As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, we depend almost entirely on donations from people like you.
We really need your help to continue this work! Please consider making a donation.
Subscribe here and join over 13,000 subscribers to our free weekly newsletter

Media Articles

Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles 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.

For further exploration, delve into our comprehensive Information Centers.

Explore our comprehensive news index on a wide variety of fascinating topics.
Explore the top 20 most revealing news media articles we've summarized.
Check out 10 useful approaches for making sense of the media landscape.

Sort articles by: Article Date | Date Posted on WantToKnow.info | Importance

Anonymous calls for activists to help expose international paedophile networks with 'Operation DeathEaters'
2015-01-23, The Independent (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/anonymous-calls-for-activists-...

Hacktivist group Anonymous, which has made public attacks on extremists, corporations and religious and governmental bodies, is calling for help in its fight against international paedophile networks, or what it calls the paedosadist industry. In a project named Operation DeathEaters, Anonymous says it is is planning on collating evidence against international paedophile rings and their severe abuse of children and find the links between different operations, and to bring them to justice. Anonymous has issued a video instructing activists on how they can aid in the operation, which has appeared at a time of serious allegations of historic child sexual abuse levied against prominent UK figures, including claims that a VIP Westminster paedophile ring existed in the past. The Westminster paedophile ring is one of many cases where Operation DeathEaters has actively pursued and sought truth, in order to end the hideous crimes concealed behind the British elite, Anonymous alleges in a statement. In fear of these investigations being bungled over time, the operations objectives are clear and simple: source public information before it disappears, push for independent enquiry, and offer support to witnesses and the victims where needed. It has outlined its first step in the operation as gathering meticulously researched and clearly documented examples of high level complicity in the industry, obstruction of justice and cover ups to show the need for independent inquiries.

Note: Anonymous has been quite active in exposing pedophiles, as can be seen in the Time magazine article where they revealed information on known offenders to the authorities. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sex abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.


Groups Place Free Hats And Scarves Around Cities, Spread Warmth To Those Who Need It Most
2015-01-23, Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/23/hats-and-scarves-around-cities-_n_65...

Good Samaritans are working to make sure that the homeless and others in need are prepared for the winter weather. Hats and scarves have been spotted around several areas that are experiencing frigid temperatures this winter. The apparel -- which has shown up in cities including Edmonton and Winnipeg in Canada, and Wilmington, North Carolina -- comes with messages urging those in need to take the winter wear. "I am not lost!" a message attached to a scarf in Wilmington reads. "If you are stuck out in the cold, please take this to keep warm!" The group responsible for that particular item, Scarves in the Port City, says that their aim is to account for those who need a helping hand during the winter months in a simple and effective way. "We collect and distribute scarves for the homeless during inclement weather," the group ... wrote on their Facebook page. "We hope to help create awareness of the difference kindness can make to people's attitudes, feelings and actions towards themselves and others when it's embraced as a way of life." The do-gooders, who often place the clothing in locations that are easily accessible for people in need, like libraries where people may seek refuge from the chill or homeless shelters, say they hope their efforts can provide some much-needed comfort to those who need it most over the winter months.

Note: See the complete article for pictures of this generous practice showing up in the U.S. and Canada. Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


Barrett Brown sentenced to 63 months for 'merely linking to hacked material'
2015-01-22, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/22/barrett-brown-trial-warns-d...

Journalist and former Anonymous member ... Barrett Brown was sentenced to 63 months in prison by a federal judge in Dallas on Thursday. The judge also ordered him to pay more than $890,000 in restitution and fines. An investigative journalist, essayist and satirist who has written for the Onion, Vanity Fair and the Huffington Post, as well as for the Guardian, Brown claims to have split with Anonymous in 2011. Brown also founded Project PM, a crowdsourced investigative thinktank dedicated to looking into abuses by companies in the area of surveillance. In September 2012, Brown was arrested by the FBI. In October 2012, after being held for two weeks without charge, he was indicted on charges of making an online threat, retaliating against a federal officer and conspiring to release personal information about a government employee. Two months later, he was indicted on 12 further charges related to the hacking of private intelligence contractor Stratfor in 2011. Jeremy Hammond, the hacker who actually carried out the Stratfor breach, was sentenced to the maximum possible 10 years. Brown, who was accused of sharing a link to the data Hammond obtained from the breach ... at one point faced a possible sentence of 105 years. He will reportedly be eligible for supervised release after one year, and once released will have his computer equipment monitored. The $890,250 in restitution payments will go to Stratfor and other companies targeted by Anonymous.

