News StoriesExcerpts of Key News Stories in Major Media
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.
When Megan Rothbauer suffered a heart attack at work in Wisconsin, she was rushed to hospital in an ambulance. The nearest hospital was "not in network", which left Ms Rothbauer with a $52,531.92 bill for her care. Had the ambulance driven a further three blocks to Meriter Hospital in Madison, the bill would have been a more modest $1,500. The incident laid bare the expensive complexity of the American healthcare system with patients finding that they are uncovered, despite paying hefty premiums, because of their policy's small print. In many cases the grounds for refusal hinge on whether the insurer accepts that the treatment is necessary and that decision is increasingly being made by artificial intelligence rather than a physician. It is leading to coverage being denied on an industrial scale. Much of the work is outsourced, with the biggest operator being EviCore, which ... uses AI to review – and in many cases turn down – doctors' requests for prior authorisation, guaranteeing to pay for treatment. The controversy over coverage denials was brought into sharp focus by the gunning down of UnitedHealthcare's chief executive Brian Thompson in Manhattan. The [words written on the] casings [of] the ammunition – "deny", "defend" and "depose" – are thought to refer to the tactics the insurance industry is accused of using to avoid paying out. UnitedHealthcare rejected one in three claims last year, about twice the industry average.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on AI and corporate corruption.
New rules require drugmakers to be clearer and more direct when explaining their medications' risks and side effects. The [new] guidelines ... are designed to do away with industry practices that downplay or distract viewers from risk information. But while regulators were drafting them, a new trend emerged: Thousands of pharma influencers pushing drugs online with little oversight. A new bill in Congress would compel the FDA to more aggressively police such promotions on social media platforms. "Some people become very attached to social media influencers and ascribe to them credibility that, in some cases, they don't deserve," said Tony Cox ... at Indiana University. Still, TV remains the industry's primary advertising format, with over $4 billion spent in the past year. Even so, many companies are looking beyond TV and expanding into social media. They often partner with patient influencers who post about managing their conditions, new treatments or navigating the health system. Advertising executives say companies like the format because it's cheaper than TV and consumers generally feel influencers are more trustworthy than companies. "The power of social media and the deluge of misleading promotions has meant too many young people are receiving medical advice from influencers instead of their health care professional," Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Mike Braun of Indiana wrote the FDA in a February letter.
Note: Prescription drug advertising is only legal in the US and New Zealand. Read more about the influencers who are paid to promote pharmaceuticals on social media. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Pharma profiteering and media manipulation.
The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic has released its final report, summarizing two years of investigations into the origins and handling of COVID-19. The 520-page report, published Monday, concludes that the virus most likely originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China. The Republican-led committee cited biological characteristics of the virus and reports of illnesses among researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in late 2019 as key evidence for its findings. The report also scrutinized the World Health Organization (WHO), accusing it of prioritizing the Chinese Communist Party's interests over its global mission to protect public health. The subcommittee criticized U.S. health officials and the Biden administration for what it described as overselling the effectiveness of vaccines in preventing transmission and infection. However, the report praised the early travel restrictions implemented by the Trump administration as a significant step in mitigating the pandemic's spread. This conclusion contrasts with other research pointing to the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan as the most likely origin of the virus. The WHO and many scientists have stated that the exact origins of the pandemic remain uncertain. The release of the report highlights the ongoing debate over the pandemic's beginnings and the global response, underscoring the complexities of managing an unprecedented public health crisis.
Note: Watch our Mindful News Brief on the strong evidence that bioweapons research created COVID-19. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on COVID corruption and COVID vaccines.
Covid-19 vaccine mandates did "more harm than good", a House of Representatives report has claimed. A 525-page report from the coronavirus pandemic select committee argued that Joe Biden's policy had cost thousands of people their jobs, harmed public confidence in health professionals and damaged military readiness. The report said that "the vaccine ... did not stop transmission and therefore making the jabs mandatory was ineffective at stopping the spread of Covid. The report also suggested that the "more likely" origin of the coronavirus pandemic was a lab leak. "Since the Select Subcommittee commenced its work ... more and more senior intelligence officials, politicians, science editors, and scientists increasingly have endorsed the hypothesis that Covid-19 emerged as the result of a laboratory or research related accident," it said. Mr Biden's administration introduced several vaccine mandates from 2021 for members of the armed forces, federal workers, healthcare workers, and businesses with more than 100 employees. Many state and local governments, along with private employers, followed suit. Some 8,000 members of the armed services were discharged as a result of the vaccine mandate. Only 43 rejoined when this was rescinded. The report argued that vaccine mandates appeared to "fly in the face of decades of scientific research", by not making an exception for those who had acquired immunity by having previously been infected.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on COVID vaccines and government corruption.
