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.
More than a decade ago, researchers at Gilead Sciences thought they had a breakthrough: a new version of the company’s key HIV medicine that was less toxic to kidneys and bones. Clinical trials ... seemed to support their optimism. Patients needed just a fraction of the dose, creating the chance of far fewer dangerous side effects. But in 2004 ... Gilead executives stopped the research. The results of the early patient studies would go unpublished for years as the original medication - tenofovir - became one of the world’s most-prescribed drugs for HIV, with $11 billion in annual sales. In 2010, Gilead restarted those trials. A year of treatment with Gilead’s HIV medicines costs about $30,000. Earlier this year, the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which operates clinics and pharmacies for AIDS patients, sued Gilead, contending that it delayed the less toxic form of tenofovir to manipulate the patent system and keep prices artificially high. Animal studies showed that [tenofovir] could cause damage to the kidneys and bones. When the drug was approved in 2001, the FDA required Gilead to study whether the medicine would harm humans in the same way. [By] 2003, the company had received so many reports of patients experiencing kidney failure and other ... problems that it placed a warning on the drug’s label. Several times, U.S. regulators formally warned Gilead that it was downplaying the drug’s risks.
Note: After the FDA warned Gilead that its sales reps were illegally lying to doctors about tenofovir's safety, Gilead continued misrepresenting this drug, prompting the FDC to send the company a rare second warning letter. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing big Pharma profiteering news articles from reliable major media sources.
At his trial on drug charges nearly a decade ago, Ben Baker told a seemingly far-fetched tale about a corrupt band of Chicago police officers who ran a South Side housing project like their own criminal fiefdom, stealing narcotics proceeds, shaking down dealers for protection money and pinning cases on those who refused to play ball. A Cook County judge at the time said he believed the testimony of veteran Sgt. Ronald Watts and officers under his command, not Baker's accusations that Watts and his crew had framed him. But two years ago Watts was convicted on federal corruption charges after being snared in an FBI sting. Now, Baker is seeking to overturn his own conviction and 14-year sentence in a case that casts a spotlight on the police code of silence. In a court filing this week, his lawyers [cite] a whistleblower lawsuit filed by two Chicago police officers who ... faced repeated retaliation after going to supervisors about their discovery of the police corruption. FBI reports [show] that at the time of Baker's trial, Watts was already the target of an ongoing joint investigation by the FBI and Chicago police internal affairs investigators into allegations of corruption nearly identical to those made by Baker. Five years later ... FBI agents were able to build a criminal case against Watts, based in part on the undercover work by the two [whistleblowers], Shannon Spalding and Daniel Echeverria. After Watts was charged in 2012, Spalding and Echeverria filed their lawsuit naming ... a dozen high-ranking officers as defendants.
Note: Explore an excellent website run by former police officers exposing police corruption and calling for accountability. Included on that webpage is a long list of police officers who were severely threatened, harassed, and fired for exposing police corruption. Then explore concise summaries of deeply revealing police corruption news articles from the major media.
It was July 1974. William Simon, newly appointed U.S. Treasury secretary, and his deputy, Gerry Parsky, stepped onto an 8 a.m. flight. [Simon's] mission, kept in strict confidence within President Richard Nixon's inner circle, would take place during a four-day layover in the coastal city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The goal: persuade a hostile kingdom to finance America's widening deficit with its newfound petrodollar wealth. The United States would buy oil from Saudi Arabia and provide the kingdom military aid and equipment. In return, the Saudis would plow billions of their petrodollar revenue back into Treasuries and finance America's spending. At the end of months of negotiations, there remained one small, yet crucial, catch: King Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud demanded the country's Treasury purchases stay "strictly secret." With a handful of Treasury and Federal Reserve officials, the secret was kept for more than four decades. In response to a Freedom-of-Information-Act request submitted by Bloomberg News, the Treasury broke out Saudi Arabia's holdings for the first time this month. The $117 billion trove makes the kingdom one of America's largest foreign creditors. A former Treasury official ... says the official figure vastly understates Saudi Arabia's investments in U.S. government debt, which may be double or more. In April, Saudi Arabia warned it would start selling as much as $750 billion in Treasuries and other assets if Congress passes a bill allowing the kingdom to be held liable in U.S. courts for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Note: In May, the Senate approved a bill that allows victims of 9/11 and their families to pursue lawsuits against Saudi Arabia for its role in the Sept. 11 attacks. Several prominent figures are currently pushing for the declassification of hidden 9/11 report pages which reportedly shed further light on Saudi support for terrorism. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing government secrecy news articles from reliable major media sources.
