Eric Lipton, David E. Sanger and Scott Shane, The Perfect Weapon: How Russian Cyberpower Invaded the U.S. The New York Times, 13 December 2016. “An examination by The Times of the Russian [cyberespionage and information-warfare] operation — based on interviews with dozens of players targeted in the attack, intelligence officials who investigated it and Obama administration officials who deliberated over the best response — reveals a series of missed signals, slow responses and a continuing underestimation of the seriousness of the cyberattack.”
December 7, 2015
Trafficking in Terror: How closely entwined are the drug trade and global terrorism?
Ginger Thompson, Trafficking in Terror: How closely entwined are the drug trade and global terrorism? The New Yorker, 7 December 2015. This piece is a collaboration between The New Yorker and ProPublia. “The DEA warns that drugs are funding terror. An examination of cases raises questions about whether the agency is stopping threats or staging them.”
Joe Posner, How the DEA invented “narco-terrorism.” Vox video, 7 December 2015.
October 26, 2015
The Pentagon’s Missionary Spies
Matthew Cole, The Pentagon’s Missionary Spies. The Intercept, 26 October 2015. “U. S. Military Used Christian NGO as Front for North Korea Espionage…. The revelation that the Pentagon used an NGO and unwitting humanitarian volunteers for intelligence gathering is the result of a months long investigation by The Intercept. In the course of the investigation, more than a dozen current and former military and intelligence officials, humanitarian aid workers, missionaries, U.S. officials, and former HISG [Humanitarian International Services Group] staffers were interviewed. The U.S. government officials who were familiar with the Pentagon operation and HISG’s role asked for anonymity because discussing classified military and intelligence matters would put them at risk of prosecution. The Pentagon had no comment on HISG or the espionage operations in North Korea.”
December 4, 2014
Operation Auroragold: How the NSA Hacks Cellphone Networks Worldwide
Ryan Gallagher, Operation Auroragold: How the NSA Hacks Cellphone Networks Worldwide. The Intercept, 4 December 2014. “According to documents contained in the archive of material provided to The Intercept by whistleblower Edward Snowden, the NSA has spied on hundreds of companies and organizations internationally, including in countries closely allied to the United States, in an effort to find security weaknesses in cellphone technology that it can exploit for surveillance.”
December 23, 2013
Unaccountable: The high cost of the Pentagon’s bad bookkeeping, Part 3
Scot J. Paltrow, Unaccountable: The high cost of the Pentagon’s bad bookkeeping. Reuters, 23 December 2013. “Part 3, Broken Fixes: Why the Pentagon’s many campaigns to clean up its accounts are failing…. Time and again, programs to modernize Defense Department record-keeping have fallen prey to bureaucratic rivalry, resistance to change and a lack of consequences for failure.” (Part 1 of this three-part series was published on 2 July 2013, and Part 2 was published on 18 November 2013.)
November 18, 2013
Unaccountable: The high cost of the Pentagon’s bad bookkeeping, Part 2
Scot J. Paltrow, Unaccountable: The high cost of the Pentagon’s bad bookkeeping. Reuters, 18 November 2013. “Part 2, Faking It: Behind the Pentagon’s doctored ledgers, a running tally of epic waste…. For two decades, the U.S. military has been unable to submit to an audit, flouting federal law and concealing waste and fraud totaling billions of dollars.” (Part 1 in this three-part series was published on 2 July 2013, and Part 3 was published on 23 December 2013.)
July 2, 2013
Unaccountable: The high cost of the Pentagon’s bad bookkeeping, Part 1
Scot J. Paltrow and Kelly Carr, Unaccountable: The high cost of the Pentagon’s bad bookkeeping. Reuters, 2 July 2013. “Part 1, Number Crunch: How the Pentagon’s payroll quagmire traps America’s soldiers. Hobbled by old, incompatible computer systems, the Defense Department’s payroll bureaucracy inflicts punishing errors on America’s warriors.” (Part 2 of this three-part series was published on 18 November 2013, and Part 3 was published on 23 December 2013.)