Note: Even after being targeted by a high level conspiracy, jailed on spurious charges, and forced to pay nearly a million dollars to Stratfor for merely writing about the hack of their private spy agency, Brown states that he remains committed to exposing corruption as a journalist from within the US prison system.


The Trans-Pacific Partnership won't deliver jobs or curb China's power
2015-01-22, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-prestowitz-tpp-trade-pact-20150123...

What President Obama called for in his State of the Union: completion and adoption of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade agreement, or TPP, for the Asia-Pacific region. The president [and other TPP supporters] make two major arguments. One is that the trade pact would create lots of new jobs and raise American incomes and living standards. The other is that it would strengthen U.S. alliances in Asia while curbing Chinese influence. Over the last 35 years, the U.S. has ... concluded many free-trade agreements. In advance of each, U.S. leaders promised the deals would create high-paying jobs, reduce the trade deficit, increase GDP and raise living standards. None of these [promises] came true. In fact, the U.S. non-oil trade deficit continued to grow, millions of jobs were offshored and mean household income has hardly risen since 2000. And economists overwhelmingly agree that rising U.S. income inequality is being driven in part by international trade. The ever-closer linking of the U.S. economy to those of the TPP countries over the last 35 years has not ... deterred U.S. trade partners and allies from developing ever closer ties with China. The TPP is not going to bring together nations such as Mexico, Peru, Chile, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei to gang up against China. That is just not going to happen. Thus the TPP fails on both economic and political grounds.

Note: Read an excellent Washington Post article showing how the claim of 65,000 jobs created with the TPP is a blatant lie and manipulation. Then watch an excellent, two-minute video by former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich on the TPP titled "The Worst Trade Deal You've Never Heard of," or read leaked draft texts of the Trans-Pacific Partnership for yourself.


The Davos oligarchs are right to fear the world theyve made
2015-01-22, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/22/davos-oligarchs-fear-ine...

The billionaires and corporate oligarchs meeting in Davos this week are getting worried about inequality. The architects of the crisis-ridden international economic order are starting to see the dangers ... of the widest global economic gulf in human history. The scale of the crisis has been laid out for them by the charity Oxfam. On current trends, the richest 1% will have pocketed more than the other 99% put together next year. The 0.1% have been doing even better, quadrupling their share of US income since the 1980s. In most of the world, labours share of national income has fallen continuously and wages have stagnated under this regime of privatisation, deregulation and low taxes on the rich. At the same time finance has sucked wealth from the public realm into the hands of a small minority, even as it has laid waste the rest of the economy. Now the evidence has piled up that not only is such appropriation of wealth a moral and social outrage, but it is fuelling social and climate conflict, wars, mass migration and political corruption, stunting health and life chances, increasing poverty, and widening gender and ethnic divides. Escalating inequality has also been a crucial factor in the economic crisis of the past seven years, squeezing demand and fuelling the credit boom. The thinking persons Davos oligarch realises that allowing things to carry on as they are is dangerous. What they wont accept is any change in the balance of social power.

Note: Oxfam's complete report "identifies the two powerful driving forces that have led to the rapid rise in inequality" as "market fundamentalism and the capture of politics by elites." For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on income inequality and secret societies which manipulate global politics.


Prince Andrew under renewed pressure to speak about 'sex abuse' claims after flight logs emerge
2015-01-21, The Telegraph (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/theroyalfamily/11359788/Prince-Andrew-...

