allegation.

Note: The International Business Times is an online global business newspaper, published in thirteen editions in twelve countries across eight languages. It is among the top-ten online business newspapers in the world. WantToKnow team member David Ray Griffin's book establishing the likelihood that Osama bin Laden died in December 2001, Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive?, is available here.

Goldman Sachs is bracing itself for what may be the most contentious annual meeting in the embattled investment bank's 142-year history. Angry shareholders, including a coalition of religious groups, are planning to call on Goldman's executives to justify the combined $69.6m (Ł42.4m) payday its top five executives received in 2010 and to answer questions about allegations that the bank misled clients and lied to Congress. The meeting comes amid mounting pressure on the bank. Earlier this week Eric Holder, the US attorney-general, confirmed that the justice department was investigating Goldman's role in the financial crisis following a withering report on the bank's role led by senators Carl Levin and Tom Coburn. The 650-page report "Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse," gave Goldman its own section titled "Failing to Manage Conflicts of Interest: A Case Study of Goldman Sachs." In July the bank paid $500m to settle charges brought by financial regulator the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it misled customers over complex sub-prime mortgage products it sold in 2007. The spotlight on executive pay could not come at a more sensitive moment for the bank. The bank's top five executives received cash and stock last year that was 13 times greater than the year before. Goldman's 2010 net revenues fell 13% and profits fell 37%. Goldman paid Blankfein close to $19m in compensation for 2010, almost double his award for the previous year.

Note: For lots more on the financial chicanery of Goldman Sachs and other major financial corporations that led to the global economic crisis and massive taxpayer bailouts of the firms, click here.

A Texas high school cheerleader who was kicked off the squad for refusing to chant the name of a basketball player - the same athlete she said had raped her four months earlier - lost a U.S. Supreme Court appeal [on May 2]. A federal appeals court ruled in September that the cheerleader was speaking for the school, not herself, and had no right to remain silent when called on to cheer the athlete by name. The Supreme Court denied review of the case. The girl, identified by her initials H.S., was 16 when she said she was raped at a party in her southeast Texas hometown of Silsbee in October 2008. She identified the assailant as Rakheem Bolton, [who] ultimately pleaded guilty in September 2010 to a misdemeanor assault charge. At a February 2009 basketball game in Huntsville, Texas, H.S. joined in leading cheers for the Silsbee team, which included Bolton. But when Bolton went to the foul line to shoot a free throw, H.S. folded her arms and was silent. H.S. said the district superintendent, his assistant and the school principal told her she had to cheer for Bolton or go home. She refused and was dismissed from the squad. H.S., joined by her parents, sued school officials and the district. They claimed the school had punished her for exercising her right of free expression. Federal courts have also ordered H.S. and her parents to reimburse the district more than $45,000 for the costs of defending against a frivolous suit.

Of the 500 big companies in the well-known Standard & Poor’s stock index, 115 paid a total corporate tax rate — both federal and otherwise — of less than 20 percent over the last five years, according to an analysis of company reports done for The New York Times by Capital IQ, a research firm. Thirty-nine of those companies paid a rate less than 10 percent. Arguably, the United States now has a corporate tax code that’s the worst of all worlds. The official rate is higher than in almost any other country, which forces companies to devote enormous time and effort to finding loopholes. Yet the government raises less money in corporate taxes than it once did, because of all the loopholes that have been added in recent decades. Over the last five years ... Boeing paid a total tax rate of just 4.5 percent. Southwest Airlines paid 6.3 percent. And the list goes on: Yahoo paid 7 percent; Prudential Financial, 7.6 percent; General Electric, 14.3 percent. Economists have long pleaded for an overhaul of the corporate tax code. But it won’t be easy. Companies that use loopholes to avoid taxes don’t mind the current system, of course, and they have more than a few lobbyists at their disposal.

Note: For a treasure trove of reliable reports on corporate corruption, click here.

German computer experts are working round the clock to unlock the truth behind an unexplained surge in financial transactions made just before two hijacked planes crashed into New York's World Trade Center Sept. 11. Were criminals responsible for the sharp rise in credit card transactions that moved through some computer systems at the WTC shortly before the planes hit the twin towers? Or was it coincidence that unusually large sums of money, perhaps more than $100 million, were rushed through the computers as the disaster unfolded? A world leader in retrieving data, German-based firm Convar is trying to answer those questions. Using a pioneering laser scanning technology to find data on damaged computer hard drives and main frames found in the rubble of the World Trade Center and other nearby collapsed buildings, Convar has recovered information from 32 computers that support assumptions of dirty doomsday dealings. "The suspicion is that inside information about the attack was used to send financial transaction commands and authorizations in the belief that amid all the chaos the criminals would have, at the very least, a good head start,'' said Convar director Peter Henschel. "Not only the volume but the size of the transactions was far higher than usual for a day like that. There is a suspicion that these were possibly planned to take advantage of the chaos.''

