
Editors’ Picks for Sept 28
A new feature: articles from around the web, selected and summarized by our editors. Help us identify interesting articles — see the details.
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A new feature: articles from around the web, selected and summarized by our editors. Help us identify interesting articles — see the details.
In our excerpts from The Ferguson Report, Part 1: Breathing While Black, and Other Offenses, we presented a number of shocking incidents that showed what African-Americans were subjected to every day by the Ferguson Police Department. These outrages were driven by racism at its rawest. But there was another dimension to this predatory behavior: Money. The more tickets the police wrote, the more money they earned for the city. And the more brownie points they earned for themselves. In Part 2 of this two-part series, we present excerpts that show — in appalling detail — how those in authority encouraged illegal predation, and even threatened punishment for police officers who preferred to play it straight. We also present a short happy report on some of the dramatic reforms that are taking place.
In this piece, which originally appeared here in 2012, Russ Baker shares problems with the official explanation of who did what in the bombing of a Pan Am plane that crashed in Lockerbie, Scotland and made an international pariah of Libya.
The third installment in our series on how the worst of the devastation caused by the atomic bomb was deliberately concealed from Americans for decades.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s lawyers continue the legal formalities necessary to build a case for appeal, despite an unequivocal admission by the defendant of his own guilt. Is there anything to be gleaned from an appeals trial about the backstory of the Boston Marathon bombing? Something that may help the public understand the shadowy relationship between the national security apparatus and “domestic terrorists”?
NOW LIVE ON WhoWhatWhy FBI’s Amazing Trick to Avoid Accountability By Matt Connolly Only the astonishingly unaccountable FBI could get away with consistently not recording its investigative interviews not only of suspects but of witnesses—then having its agents write up reports based on “memory.” A former Deputy District Attorney tells the story of one […]
Only the astonishingly unaccountable FBI could get away with consistently not recording its investigative interviews not only of suspects but of witnesses—then having its agents write up reports based on “memory.” A former Deputy District Attorney tells the story of one judge who felt uncomfortable letting the Bureau wing it when he himself was in the hot seat.
A friend of convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to six years in prison—after cooperating with the FBI in its investigation. Other known Tsarnaev associates who did not cooperate were let off without so much as a questioning. What is going on here?
Viskhan Vakhabov received a phone call from the Tsarnaev brothers—one of whom is now dead, the other just sentenced to death—in a crucial moment in the immediate aftermath of the Boston Marathon Bombings. Why did the government fail to speak with him about his involvement?
In allowing FBI interview reports to be read in court in lieu of witness testimony, US District Court Judge George O’Toole inadvertently highlighted an insidious tactic used by the FBI to manipulate witness statements. Anyone who gets a knock at the door from an FBI agent would be well advised to invite an attorney over before opening the door—or your mouth.
Convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has not been allowed to speak in his own defense. What do his defense attorneys—or governmental security agencies—have to gain by his silence?
Tensions are running high with members of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s family now in the Boston area for the sentencing phase of his trial. Their hotel was besieged with cancellations and complaints–and bombing victims expressed outrage that the defense paid for the trip out of their taxpayer-funded budget. But this one is not a simple matter of wasteful spending, and the family is worth a closer look.