The Duke of York is under renewed pressure to speak publicly about sex abuse allegations after flight records backed up his accuser’s claims of having met him three times. Flight logs from the private jet of the Duke’s friend Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender, show Virginia Roberts and the Duke were both in the locations where she claims to have had sex with him, at the relevant times. The Duke had no doubt hoped that interest in claims made by Miss Roberts in US court documents, which emerged at the start of the month, would have died down by the time he arrived in Davos, but new disclosures continue to emerge. Flight logs for Epstein’s Gulfstream jet, published by Mail Online, together with public information about the Duke’s movements, show that Miss Roberts and the Duke were both in London in March 2001, when she claims they first had sex, and in New York and the US Virgin Islands the following month, the locations where she says their other sexual encounters happened. Meanwhile fresh legal papers [were] submitted to a Florida court on Tuesday. The Miami US attorney’s office ... is seeking to prevent [Roberts from] joining an existing case in which two other victims are trying to overturn a plea bargain which enabled Epstein to serve an 18-month prison sentence in return for pleading guilty to procuring a 14-year-old girl for prostitution. In exchange [for this plea], all federal investigations into his alleged widespread sex abuse were halted.

Note: An ABC News article on this case states Roberts "declined to name others in her statement - but her lawyers noted in a cryptic footnote that, if she had, the names would 'have created significantly more media attention than the names that she did include.'" For more along these lines, watch powerful evidence in a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government.


CIA torture report architect denounces Republican attempt to claw back copies
2015-01-21, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jan/21/cia-torture-report-architect-d...

Senator Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who relinquished the chairmanship of the intelligence committee ... said she objects to Senator Richard Burr’s request that the Obama administration return all copies of the full, 6,000-plus-page classified [torture] study. “Doing so would limit the ability to learn lessons from this sad chapter in America’s history and omit from the record two years of work,” Feinstein said in a statement late on Tuesday. In an extraordinary epilogue to the battle between the Senate intelligence committee and the CIA over the torture report, new chairman Burr, a North Carolina Republican, requested that administration agencies return to the committee all copies of the full report. Burr’s request was first reported by the New York Times and the Huffington Post. The Times noted that Burr’s request would have the effect of placing the classified report beyond the reach of the Freedom of Information Act, which exempts Congress. President Obama has [given the report] rhetorical support, but [empowered] the CIA to determine what portions of a critique of the agency ought to be public. A CIA-appointed review panel also recently found that the agency’s director, John Brennan, consulted with the White House chief of staff, Denis McDonough, before agency employees surreptitiously accessed emails and drafts from committee investigators. Feinstein said in March that the breach represented a constitutional crisis, with the CIA spying on its Senate overseers.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about corruption in intelligence agencies and government.


How Saudi Arabia's harsh legal punishments compare to the Islamic State's
2015-01-21, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/01/21/how-saudi-arabia...

Following the lashing of blogger Raif Badawi and leaked footage that showed the public execution of a woman accused of beating her daughter, Saudi Arabia's harsh interpretation of sharia law and its use of capital punishment have come under international scrutiny. For many, the Saudi justice system sounds not unlike that of the Islamic State, the extremist Islamist group which has struck fear in much of the Middle East. This week, Middle East Eye, a Web site that focuses on news from the region and is frequently critical of Saudi Arabia, contrasted a set of legal punishments recently announced by the Islamic State with the corresponding punishments in Saudi Arabia. One key difference between the Islamic State and Saudi Arabia, of course, is that the latter is a key U.S. ally in the region – and a member of the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State. Some experts argue that the fundamentalist brand of Islam practiced by both has theological links, however, and Riyadh's recent crackdown has been interpreted as an act of appeasement for Saudi hard-liners. Saudi Arabia's own concern about the Islamic State is likely genuine (plans to build an enormous wall along its border with Iraq are a good sign of that), but for many Americans, the extremist group's rise is also bringing with it a renewed skepticism about American allies in the region.

Note: Here is the diagram that compares Saudi justice with I.S. justice, and here is a diagram of the big, expensive security wall mentioned above. Is Saudi Arabia concerned that the Islamic State is less aligned with Saudi interests than other popular Islamic terrorist groups have been?


New police radars can 'see' inside homes
2015-01-20, USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/01/19/police-radar-see-through-walls/...

At least 50 U.S. law enforcement agencies have secretly equipped their officers with radar devices that allow them to effectively peer through the walls of houses to see whether anyone is inside. Those agencies, including the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service, began deploying the radar systems more than two years ago with little notice to the courts and no public disclosure of when or how they would be used. The technology raises legal and privacy issues because the U.S. Supreme Court has said officers generally cannot use high-tech sensors to tell them about the inside of a person's house without first obtaining a search warrant. The radars work like finely tuned motion detectors, using radio waves to zero in on movements as slight as human breathing from a distance of more than 50 feet. They can detect whether anyone is inside of a house, where they are and whether they are moving. The device the Marshals Service and others are using [was] first designed for use in Iraq and Afghanistan. They represent the latest example of battlefield technology finding its way home to civilian policing and bringing complex legal questions with it. Those concerns are especially thorny when it comes to technology that lets the police determine what's happening inside someone's home.