Note: For a CNN article on this most bizarre news, click here. A German news broadcast from March 11, 2002 at this link reveals that the results are being kept secret. But why? And why hasn't there been any follow-up news on this astounding information? Could it be that key government insiders knew there was going to be an attack? For lots more reliable, verifiable information on 9/11 raising serious questions, click here.

Weeks after generating an uproar for the aggressive screening of a six-year-old child in New Orleans, the TSA is again facing criticism for an enhanced pat-down. Former Miss USA Susie Castillo says she was "molested" by a TSA screener at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport after declining to go through a body scanner due to radiation concerns. According to a detailed account from the Dallas Morning News, Castillo wrote "My private area was grazed four times!" on a complaint card after the screening. Castillo immediately shot a tearful video recounting the episode more explicitly and posted it on YouTube. The Boston Herald quotes from the video: "That's why I'm crying, that's why I'm so upset. They're making me choose to either get molested, because that's what I feel like, or go through this machine that's completely unhealthy and dangerous." TSA spokesman Luis Casanova defended the screening procedure. "Everything [the screener] did was according to protocol," Casanova said.

Note: For key articles on increasing reductions of civil liberties by governments, click here.

An image of Osama bin Laden after his death yesterday has been revealed as a fake. The photo, which shows a bloodied bin Laden with a gun wound to the head, is the photo-shopped combination of two images - one of the al Qaeda founder alive in 1998 and another of an unnamed corpse. The image has reportedly been circulating for two years, but that did not stop the image being picked up by media across the world in the wake of the terrorist's death. Britain's Daily Mail, Times of London, Telegraph, Sun and Daily Mirror ... all used the image of their websites' front pages, the Guardian reported, although they were quickly taken down. Associated Press had placed the image on its wires, but soon retracted the photo as it could not verify its authenticity. The picture appears to have first been published by the Middle East online newspaper themedialine.org on April 29, 2009, although the site's editor then said they could not ascertain whether it was genuine. A US official revealed the body was photographed before being buried at sea, although no images have been released by the Obama administration. It is not clear whether photos of bin Laden's body will be released.

Note: How did this photo become accepted by the media? And why was bin Laden's body buried at sea? Could it be that those involved did not want anyone to be able to investigate whether the body was indeed that of bin Laden? For two BBC reports suggesting that bin Laden may already have been dead, click here and here.

As elated crowds celebrated the death of Osama bin Laden after Navy SEALs killed the al-Qaida chief in a weekend raid in Pakistan some are asking, "Where's the proof?" Photos depicting a bloodied and bruised face appearing to be that of bin Laden began appearing on Twitter and Facebook last night soon after news of his death spread across the Internet. According to Reuters, an archive photo of bin Laden at a news conference proves that image was a fake. Now people are asking to see the evidence proving bin Laden is dead. From Pakistan to the U.S. people expressed their skepticism about the death of the man who is perhaps the most infamous terrorist ever known. Officials said today they are "99.9 percent" certain that bin Laden was shot dead in Pakistan. They also cited CIA photo analysis matching physical features such as bin Laden's height. Rep. Mike Roger, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told the Associated Press that more than one DNA sample was used to identify Osama bin Laden. After Adolf Hitler's suicide in April 1945, conspiracy theories for years suggested Hitler was alive and in hiding. The Russian secret services came forward with a skull and jawbones. DNA results eventually showed the skull was that of a female.

Note: For two BBC reports suggesting that bin Laden may already have been dead, click here and here. Why would bin Laden's body be buried at sea? Could it be to prevent a proof of identity?

US government doctors who cared for the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay deliberately concealed or ignored evidence that their patients were being tortured, the first official study of its kind has found. A detailed review of the medical records and case files of nine Guantanamo inmates has concluded that medical personnel at the US detention centre were complicit in suppressing evidence that would demonstrate systematic torture of the inmates. The review is published in an online scientific journal, PLoS Medicine, and is the first peer-reviewed study analysing the behaviour of the doctors in charge of Guantanamo inmates who were subjected to "enhanced interrogation" techniques that a decade ago had been classed by the US government as torture. [The report] concluded that no doctor could have failed to notice the medical signs and symptoms of the extreme interrogation techniques and unauthorised assaults that other physicians would recognise as torture, such as severe beatings resulting in bone fractures, sexual assaults, mock executions, and simulated drowning by "waterboarding". Many of the prisoners said they were also subjected to unauthorised abuses resulting in severe and prolonged physical and mental pain.