Environmentalists have taken to streets around the world to protest against seed giant Monsanto at the same time as the company is facing a $62 billion takeover by Bayer, the German drugs giant. More than 400 simultaneous demonstrations against genetically modified crops and pesticides were organised around the world this weekend. The protests took place in over 40 countries. They come come as Monsanto faces an unsolicited takeover offer by Bayer, the chemical giant that invented aspirin. The deal could create the world’s biggest supplier of farm chemical and genetically modified seeds. Up to 3,000 protesters, rallied by environmental organisations including Greenpeace and Stop TAFTA, an anti-capitalist group, gathered in Paris, according to Agence France Presse. Protesters voiced their anger against Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup which is classified as “probably carcinogenic to humans” by the World Health Organisation. In the US, where 90 per cent of corn, soybean and cotton is genetically modified, campaigners promoted the march with a billboard in Times Square, showing a topless model and the slogan: “Keep GMOs out of your genes.” On Monday Bayer made an unsolicited $62 billion all-cash offer to acquire Monsanto. A concentration of corporate power in the agriculture and chemical sector would be bad news for both farmers and consumers. It would accelerate the decrease in crop diversity while limiting consumer choice. Farmers would ... find it harder to choose what they grow and how they grow it.
Note: Bayer's pesticides have been implicated in the collapse of bee populations. Glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto's "RoundUp" pesticide, is now the most heavily-used agricultural chemical ever and probably causes cancer. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing GMO news articles from reliable major media sources.
CEOs at the biggest companies got a 4.5 percent pay raise last year. That's almost double the typical American worker's, and a lot more than investors earned from owning their stocks - a big fat zero. The typical chief executive in the Standard & Poor's 500 index made $10.8 million, including bonuses, stock awards and other compensation, according to a study by executive data firm Equilar for The Associated Press. That's up from the median of $10.3 million the same group of CEOs made a year earlier. The raise alone for median CEO pay last year, $468,449, is more than 10 times what the typical U.S. worker makes in a year. The median full-time worker earned $809 weekly in 2015, up from $791 in 2014. "With inflation running at less than 2 percent, why?" asks Charles Elson, director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware. The answer is complicated. CEO pay packages now hinge on multiple layers of sometimes esoteric measurements of performance. That's a result of corporate boards attempting to respond to years of criticism ... from Main Street America, regulators and even candidates on the presidential trail this year. One bright spot, experts say, is the rise in the number of companies that tie CEO pay to how well their stocks perform. "There's progress generally in aligning compensation with shareholder returns," says Stu Dalheim, vice president of governance and advocacy at Calvert Investments. "But I don't think this compensation is sustainable."
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing income inequality news articles from reliable major media sources.
It was Soviet intervention, not the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that caused Japan to surrender. Most Americans cling to the myth that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 [forced] Japan's surrender without a U.S. invasion. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth. As the National Museum of the U.S. Navy makes clear, the atomic bombs ... "made little impact on the Japanese military. However, the Soviet invasion of Manchuria ... changed their minds." As shocking as this may be to Americans today, it was well known to military leaders at the time. In fact, seven of America's eight five-star officers in 1945 said that the bombs were either militarily unnecessary, morally reprehensible or both. Following the defeat at Saipan in July 1944, many Japanese leaders realized the war could not be won militarily. Telegrams going back and forth between Japanese officials in Tokyo and Moscow made it clear that the Japanese were seeking an honorable way to end what they had started. The U.S. had been firebombing and wiping out Japanese cities since early March. Destruction reached 99.5 percent in the city of Toyama. Japanese leaders accepted that the U.S. could and would wipe out Japan's cities. It didn't make a big difference whether this was one plane and one bomb or hundreds of planes and thousands of bombs. The atomic bombs contributed next to nothing to U.S. victory, but they did slaughter hundreds of thousands of civilians.
Note: Read a detailed description of how the New York Times suppressed and skewed the facts about the effects of the atomic bomb in order to forward the war-profiteering agenda. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about government corruption and the manipulation of public opinion.