Note: This technology is not new. Working as interpreter in Washington, DC, WantToKnow.info founder Fred Burks witnessed this technology being used by the police there in the late 1980s. Explore an informative ACLU report detailing the many surveillance technologies used by police which are often used illegally. For more along these lines, see this deeply revealing summarized NPR report about The Pentagon's massive Program 1033 to widely distribute military hardware to domestic police forces.


Air Force UFO files land on Internet
2015-01-20, CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/20/us/feat-air-force-ufo-project-blue-book

Nearly 130,000 pages of declassified Air Force files on UFO investigations and sightings are now available in one place online. Declassified government records about UFOs have long existed on microfilm in the National Archives in Washington, DC. Many of them also live on websites devoted to the topic. But UFO enthusiast John Greenewald says his database, Project Blue Book Collection, is the first to compile every single declassified document from the Blue Book project -- headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio from 1947 to 1969 -- in one place for anyone to search or download for free. The collection consists of files from Project Blue Book, Project Sign and Project Grudge, the names given to official investigations into unidentified flying objects by the United States military. Greenewald's ... says he's just driven by curiosity. "I'm a history buff. I think this stuff should be accessible," he said. "It defied explanation," he said, "and 5,000 FOIAs later my curiosity hasn't gone away." The collection contains 10,000 PDFs, each representing a different case. The files include the details of some of the most famous UFO cases, including the Exeter incident, the Kenneth Arnold sighting and the Mantell crash. Still, Greenewald believes the contents are "just the tip of the iceberg." "It's all a puzzle," he said. "Just when you think you've got all the pieces to make a picture, you realize it's only a piece of a bigger puzzle."

Note: Explore Greenewald's revealing searchable archive of Air Force UFO files. For more along these lines, see the excellent, reliable resources provided in our comprehensive UFO Information Center.


The Likely Cause of Addiction Has Been Discovered, and It Is Not What You Think
2015-01-20, Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-real-cause-of-addicti_b_6506936...

It is now one hundred years since drugs were first banned. Through this long century of waging war on drugs, we have been told a story about addiction by our teachers and by our governments. Almost everything we have been told about addiction is wrong. Nearly fifteen years ago, Portugal had one of the worst drug problems in Europe, with 1 percent of the population addicted to heroin. They had tried a drug war, and the problem just kept getting worse. So they decided to do something radically different. They resolved to decriminalize all drugs, and transfer all the money they used to spend on arresting and jailing drug addicts, and spend it instead on reconnecting them - to their own feelings, and to the wider society ... so they have a purpose in life, and something to get out of bed for. They are helped, in warm and welcoming clinics, to learn how to reconnect with their feelings, after years of trauma and stunning them into silence with drugs. The results of all this are now in. An independent study by the British Journal of Criminology found that since total decriminalization, addiction has fallen, and injecting drug use is down by 50 percent. For too long, we have talked exclusively about individual recovery from addiction. We need now to talk about social recovery - how we all recover, together, from the sickness of isolation. But this new evidence isn't just a challenge to us politically. It doesn't just force us to change our minds. It forces us to change our hearts.

Note: The above was written by Johann Hari, bestselling author of Chasing The Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs. Read more about Portugal's stunning success in curbing drug addiction by ending its drug war and cultivating human connection. For more, read about how the science behind the bonding theory of addiction has been suppressed since the 1970's by drug war profiteers.


Jilted Bride Takes The High Road, Throws Reception For Homeless Women
2015-01-20, Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jilted-bride-homeless-party_us_569eb811e4...