Emails show Planned Parenthood negotiating terms regarding the donation of aborted fetuses for medical research. The emails discuss fetal tissue like any other commodity such as sugar or rice, nonchalantly negotiating for fetuses up to 23 weeks old from elective abortions. A heavily-redacted so-called "Research Plan" submitted to the University of California San Diego (UCSD) Institutional Review Board and approved in 2018 states scientists wanted 2,500 fetuses from up to almost the sixth month of gestation for experimentation. Although selling fetal tissue is illegal, donating it is not illegal. The contract between UCSD and Planned Parenthood appears to allow Planned Parenthood to retain "intellectual property rights relating to the" fetal tissue, although it also does not grant UCSD the independent right to "commercialize" the tissue. The emails were shared with The Post by [founder of Center for Medical Progress] David Daleiden. Daleiden ... accuses Planned Parenthood of racism. The English language consent forms contain 15 bullet points including language disclosing that the donated tissue may have "significant commercial value." However, that specific information is not included in the Spanish language consent forms which contain only 14 bullet points. "I don't understand why Planned Parenthood…. and UCSD felt that Spanish speaking mothers did not deserve to know that the body parts of their aborted children would be â€commercialized" while English speaking mothers did deserve to have this fact disclosed to them," Daleiden [said]. The transfer of any aborted human fetal tissue for "valuable consideration" across state lines is a federal felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison or a fine of up to $500,000.
Note: Watch all the leaked footage of Planned Parenthood executives discussing the sale of aborted fetal tissue here. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on corruption in science.
There's no question that activist David Daleiden surreptitiously recorded healthcare and biomedical services employees across the state of California with the intent of discrediting the healthcare provider, Planned Parenthood. It's against state law to record confidential conversations without the consent of all the parties involved. But that doesn't mean that California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra should have charged Daleiden and his co-conspirator, Susan Merritt, with 15 felony counts – one for each of the 14 people recorded, and a 15th for conspiracy. It's disturbingly aggressive for Becerra to apply this criminal statute to people who were trying to influence a contested issue of public policy. In similar cases, we have denounced moves to criminalize such behavior, especially in the case of animal welfare investigators who have gone undercover at slaughterhouses and other agricultural businesses to secretly record horrific and illegal abuses of animals. That work, too, is aimed at revealing wrongdoing and changing public policy. The videos ... were published online nearly two years ago by Daleiden's organization, the Center for Medical Progress. Officials of Planned Parenthood, whose staff members were seen on some of the recordings, denied any wrongdoing. Still, the online posting of the edited tapes triggered more than a dozen different state investigations ... and several now concluded congressional investigations into whether fetal tissue was being sold.
Note: Watch all the leaked footage of Planned Parenthood executives discussing the sale of aborted fetal tissue here. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on corruption in science.
When Marco de Kat starts planning his meals, he doesn't need to travel far for fresh food. Right outside his house is an 800 square metre plot with all sorts of produce – apples, pears, peppers, basil, beets and cauliflower, to name a few. Oosterwold, where de Kat has lived since 2017, is a 4,300 hectare (10,625 acre) urban experiment located east of Amsterdam, in a suburb of the city of Almere, where de Kat works as a municipal councillor. The area, which has about 5,000 residents and a growing waiting list, is completely self-sufficient. Residents can build houses however they like, and must collaborate with others to figure out things such as street names, waste management, roads, and even schools. But the local government has included one extremely unusual requirement: about half of each plot must be devoted to urban agriculture. Some, like de Kat, have turned their gardens into an Eden of sorts to provide for their own household unit. Other residents just plant a few apple trees or outsource by owning plots of land on site that are tended to by professional farmers. Others, such as Jalil Bekkour, have been able to capitalise on it. "I never had experience gardening my own food or anything like that," he said. But he taught himself how to garden, and three years ago he opened his own restaurant, Atelier Feddan, where 80% of the food is directly from Oosterwold. His newfound excitement for gardening and agriculture is palpable.