President Obama will become the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima, the Japanese city that the United States nearly destroyed with a nuclear bomb in 1945. While the bombing ... killed as many as 150,000 people, Obama is not expected to apologize during his visit. After more than 70 years, why not apologize for Hiroshima? Countries in general do not apologize for violence against other countries. What else has America not apologized for? Here are a few ideas. During the Vietnam War, the United States sprayed about 12 million gallons of Agent Orange, a herbicide, over areas of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. About 1 million people were disabled or suffered health problems because of contact with the herbicide. There has been no apology for this or for other controversies of the war. In 1953, democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh was overthrown in a coup [that] was carried out under CIA direction ... with the aid of the British Secret Intelligence Service. The United States and Britain have never apologized for [this], with the Obama administration recently stating that it had no plans to. The United States is also widely suspected of involvement in a bloody 1973 coup that ousted socialist Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1973 and put dictator Augusto Pinochet in control. In 1977, Brady Tyson, deputy leader of the U.S. delegation to the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva, did ... offer an apology for the U.S. involvement in the coup, but he was quickly disavowed by the State Department.
Note: Read a detailed description of how the New York Times suppressed and skewed the facts about the effects of the atomic bomb in order to forward the war-profiteering agenda. Although CIA involvement in the Iranian coup and the Pentagon's prolonged support for the Pinochet regime's torturers are now well-known, the intelligence community remains unapologetically corrupt.
Corey Feldman, who has opened up in the past about being molested by multiple Hollywood bigwigs, said he believes the problem of producer pedophiles is bigger today in age of social media. He’s also said one of his abusers is “still prominently in the business today.” Gabe Hoffman is the executive producer of “An Open Secret,” a 2015 documentary that investigated child molesters in Hollywood, and he echoed Feldman’s sentiments. "Young people, both boys and girls looking to work in Hollywood are at great risk from sexual predators,” he [said]. Psychologist Dr. Judith Zackson concurred. “The Internet is becoming an increasingly dangerous place for young, vulnerable stars,” she said. “Internet profiles provide an anonymous platform for pedophiles to study their victim’s personal information and patterns to assist in their ‘grooming’ process - pedophiles develop a relationship with their victims through enticing dialogue filled with promises that promote the young stars dream.” Pop culture expert Cate Meighan said the Internet lets abusers reach out to victims more easily. “Back in the ‘80s it really was quite different in that these people had to wait until child stars were brought into their circle to have access to them,” she said. “Now, they have the ability to hand pick potential targets and probably at a much younger age too.” Feldman has been vocal in the past regarding pedophilia in Hollywood. In 2011, he said it was “the number one problem in Hollywood” claiming it to be “the big secret” plaguing the industry.
Note: Don't miss the incredible film "An Open Secret" which follows five boys and their families who were gradually ensnared by a secret Hollywood pedophile ring which ruins their lives. It is available for free viewing on this webpage. The entire "Secret Societies in Hollywood" series is available here. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
"An Open Secret" is an unsettling look at pedophilia in Hollywood. The film's distillation of firsthand testimony and archival material has haunting implications. Amid the sickening recollections of victims and the even more sickening justifications of abusers, alleged and convicted, a picture emerges of a business devoid of oversight, where starry-eyed kids and trusting parents are easy prey. The [documentary by Amy Berg] advocates for transparency and an active watchdog apparatus, and it points to instances where convicted child molesters continue to work with children in the industry. Mainly, the film explores the shadows where managers, agents, producers and other power players take their predatory bonding with boys to criminal extremes. Five young men step forward to share their accusations of abuse. One of them, Michael Egan, filed headline-making allegations against Hollywood figures in 2014 — claims that he later dropped, an outcome that changed the trajectory of the film. However, an ongoing dispute between Berg and performers' union SAG-AFTRA, which threatened legal action over references to it, doesn't appear to have affected the finished product. With a healthy sense of outrage, it illuminates a long-standing culture in which lines of moral responsibility are blurred and accountability is all but nil.
Note: Don't miss this incredible film which follows five boys and their families who were gradually ensnared by a secret Hollywood pedophile ring which ruins their lives. It is available for free viewing on this webpage. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Elijah Wood called out child exploitation in Hollywood earlier this week. He later made it clear that he was not speaking from personal experience. But Corey Feldman wants people to know that he knows about Hollywood's child abuse problem firsthand. In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Feldman said he was molested as a child actor, and that his best friend Corey Haim was raped at the age of 11. He said that he has had to go through "a lot of therapy" to cope with his traumatic childhood; the actor said his molestations came "from several hands." "Ask anybody in our group of kids at that time: They were passing us back and forth to each other," said Feldman, adding that grown men in Hollywood would host parties and invite mostly kids aged 10 to 16 with just a few adults in the mix. "[Alison Arngrim] from 'Little House on the Prairie' said [in an interview], 'Everybody knew that the two Coreys were just being passed around.' Like it was something people joked about on studio lots." Feldman added that he still can't imagine what it was like for Haim to have been raped. "My son is 11 now, and I can't even begin to fathom the idea of something like that happening to him," he said. Feldman said that while he would love to name names, he was afraid to do so because of the legal conundrum it would inflict on him, but he said he has bumped into one of his molesters several times and has never confronted him.