When bride-to-be Dana Olsen's fianc got cold feet and called off their wedding six weeks before they were to be married, she was understandably shocked. "I've been driving myself crazy trying to figure out what happened," she wrote on xoJane. But when life gave Olsen some particularly sour lemons, she made lemonade. "What's a girl to do?" she wrote. "Well, you've still gotta throw a party." After realizing she wouldn't be able to get any of her reception deposits back ("tens of thousands of nonrefundable dollars," she estimated), Olsen ... teamed up with Mary's Place, a Seattle homeless shelter for women and children, to put together a special night - complete with flowers, candles, plenty of food and a live band - for those living in the shelter. Olsen's generosity inspired others to contribute to the event, according to The Seattle Times. A group of hair stylists and makeup artists offered their services, ensuring each partygoer felt like a million bucks. "Turning the would-be wedding into an event for women in transition has made me feel a little less desolate," Olsen wrote. "It's helped distract me from the fact that I'm a jilted bride." Though Olsen's mother attended the party, Olsen herself chose to spend the day hiking with her dad.

Note: For more on this inspiring event, read this Seattle Times article.


Saudi Arabia's Rights Crackdown Linked to War on Terror
2015-01-20, ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/saudi-arabias-rights-crackdown-...

A man is given 50 lashes in a public square for "insulting Islam" on a liberal blog. Another is arrested for filming and uploading a woman's public beheading. Two females are imprisoned and put on trial for writing on Twitter in support of women driving. The cases are part of a sweeping clampdown on dissent. Acts that offend the country's religious hard-liners or open up the kingdom to criticism — like the video of the execution of a woman convicted of murdering her stepdaughter — have landed people in jail as a warning to others. The case of Raif Badawi, a 31-year-old father of three who was flogged this month, has attracted the most attention in recent days, particularly in the aftermath of the deadly attack in Paris. Badawi was arrested in 2012 after writing articles critical of Saudi Arabia's clerics on his Free Saudi Liberals blog. He was sentenced in May to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes and was fined $266,000. Just days after the attacks in Paris, Saudi Arabia's minister of state for foreign affairs took part in the huge march that was held there to support free speech and honor the victims. Two days earlier, Badawi was flogged [for "insulting Islam" on his blog]. Critics of the crackdown on dissent point out that public beheadings are also practiced by al-Qaida and IS.

Note: Saudi Arabia continues to be a key ally of the US. Is this really what we want to support? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about civil liberties from reliable major media sources.


How Medical Marijuanas Chemicals May Protect Cells
2015-01-20, Scientific American
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-medical-marijuana-s-chemicals-m...

Edward Maa did not plan to become a marijuana researcher. But a few years ago, when the neurologist and epilepsy specialist surveyed his patients about their use of alternative medicines, he discovered that more than a third had turned to marijuana to try to control their seizures. According to the Epilepsy Foundation of Colorado, the widely reported case of Charlotte Figi, a child whose nearly constant seizures were dramatically curtailed with cannabidiol, a marijuana ingredient, has helped trigger an influx of families from around the U.S. [into Colorado] seeking similar treatment for their children with seizure disorders. Maa wants to move beyond anecdote and into data. He is monitoring 150 epilepsy patients who all take a product derived from the same strain of marijuana that Figi used, provided by the same source. Although the federal government still lists marijuana as a Schedule I drug, a class with no currently accepted medical use, a body of recent research suggests that cannabinoids, which are the active ingredients in marijuana, may have medicinal uses even beyond the approved ones. They might protect the brain from the effects of trauma, ease the spasms of multiple sclerosis and reduce epileptic seizures. Further preliminary work indicates that the chemicals may slow the growth of tumors and reduce brain damage in Alzheimer's disease. Before World War II, marijuana was listed as a medicine in the country's encyclopedia of drugs, the United States Pharmacopeia.

Note: Read a summary of a CNN News story that describes how marijuana helped stem the seizures of 6 year old Jayden. Colorado has become the first U.S. state to directly fund medical marijuana research.


Oxfam Study Finds Richest 1% Is Likely to Control Half of Global Wealth by 2016
2015-01-19, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/19/business/richest-1-percent-likely-to-contro...