Note: Learn about the community-powered movement that's transforming yards into microfarms in Los Angeles. Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division and healing the Earth.
Portugal has a life expectancy nearly four years longer than the U.S. despite spending 20% of what the U.S. does on health care per person. According to the 2021 Global Security Index, which measures the ability to respond to pandemics, Portugal ranked third out of 195 countries in providing access to affordable health care. The United States ranked 183rd. Portugal has a national health care system, entitling every resident to free or very low-cost health care. It embraces innovative programs such as "social prescribing" that expand the boundaries of what is considered health care, while progressive laws on drug use and treatment have been credited with driving down overdose deaths, even as they rose in the U.S. In the 1990s, Portugal had one of the highest rates of heroin use and fatal overdoses anywhere. In 2001, the country not only decriminalized the use and possession of drugs, but also, in partnership with several non-governmental organizations such as Crescer, created a network of mostly free inpatient and outpatient treatment centers and mobile street teams that seek out drug users to provide medical care, clean needles, and support to enter addiction programs. Two decades later, drug overdose deaths have fallen sharply, from one per day to about 70 to 80 per year. New Jersey, with a smaller population than Portugal, sees 3,000 a year. HIV infection rates have dropped dramatically, too.
Note: Read our Substack to learn about social prescribing and other inspiring remedies to the chronic illness crisis ravaging the world. Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division and healing our bodies.
When large swathes of invasive seaweed started washing up on Caribbean beaches in 2011, local residents were perplexed. Soon, mounds of unsightly sargassum – carried by currents from the Sargasso Sea and linked to climate change – were carpeting the region's prized coastlines, repelling holidaymakers with the pungent stench emitted as it rots. Now, a pioneering group of Caribbean scientists and environmentalists hope to turn the tide on the problem by transforming the troublesome algae into a lucrative biofuel. They recently launched one of the world's first vehicles powered by bio-compressed natural gas. The innovative fuel source created at the University of the West Indies (UWI) in Barbados also uses wastewater from local rum distilleries, and dung from the island's indigenous blackbelly sheep which provides the vital anaerobic bacteria. The team says any car can be converted to run on the gas via a simple and affordable four-hour installation process, using an easily available kit, at a total cost of around $2,500 (Ł1,940). "Tourism has suffered a lot from the seaweed; hotels have been spending millions on tackling it. It's caused a crisis," Dr Henry, a renewable energy expert and UWI lecturer, [said]. The idea that it could have a valuable purpose was suggested by one of her students, Brittney McKenzie, who had observed the volume of trucks being deployed to transport sargassum from Barbados' beaches.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on technology for good.
The Trump administration this month announced that one of its largest pandemic-related contracts would go to a little-known biodefense company named Emergent BioSolutions. The $628 million deal to help manufacture an eventual vaccine cemented Emergent's status as the highest-paid and most important contractor to the HHS office responsible for preparing for public health threats and maintaining the government's stockpile of emergency medical supplies. Emergent has long been the government's sole provider of BioThrax, a vaccine for anthrax poisoning. Emergent's advocacy for biodefense spending over more than a decade was aided by influential allies in Washington and tens of millions of dollars in lobbying campaigns. "It has strategically placed itself to be, let's just say, the company that can't fail," said a former senior government official who worked with Emergent on stockpile operations. The company that would become Emergent began as BioPort Corp., formed in 1998 to buy an aging, state-owned company in Lansing, Mich., that was the only licensed supplier of anthrax vaccine to the Pentagon. The Pentagon ... awarded a $29 million no-bid contract for the anthrax vaccine, BioThrax. Controversy swamped the operation. Hundreds of U.S. troops who received the BioThrax treatment complained of bad reactions, such as headaches and nerve problems. Some troops risked courts-martial by refusing vaccination. Emergent spent nearly $4 million on lobbying last year alone.
Note: To understand the huge influence of lobbying and profits on the development and stockpiling of vaccines, don't miss reading this entire, eye-opening article.