Note: For lots more from major media sources on torture committed by US forces and approved by the highest levels of government, click here.

Files obtained by the website Wikileaks have revealed that the US believed many of those held at Guantanamo Bay were innocent or only low-level operatives. The files, published in US and European newspapers, are assessments of all 780 people ever held at the facility. They show that about 220 were classed as dangerous terrorists, but 150 were innocent Afghans and Pakistanis. The Detainee Assessment Briefs (DABs) ... give little information on the allegations of harsh treatment and interrogation techniques at the camp. But the files show that US military analysts considered only 220 of those ever detained at Guantanamo to be dangerous extremists. Another 380 detainees were deemed to be low-ranking guerrillas. At least 150 people were revealed to be innocent Afghans or Pakistanis - including drivers, farmers and chefs - rounded up during intelligence gathering operations in the aftermath of 9/11. The detainees were then held for years owing to mistaken identity or because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, the memos say. In many cases, US commanders concluded there was "no reason recorded for transfer".

Note: For key reports from reliable sources on the prison at Guantanamo and other black sites where torture and false allegations are the norm, click here.

U.S. officials set up a human-intelligence laboratory at Guantánamo that used interrogation and detention practices they largely made up as they went along. The secret summaries, which were obtained via WikiLeaks, help explain why in May 2009 President Obama, after ordering his own review of wartime intelligence, called ... Guantánamo "quite simply a mess." The documents ... show an intelligence operation that was tremendously dependent on informants — both prison-camp snitches repeating what they'd heard from fellow captives, and self-described, at times self-aggrandizing, former al-Qaida insiders turned government witnesses who Pentagon records show have since been released. Intelligence analysts are at odds with each other over which informants to trust, at times drawing inferences from prisoner exercise habits. They ordered DNA tests, tethered Taliban suspects to polygraphs and strung together tidbits in ways that seemed to defy common sense. The documents also show that in the earliest years of the prison camp's operation, the Pentagon permitted Chinese and Russian interrogators into the camps — information from those sessions are included in some captives' assessments — something American defense lawyers working free for the foreign prisoners have alleged and protested for years.

Note: For key reports from reliable sources on the prison at Guantanamo and other black sites where torture and false allegations are the norm, click here.

The Supreme Court gave corporations a major win [on April 27], ruling in a 5-4 decision that companies can block their disgruntled customers from joining together in a class-action lawsuit. The ruling arose from a California lawsuit involving cellphones, but it will have a nationwide impact. In the past, consumers who bought a product or a service had been free to join a class-action lawsuit if they were dissatisfied or felt they had been cheated. By combining these small claims, they could bring a major lawsuit against a corporation. But in [the] decision, the high court said that under the Federal Arbitration Act companies can force these disgruntled customers to arbitrate their complaints individually, not as part of a group. Consumer-rights advocates said this rule would spell the end for small claims involving products or services. Justice Antonin Scalia said companies may require buyers to sign arbitration agreements, and those agreements may preclude class-action claims. But the dissenters said a practical ban on class action would be unfair to cheated consumers. Justice Stephen G. Breyer said the California courts had insisted on permitting class-action claims, despite arbitration clauses that forbade them. Otherwise, he said, it would allow a company to "insulate" itself "from liability for its own frauds by deliberately cheating large numbers of consumers out of individually small sums of money."

Note: For lots more on government corruption from reliable sources, click here.

Severe storms and tornadoes moving through the U.S. Southeast dealt a severe blow to the Tennessee Valley Authority [on April 27], causing three nuclear reactors in Alabama to shut and knocking out 11 high-voltage power lines, the utility and regulators said. All three units at TVA's 3,274-megawatt Browns Ferry nuclear plant in Alabama tripped about 5:30 EDT after losing outside power to the plant, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said. A TVA spokeswoman said the station's backup power systems, including diesel generators, started and operated as designed. External power was restored quickly to the plant but diesel generators remained running Wednesday evening, she said. The Browns Ferry units are among 23 U.S. reactors that are similar in design to the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan where backup generators were swept away in the tsunami that followed the massive earthquake on March 11.

Note: And what might have happened if one of those tornadoes happened to hit a nuclear power plant?

Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.