The richest 1 percent are likely to control more than half of the globe’s total wealth by next year, the charity Oxfam reported in a study released on Monday. The warning about deepening global inequality comes just as the world’s business elite prepare to meet this week at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The 80 wealthiest people in the world altogether own $1.9 trillion, the report found, nearly the same amount shared by the 3.5 billion people who occupy the bottom half of the world’s income scale. And the richest 1 percent of the population, who number in the millions, control nearly half of the world’s total wealth, a share that is also increasing. The type of inequality that currently characterizes the world’s economies is unlike anything seen in recent years, the report explained. “Between 2002 and 2010 the total wealth of the poorest half of the world in current U.S. dollars had been increasing more or less at the same rate as that of billionaires,” it said. “However since 2010, it has been decreasing over that time.” Investors with interests in finance, insurance and health saw the biggest windfalls, Oxfam said. Using data from Forbes magazine’s list of billionaires, it said those listed as having interests in the pharmaceutical and health care industries saw their net worth jump by 47 percent. The charity credited those individuals’ rapidly growing fortunes in part to multimillion-dollar lobbying campaigns to protect and enhance their interests.

Note: A single ticket to the World Economic Forum event in Davos costs a small fortune. Will the global elites that attend this event pay attention to Oxfam's latest paper, and make it a priority to reduce income inequality?


Inequality isn't inevitable, it's engineered. That's how the 1% have taken over
2015-01-19, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/19/inequality-inevitable-1-...

The [richest] 1% of the world’s population will own more global wealth than the 99% [by next year]. Oxfam executive director, Winnie Byanyima, is arguing that this increasing concentration of wealth ... is “bad for growth and bad for governance”. What’s more, inequality is bad not just for the poor, but for the rich too. That’s why we have the likes of the IMF’s Christine Lagarde kicking off with warnings about rising inequality. Visceral inequality ... is still seen as somehow being [a] moral failure of the poor. This in turn sustains the idea that rich people deserve their incredible riches. Most wealth, though, is not earned: huge assets, often inherited, simply get bigger [for] deliberate and systemic reasons. Inequality is not inevitable, it’s engineered. Many mainstream economists do not question the degree of this engineering. Neoliberalism [has been] a stage of capitalism in which the financial markets were deregulated, public services privatised, welfare systems run down, laws to protect working people dismantled, and unions cast as the enemy. Oxfam’s suggestions at Davos are attempts to claw back some basic rights. But isn’t it rather incredible that a charity has to do this?

Note: Oxfam's complete report "identifies the two powerful driving forces that have led to the rapid rise in inequality" as "market fundamentalism and the capture of politics by elites." For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing income inequality news articles from reliable major media sources.


Prison Dispatches from the War on Terror: Ex-CIA Officer John Kiriakou Speaks
2015-01-19, The Intercept
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/01/19/cia-agent-jailed-john-kiriakous...

John Kiriakou is the only CIA employee to go to prison in connection with the agency’s torture program. Not because he tortured anyone, but because he revealed information on torture to a reporter. Kiriakou is the Central Intelligence Agency officer who told ABC News in 2007 that the CIA waterboarded suspected al-Qaeda prisoners after the September 11 attacks. Kiriakou was sentenced in January 2013 to 30 months in prison. That sentence made him the second CIA employee ever to be locked up under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. The first was Sharon Scranage, who in 1985 pled guilty to disclosing the identities of intelligence agents in Ghana after giving classified information to a Ghanaian, reportedly her lover. Kiriakou is not without support. His friend and former boss, Bruce Riedel, sent a letter to President Obama, signed by other CIA officers, urging him to commute Kiriakou’s prison sentence. That did not happen. A father of five children, Kiriakou says the CIA asked his wife to resign from her job at the agency immediately following his arrest, and he is in major debt. "As part of this conviction, I lost my pension. I had $770,000 saved in that pension. And it’s just gone. And I still owe my lawyers almost a million dollars."

Note: Kiriakou himself was misled about the extent and effectiveness of the torture program, but still felt the moral obligation to reveal its existence. The CIA spun his revelation into a pro-torture media narrative, took his money, put him in prison, and fired his wife from her job. Are the many ethical intelligence agents working for the U.S. able to trust their corrupt bosses after this? Watch the powerful documentary "Secrets of the CIA" in which five CIA agents describe how their initial pride at serving their nation turned to anguish and remorse, as they realized that they were actually subverting democracy and killing innocent civilians.


Company's Struggles Highlight Challenges of Inmate Care
2015-01-19, New York Times/Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/01/19/us/ap-us-profiting-from-prison-car...