Within Meta's Counterterrorism and Dangerous Organizations team, [Hannah] Byrne helped craft one of the most powerful and secretive censorship policies in internet history. She and her team helped draft the rulebook that applies to the world's most diabolical people and groups: the Ku Klux Klan, cartels, and terrorists. Meta bans these so-called Dangerous Organizations and Individuals, or DOI, from using its platforms, but further prohibits its billions of users from engaging in "glorification," "support," or "representation" of anyone on the list. As an armed white supremacist group with credible allegations of human rights violations hanging over it, Azov [Battalion] had landed on the Dangerous Organizations list. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Meta not only moved swiftly to allow users to cheer on the Azov Battalion, but also loosened its rules around incitement, hate speech, and gory imagery so Ukrainian civilians could share images of the suffering around them. Within weeks, Byrne found the moral universe around her inverted: The heavily armed hate group sanctioned by Congress since 2018 were now freedom fighters resisting occupation, not terroristic racists. It seems most galling for Byrne to compare how malleable Meta's Dangerous Organizations policy was for Ukraine, and how draconian it has felt for those protesting the war in Gaza. "I know the U.S. government is in constant contact with Facebook employees," she said. Meta's censorship systems are "basically an extension of the government," Byrne said. "You want military, Department of State, CIA people enforcing free speech? That is what is concerning."
Note: Read more about Facebook's secret blacklist, and how Facebook censored reporting of war crimes in Gaza but allowed praise for the neo-Nazi Azov Brigade on its platform. Going deeper, click here if you want to know the real history behind the Russia-Ukraine war. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on censorship and Big Tech.
HouseFresh.com ... started in 2020 by Gisele Navarro and her husband, based on a decade of experience writing about indoor air quality products. They filled their basement with purifiers, running rigorous science-based tests ... to help consumers sort through marketing hype. HouseFresh is an example of what has been a flourishing industry of independent publishers producing exactly the sort of original content Google says it wants to promote. The website grew into a thriving business with 15 full-time employees. In September 2023, Google made one in a series of major updates to the algorithm that runs its search engine. The second Google algorithm update came in March, and it was even more punishing. "It decimated us," Navarro says. "Suddenly the search terms that used to bring up HouseFresh were sending people to big lifestyle magazines that clearly don't even test the products." HouseFresh's thousands of daily visitors dwindled to just hundreds. Over the last few weeks, HouseFresh had to lay off most of its team. Results for popular search terms are crowded with websites that contain very little useful information, but tonnes of ads and links to retailers that earn publishers a share of profits. "Google's just committing war on publisher websites," [search engine expert Lily] Ray says. "It's almost as if Google designed an algorithm update to specifically go after small bloggers. I've talked to so many people who've just had everything wiped out." A number of website owners and search experts ... said there's been a general shift in Google results towards websites with big established brands, and away from small and independent sites, that seems totally disconnected from the quality of the content.
Note: These changes to Google search have significantly reduced traffic to WantToKnow.info and other independent media outlets. Read more about Google's bias machine, and how Google relies on user reactions rather than actual content to shape search results. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on censorship and Big Tech.
Under the guise of combating misinformation, the US government funds universities, ostensibly to analyze social-media trends – but in truth, to help censor the Internet. Agencies like the National Science Foundation provide taxpayer dollars to universities like Stanford and the University of Washington as part of a broader government effort to pressure social-media companies into censoring speech related to elections, public health and other matters. A lawsuit against the Biden administration in the case that became Murthy v. Missouri uncovered emails in which federal officials threatened to penalize social-media companies unless they complied with orders to banish users who posted speech contrary to the administration's priorities. Last year, a federal judge reviewing this evidence dubbed the administration's effort a de facto "Ministry of Truth." Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently wrote that in 2021, the Biden-Harris administration "repeatedly pressured" his social-media empire to censor speech – even humor and satire. When Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022 and revealed similar evidence in the "Twitter Files," the public first learned that university misinformation research teams, funded by the government, actively participated in those censorship efforts. These academics served as a front for the government's censorship policy, essentially laundering it in the name of science. But if this is research, it is unethical research that harms the human subjects under study.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on censorship and government corruption.