Note: Don't miss the incredible film "An Open Secret" which follows five boys and their families who were gradually ensnared by a secret Hollywood pedophile ring which ruins their lives. It is available for free viewing on this webpage. The entire "Secret Societies in Hollywood" series is available here. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
British police investigating allegations of historical child sex abuse said more than 1,400 people had been named as suspects including 261 described as "people of public prominence" including dozens of politicians and TV stars. Child abuse scandals over the last few years have prompted the government to launch a major public inquiry. Chief Constable Simon Bailey, the officer leading that inquiry named "Operation Hydrant", said 1,433 people were being investigated of whom 216 were now dead. The suspects included 135 figures from TV, film or radio, 76 politicians involved in both local and national politics, 43 from the music industry and seven from the sporting world. "This investigation is massive and a testimony to how the attitude to victims is changing," said Sheila Taylor, chief executive of the National Working Group Network, a charity which tackles child sexual exploitation. The issue of child abuse came to widespread prominence in 2012 when the late BBC TV presenter Jimmy Savile was shown to have abused hundreds of victims for decades. Since then, other household names have been convicted, allegations have been made against a number of former or deceased politicians, while detectives are also looking into claims powerful figures forced police to drop inquiries into paedophile rings involving high-profile people. Bailey said that 666 of the offenders being investigated were alleged to have carried out abuse at institutions including schools, children's homes and religious institutions.
Note: In 1984, UK security services raided major newspapers to prevent the publication of articles on paedophile rings run by prominent politicians. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Officials with the New Jersey attorney general’s office said on Monday that the state had agreed to a $400,000 settlement in a lawsuit filed by a former state trooper who said that he was beaten and harassed by members of a secret group of rogue officers within the State Police. The former trooper, Justin Hopson, filed the lawsuit in 2003. In it, he described a series of beatings, threats and acts of vandalism that he said occurred after he refused to support an arrest by another trooper in 2002. Mr. Hopson said that he was attacked by members of a loose-knit group within the State Police known as the Lords of Discipline. For years, minority and female troopers have complained that they have been harassed by members of the group. In 2005, the state attorney general’s office issued a report that found seven troopers guilty of harassing their colleagues. The troopers received punishments ranging from reprimands to 45-day suspensions. Mr. Hopson, 33, filed suit after the March 2002 arrest of a woman for drunken driving, which he said was improper because the woman had not been behind the wheel. When Mr. Hopson refused to endorse fellow troopers’ versions of events surrounding the arrest, court papers said, a campaign to silence him began. First, there were threatening notes left around his station house. Then, Mr. Hopson said, his car was vandalized. By the time he sued the state in December 2003, Mr. Hopson said that he had been the victim of a series of beatings at the hands of another trooper.
Note: Read a follow-up article on how this good man is calling for all of us to step up. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing police corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.
Maybe it's the 17 freezers he keeps running in his apartment, or his nodding eyes from lack of sleep. Spend a few hours with Allan Law and you start to realize a little crazy comes with his kindness. "It's stupid," Law agrees. "Last night I got no sleep out in the streets, but I slept two hours today." Next week, the Minnesotan known as the "Sandwich Man" will be honored by Minneapolis Rotary for his efforts on behalf of homeless people. Law started serving disadvantaged Minnesotans while still a teacher for Minneapolis Public Schools. His efforts hit high gear when he retired 16 years ago. Working out of the van he drives through the night, last year Law handed out more than 700,000 sandwiches, 7,000 pair of socks and 75,000 bus tokens. Some of his work is funded by his teaching pension, the rest is covered by donations to his non-profit organization, Minneapolis Recreation Development. Those 17 freezers in his apartment store sandwiches made by 800 church, business, and civic groups each year. Law delivers some of the sandwiches for distribution by shelters, others he hands out by himself. "I bring sandwiches so not only will they have something to eat, but when they leave in the morning they can take a couple sandwiches with them." He also makes the rounds to gas stations during the night, collecting food that would otherwise go into dumpsters, for quick distribution to the homeless. "Sometimes I get emotional," Law says. "Somebody has to care."
Note: Watch a great, five-minute video on this caring man who makes a big difference.