Months after he landed in Florida's Manatee County Jail, Jovon Frazier's pleas for [medical care] were met mostly with Tylenol. "I need to see a doctor!" he wrote on his eighth request form. Four months later, after Frazier's 13th request resulted in hospitalization and doctors quickly diagnosed bone cancer, his arm had to be amputated, according to a lawsuit filed by his family. But the cancer spread and Frazier died in 2011, months after his release. As an inmate, his medical care had been managed ... by a private company under contract. Corizon, whose responsibility for 345,000 inmates at prisons and jails in 27 states makes it the country's biggest for-profit correctional health provider, is just one of many firms using a similar model to vie for the billions of dollars states and counties spend on prisoner care. The growth of the for-profit prison care industry raises questions. Some critics say privatization, itself, is a faulty strategy, regardless of which company is hired. "The problem is a structure that creates incentives to cut corners and deny care to powerless people that have no other options," said David Fathi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Prison Project. [Corizon] generated $1.4 billion in revenue in 2013 and is owned by a Chicago private equity management firm.

Note: The above article shows that lawsuits and investigations in Arizona, Florida, Maine, Minnesota, and New York have all uncovered escalating inmate deaths related to Corizon's for-profit medical services. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about systemic corruption in the prison industry.


Flu vaccine paradox adds to public health debate
2015-01-16, CBC News (Canada's public broadcasting system)
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/flu-vaccine-paradox-adds-to-public-health-debat...

People who receive flu vaccines year after year can sometimes show reduced protection, an effect that Canadian infectious disease specialists say muddies public health messages for annual flu vaccine campaigns. During the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, researchers at the B.C. Centre for Disease Control originally thought seasonal flu shots from 2008 might offer extra protection. They were puzzled to find instead, seasonal flu vaccination almost doubled the risk of infection with pandemic flu. Dr. Danuta Skowronski and her colleagues went on to do five more studies during the summer that showed the same effect in people and in ferrets, which are considered the best animal model of flu. What was originally called "the Canadian problem" has since been found in a randomized control trial by researchers in Hong Kong ... Japan and the U.S. Researchers in several countries have found a blunting or "interference" effect between previous seasonal vaccines and reduced levels of vaccine protection in later years. "People do not have a good explanation for why," said Dr. Michael Gardam, director of infection prevention and control at Toronto's University Health Network. "We have kind of hyped this vaccine so much for so long we are starting to believe our own hype. Really, what we should be doing is looking for better vaccines," Gardam said. In the meantime, public health officials who aim to protect people from flu complications need to grapple with the imperfections of a vaccine given every year to a moving target of strains.

Note: Healthcare workers in New York protested the government mandate that they be given this vaccine, from which drug companies made billions of dollars. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about the mysterious and profitable avian and swine flu panics and questioning the effectiveness of many other vaccines.


APS authored Congressional letter to feds asking to crack down on solar industry
2015-01-16, ABC's Arizona Affiliate
http://www.abc15.com/news/local-news/investigations/aps-authored-congressiona...

Arizonas largest utility company has been at odds with the solar panel industry for years. Now, APS [Arizona Public Service, the states largest utility] is asking the Federal Trade Commission to crack down on solar companies. But they didnt ask them directly. Six Arizona Congressmen sent letters to federal regulators asking them to investigate solar leasing companies. Reporter Evan Wyloge ... has the original letter and proves its actually APS spearheading the effort. Arizona Public Service [is] one of the largest campaign donors for the group of lawmakers. The APS-authored, congressmen-signed letter comes as the latest in an ongoing effort to stymie third-party solar panel companies, whose business has grown tenfold over the past half-decade, presenting a challenge to the long-term business model of traditional utilities like APS. The high-profile fight between the traditional utility and newer rooftop solar panel companies is not unique to Arizona. Similar struggles have emerged in other states. On Nov. 19, Democratic Reps. Ron Barber, Ann Kirkpatrick and Kyrsten Sinema asked [regulators] in a joint letter to ... look into solar panel leasing practices. Then, on Dec. 12, Republican Reps. Trent Franks, Paul Gosar and Matt Salmon sent a similar letter to the FTC. After both letters were sent, the Arizona Corporation Commission voted late in 2014 to open a docket on consumer complaints about solar companies. Initial hearings are expected to begin this spring.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing government corruption and energy news articles from reliable major media sources.


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