Last week, I was on the path to publishing a piece in a major legacy media outlet–a name all of you would instantly recognize–about Trump's bold appointment of RFK Jr. as head of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). For weeks, I had been in discussions with an editor about publishing this article, which argued that Trump appears to be genuinely signalling toward transformative health policy reform. After submitting the piece late Tuesday night to meet a Wednesday deadline, I received a surprising email from my editor the following morning: "Appears we don't approve." She linked to a new editorial board piece labeling RFK Jr. a "fringe conspiracy theorist" likely to harm public health. Her follow-up message read, "We have come out aggressively against Kennedy." Just like that, my piece was axed. My commitment to honest reporting and ideological independence opened many doors. Until it didn't. I discovered that hot-button topics I tackled like identity politics and police brutality were actually far less contentious than the third rail of Big Pharma and government health policies. Wokism is a far less pernicious, gargantuan force in American politics and media than Pfizer, Merck, and Moderna. By 2021, as the pandemic and vaccine mandates became politically charged, my pitches began to hit a wall. Outlets that once published polarizing takes now resisted anything questioning mainstream pandemic narratives.
Note: This article was written by independent journalist Rav Arora. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on censorship and media manipulation.
With the misinformation category being weaponized across the political spectrum, we took a look at how invested government has become in studying and "combatting" it using your tax dollars. That research can provide the intellectual ammunition to censor people online. Since 2021, the Biden-Harris administration has spent $267 million on research grants with the term "misinformation" in the proposal. Of course, the Covid pandemic was the driving force behind so much of the misinformation debate. There is robust documentation by now proving that the Biden-Harris administration worked closely with social media companies to censor content deemed "misinformation," which often included cases where people simply questioned or disagreed with the Administration's COVID policies. In February the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government issued a scathing report against the National Science Foundation (NSF) for funding grants supporting tools and processes that censor online speech. The report said, "the purpose of these taxpayer-funded projects is to develop artificial intelligence (AI)-powered censorship and propaganda tools that can be used by governments and Big Tech to shape public opinion by restricting certain viewpoints or promoting others." $13 million was spent on the censorious technologies profiled in the report.
Note: Read the full article on Substack to uncover all the misinformation contracts with government agencies, universities, nonprofits, and defense contractors. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on censorship and government corruption.
A House committee revealed Friday that the Pentagon, other US agencies and the European Union – in addition to the State Department – have funded a for-profit "fact-checking" firm that allegedly served "as a nontransparent agent of censorship campaigns." House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) wrote a letter to the firm, NewsGuard, demanding more details about the public-private collaboration that led last year to the State Department being sued by conservative outlets that were labeled more "risky" than their liberal counterparts. NewsGuard has briefed committee staff on contracts it had with the Defense Department in 2021, including the Cyber National Mission Force within US Cyber Command; the State Department and its Global Engagement Center; and the EU's Joint Research Centre. The Oversight panel in June opened its investigation into NewsGuard's apparent participation in a government-funded "censorship campaign" to allegedly discredit and even demonetize news outlets by sharing its ratings of their reliability with advertisers. "These wide-ranging connections with various government agencies are taking place as the government is rapidly expanding into the censorship sphere," the chairman wrote. "One search of government grants and contracts from 2016 through 2023 revealed that there were 538 separate grants and 36 different government contracts specifically to address â€misinformation' and â€disinformation.'"
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on censorship and intelligence agency corruption.
Few in the media seemed eager to attend a ceremony last week in Washington, D.C., where the prestigious American Academy of Sciences and Letters was awarding its top intellectual freedom award. The problem may have been the recipient: Stanford Professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. Bhattacharya has spent years being vilified by the media over his dissenting views on the pandemic. As one of the signatories of the 2020 Great Barrington Declaration, he was canceled, censored, and even received death threats. That open letter called on government officials and public health authorities to rethink the mandatory lockdowns and other extreme measures in light of past pandemics. All the signatories became targets of an orthodoxy enforced by an alliance of political, corporate, media, and academic groups. Most were blocked on social media despite being accomplished scientists with expertise in this area. It did not matter that positions once denounced as "conspiracy theories" have been recognized or embraced by many. Some argued that there was no need to shut down schools. Others argued that the virus's origin was likely the Chinese research lab in Wuhan. That position was denounced by the Washington Post as a "debunked" coronavirus "conspiracy theory." The New York Times Science and Health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli called any mention of the lab theory "racist." Federal agencies now support the lab theory as the most likely based on the scientific evidence.