It was around 7:15 on a recent Tuesday morning. We were in the middle of a partner yoga session at one of the San Francisco editions of Daybreaker, an early-morning dance party that descends, every month, on an increasing number of cities around the world. There wasnt much time for reflection. A massage train was forming in the center of the increasingly brightening Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. People rubbed shoulders and had their shoulders rubbed. Soon, revelers were thronging the coat check. House music thumped from the main room. Near the D.J., Teresa Young ... formed a circle with 10 of her friends. Its hard to motivate people ... to go out to anything these days, but surprisingly the amount of people that will wake up at the crack of dawn to do yoga and dance - massive! she exclaimed, beaming. She works in digital marketing and planned to go from the party to her office. This, its founders say, is why Daybreaker was created: to give people who genuinely enjoy dancing an outlet to do so without alcohol, drugs, cover fees, bottle service or all of the usual accouterments of night life. The emphasis at the San Francisco party was on consciousness, mindfulness, purposefulness and othernesses that generally necessitate being neither drunk nor high. By 9:30, things were winding down. Lana Baumgartner, 28, contemplated how many calories she had burned: Id much rather be dancing with all these people than in a gym.
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
Theres a recycling revolution happening in Sweden. Less than one per cent of Sweden's household garbage ends up in landfills today. By Swedish law, producers are responsible for handling all costs related to collection and recycling or disposal of their products. If a beverage company sells bottles of pop at stores, the financial onus is on them to pay for bottle collection as well as related recycling or disposal costs. Rules introduced in the 1990s incentivized companies to take a more proactive, eco-conscious role about what products they take to market. It was also a clever way to alleviate taxpayers of full waste management costs. According to data collected from Swedish recycling company Returpack, Swedes collectively return 1.5 billion bottles and cans annually. What can't be reused or recycled usually heads to WTE incineration plants. WTE plants work by loading furnaces with garbage, burning it to generate steam which is used to spin generator turbines used to produce electricity. That electricity is then transferred to transmission lines and a grid distributes it across the country. In Helsingborg (population: 132,989), one plant produces enough power to satisfy 40 per cent of the citys heating needs. Across Sweden, power produced via WTE provides approximately 950,000 homes with heating and 260,000 with electricity. Recycling and incineration have evolved into efficient garbage-management processes to help the Scandinavian country dramatically cut down the amount of household waste that ends up in landfills.
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
With 165.5m individual ticket sales [in the UK], film remains a medium with the capability to reach a large and wide-ranging audience. Here, we take a look at ... documentaries which thrust sustainability issues into the spotlight. Food Inc provides an in-depth focus on the 21st century food industry, contending that the major corporation 'factory-model' has scant regard for either animal welfare or consumer well-being in the pursuit of profit. The documentary investigates the meat and grain industries, highlighting the lack of transparency between major food businesses and their customers. Gasland focuses on the process of hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking - the controversial method used to extract natural gas from the ground. The film looks at the major energy industry's attempts to take advantage of the potential resources of a small town, and the apparently disastrous impact on the local environment, particularly the water supply. Who Killed the Electric Car? While documenting the development of the electric car, the film brings to account the corporations and government officials responsible for undermining and legislating against this innovation. Blue Gold: World Water Wars ... looks at the corporate and political machinations surrounding the world water supply and the increasing demand for it. As well as a rebuke for those attempting to stockpile and over-charge for what is an essential to human existence, it provides stories of those fighting for more open access to water supplies.
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
Before Elijah Wood starred as Frodo Baggins in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, he was a child actor - and now he's making some explosive allegations. The actor ... is accusing [Hollywood] of having a pedophilia problem. "Clearly something major was going on in Hollywood. It was all organized. There are a lot of vipers in this industry, people who only have their own interests in mind," he said. "There is darkness in the underbelly. What bums me about these situations is that the victims can't speak as loudly as the people in power. That's the tragedy of attempting to reveal what is happening to innocent people: they can be squashed, but their lives have been irreparably damaged. "If you're innocent, you have very little knowledge of the world and you want to succeed," he went on. "People with parasitic interests will see you as their prey." As a child, Wood starred alongside Macaulay Culkin in "The Good Son" and appeared in a remake of "Flipper." He said his mother, Debra, protected him from the dangers of Hollywood as a child, and he "never went to parties where that kind of thing was going on." He added that he's been "led down dark paths to realize that these things probably are still happening." Wood's comments come after allegations against Woody Allen resurfaced in the past month.