Note: Read more about the Great Barrington Declaration. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on censorship and COVID corruption.
Technology companies are having some early success selling artificial intelligence tools to police departments. Axon, widely recognized for its Taser devices and body cameras, was among the first companies to introduce AI specifically for the most common police task: report writing. Its tool, Draft One, generates police narratives directly from Axon's bodycam audio. Currently, the AI is being piloted by 75 officers across several police departments. "The hours saved comes out to about 45 hours per police officer per month," said Sergeant Robert Younger of the Fort Collins Police Department, an early adopter of the tool. Cassandra Burke Robertson, director of the Center for Professional Ethics at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, has reservations about AI in police reporting, especially when it comes to accuracy. "Generative AI programs are essentially predictive text tools. They can generate plausible text quickly, but the most plausible explanation is often not the correct explanation, especially in criminal investigations," she said. In the courtroom, AI-generated police reports could introduce additional complications, especially when they rely solely on video footage rather than officer dictation. New Jersey-based lawyer Adam Rosenblum said "hallucinations" – instances when AI generates inaccurate or false information – that could distort context are another issue. Courts might need new standards ... before allowing the reports into evidence.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on AI and police corruption.
Even for those familiar with parts of the stories about women who were deceived into intimate relationships with undercover police officers, the evidence that has emerged in recent weeks has been shocking. The litany of destructive behaviour either carried out by, or caused by, officers deployed to spy on campaigners, who were mostly active in leftwing causes, is being laid bare as never before: self-harm, heroin use, unprotected sex leading to emergency contraception, coercive control and the sudden abandonment of female partners and children. On Tuesday, Belinda Harvey told the public inquiry how she was manipulated by Bob Lambert, who tricked at least three other women into relationships as well. Next week, Mr Lambert will face questions about who authorised the tactic of targeting and seducing young, female activists – and why he employed it so many times. Last month, another undercover officer testified that Mr Lambert had "bragged" about fathering a child. In their jointly authored book, Deep Deception, five women described how they found out that they had been systematically lied to by former partners – in some cases after decades of confusion and self-doubt. Mr Lambert stands out not only for the number of secret relationships he initiated and his alleged involvement in an arson plot, but also because his five-year deployment as a police spy in the 1980s was treated as a triumph. He was given a commendation and went on to run covert operations.
Note: Read more about the dozens of activists tricked into having romantic relationships with undercover police. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on police corruption.
The existence of a squad of police officers sent deep undercover in political groups was so top secret that many of the UK's most senior officers were completely oblivious until they began reading reports in the Guardian 10 years ago. When Lisa Jones ... and her friends established that [her boyfriend Mark] Kennedy was a police officer who had been spying on climate change activists, the story [collapsed] a major trial ... quashing the convictions of environmental activists who had been prosecuted for conspiring to shut down one of the UK's biggest power stations. The police spies initially belonged to the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), which was created to control the restive protests of the late 1960s, including those opposed to the war in Vietnam, but continued to monitor protest groups for a further four decades. Their deployments typically lasted four to five years, with officers living alongside political campaigners, forming deep bonds of friendship, or romantic liaisons, with their targets. At least three of the police spies fathered children with women they met while undercover. Over more than four decades, at least 139 police officers were given fake identities to closely monitor the inner workings of more than 1,000 political groups. These police spies were tasked with gathering intelligence that could be used to disrupt and monitor political groups. Their targets included the black power movement, the anti-apartheid campaign, leftwing groups, and anarchists. Many ... were instructed by their superiors to adopt the identities of dead children to lend credibility to their aliases – with some, in a macabre ritual, even visiting the graves of the deceased children whose identities they were using. One of the most notorious police spies, Bob Lambert, who adopted the identity of a seven–year-old boy who had died of a congenital heart defect in 1959.
Note: Read more about the dozens of activists tricked into having romantic relationships with undercover police. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on police corruption.
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.