Note: Actor Corey Feldman said that pedophilia is Hollywood's "No. 1 problem" in a story that appeared on ABC's Nightline in 2012. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
June 6 will be the third anniversary of The Guardian’s publication of top-secret documents provided by [Edward] Snowden that showed that the National Security Agency was collecting the telephone records of tens of millions of Americans. Mr. Snowden [has been] denounced ... as a traitor. [Former Secretary of State Hillary] Clinton said in a Democratic presidential debate [that], “He could have gotten all of the protections of being a whistle-blower.” Thomas Drake would disagree. Mr. Drake was a senior N.S.A. official who had also complained, 12 years earlier, about warrantless surveillance. He went up the chain of command [to] the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General. Things did not go well. F.B.I. agents raided his house. He was forced to resign and was indicted on 10 felony charges arising from an alleged “scheme” to improperly “retain and disclose classified information.” He ultimately pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for “exceeding authorized use of a government computer” in exchange for the government’s dropping the other charges. He now works at an Apple store. Mr. Snowden followed the Drake case closely in the news media and drew the obvious conclusion: Going through [official] channels was worse than a dead end. [John] Crane, a former assistant inspector general in the Defense Department who oversaw the whistle-blower program, has now come forward alleging that Mr. Drake was persecuted by the very officials in his office who were supposed to protect him.
Note: John Crane was forced out of the Pentagon in 2013. His story is told in a new book, titled, Bravehearts: Whistle Blowing In The Age of Snowden by Mark Hertsgaard. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about intelligence agency corruption and the disappearance of privacy.
Edward Snowden has called for a complete overhaul of US whistleblower protections after a new source from deep inside the Pentagon came forward with a startling account of how the system became a “trap” for those seeking to expose wrongdoing. The account of John Crane ... appears to undermine Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and [others] who argue that there were established routes for Snowden other than leaking to the media. Crane, a longtime assistant inspector general at the Pentagon, has accused his old office of retaliating against a major surveillance whistleblower, Thomas Drake. Not only did Pentagon officials provide Drake’s name to criminal investigators, Crane told the Guardian, they destroyed documents relevant to his defence. Thomas Drake’s legal ordeal ruined him financially. His case served as a prologue to Snowden’s. In 2002, Drake and NSA colleagues contacted the Pentagon inspector general to blow the whistle on [a] tool, Trailblazer, for mass-data analysis. Crane, head of the office’s whistleblower unit, assigned investigators. For over two years, with Drake as a major source, they ... prepared a lengthy secret report [that] eventually [helped] to kill the program. As far as Crane was concerned, the whistleblower system was working. But after an aspect of the NSA’s warrantless mass surveillance leaked to the New York Times, Drake himself came under investigation and eventually indictment [for] hoarding documentation – exactly what inspector-general investigators tell their whistleblowers to do.
Note: John Crane was forced out of the Pentagon in 2013. His story is told in a new book, titled, Bravehearts: Whistle Blowing In The Age of Snowden by Mark Hertsgaard. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about intelligence agency corruption and the disappearance of privacy.
As the Obama administration prepares to publish a long-delayed accounting of how many militants and noncombatant civilians it has killed since 2009, its statistics may be defined as much by what is left out as by what is included. Release of the information was first envisioned ... as part of strict new guidelines President Obama announced for the United States’ controversial use of drones and other forms of lethal force to battle terrorism abroad. Such operations, Obama said ... would also be subject to new transparency and oversight. The death tolls, like the guidelines, will cover places where the United States conducts airstrikes but does not consider itself officially at war. They are likely to exclude Pakistan, where the CIA has conducted hundreds of drone strikes. The United States still does not publicly acknowledge CIA attacks inside Pakistan, although the Pentagon announced Saturday that it had targeted Taliban leader Akhtar Mohammad Mansour in Pakistan. Not all strikes in the included countries are considered counterterrorism actions. The totals will almost inevitably be challenged by independent groups that keep their own tallies and for years have charged that the administration undercounts civilian deaths caused by drone strikes. In emailed responses to written questions, the Defense Department said it keeps no central list of strikes “outside areas of active hostilities.” Some are announced by the Pentagon, some by Central Command in charge of Yemen, and others by the Africa Command. Some are not made public at all.
Note: Watch this video which shows how governments promote war in order to pad the pockets of mega-corporations which profit greatly from arms sales. Drone strikes almost always miss their intended targets and reportedly create more terrorists than they kill. Casualties of war whose identities are unknown are frequently mis-reported to be "militants". For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing war news articles from reliable major media sources.
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.