Continue reading...The Invisible War (USA, 2012, 97 minutes), Directed by Kirby Dick, produced by Amy Ziering, is a groundbreaking investigative documentary about the epidemic of rape within the US military which has now been taken on by the military as a training tool, has exerted pressure on top level decision makers and introduced new codes of conduct for investigating Military Sexual Assault into legislation.
January 20, 2012
The Invisible War, Kirby Dick, 2012
November 23, 2011
5 Broken Cameras, Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi, 2011
5 Broken Cameras, Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi
Continue reading...[T]he critically-acclaimed 5 BROKEN CAMERAS [2011, 90 minutes] is a deeply personal, first-hand account of life and non-violent resistance in Bil’in, a West Bank village surrounded by Israeli settlements. Shot by Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat, who bought his first camera in 2005 to record the birth of his youngest son, Gibreel, the film was co-directed by Burnat and Guy Davidi, an Israeli filmmaker. Structured in chapters around the destruction of each one of Burnat’s cameras, the filmmakers’ collaboration follows one family’s evolution over five years of village upheaval. As the years pass in front of the camera, we witness Gibreel grow from a newborn baby into a young boy who observes the world unfolding around him with the astute powers of perception that only children possess. Burnat watches from behind the lens as olive trees are bulldozed, protests intensify and lives are lost in this cinematic diary and unparalleled record of life in the West Bank. 5 BROKEN CAMERAS is a Palestinian-Israeli-French co-production.
(Additional resource: Democracy Now!, “5 Broken Cameras: Home Videos Evolve into Stirring Film on Palestinian Resistance to Israeli Wall,” 7 June 2012.
October 10, 2011
State for Sale: Art Pope, a conservative multimillionaire, has taken control in North Carolina
Jane Mayer, State for Sale. The New Yorker, 10 October 2011. “A conservative multimillionaire [Art Pope] has taken control in North Carolina, one of 2012’s top battlegrounds…. For years, Pope, like several other farsighted conservative corporate activists, has been spending millions in an attempt to change the direction of American politics. According to an analysis of tax records by Democracy NC, a progressive government watchdog group, in the past decade Pope, his family, his family foundation, and his business have spent more than forty million dollars in this effort.”
Continue reading...August 23, 2011
AP’s Probe Into NYPD Intelligence Operations: Surveillance of Muslims
Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, Eileen Sullivan and Chris Hawley, AP’s Probe Into NYPD Intelligence Operations. Associated Press, multi-part series beginning on 23 August 2011 and ending on 23 October 2012. “AP’s investigation has revealed that the NYPD dispatched undercover officers into minority neighborhoods as part of a human mapping program. Police also used informants, known as “mosque crawlers,” to monitor sermons, even when there was no evidence of wrongdoing.”
Winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting.
Winner of the 2012 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting.
Update: Matt Apuzzo and Al Baker, New York to Appoint Civilian to Monitor Police’s Counterterrorism Activity. The New York Times, 7 January 2016. “The mayor will appoint an independent civilian to monitor the New York Police Department’s counterterrorism activities, lawyers said in court documents Thursday as they moved to settle a pair of lawsuits over surveillance targeting Muslims in the decade after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The agreement would restore some of the outside oversight that was eliminated after the attacks, when city leaders said they needed more flexibility in conducting investigations. In the years that followed, the Police Department secretly built files on Muslim neighborhoods, recorded sermons, collected license plates of worshipers, and documented the views of everyday people on topics such as drone strikes, politics and foreign policy.”
Continue reading...June 6, 2011
The Invisible Army: For foreign workers on U.S. bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, war can be hell
Sarah Stillman, The Invisible Army: For foreign workers on U.S. bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, war can be hell. The New Yorker, 6 June 2011. “More than seventy thousand ‘third-country nationals’ work for the American military in war zones; many report being held in conditions resembling indentured servitude by subcontractors who operate outside the law.”
Continue reading...May 23, 2011
The Secret Sharer: Is [Whistleblower] Thomas Drake an enemy of the state?
Jane Mayer, The Secret Sharer: Is Thomas Drake an enemy of the state? The New Yorker, 23 May 2011. “Drake, a former senior executive at the National Security Agency, faces some of the gravest charges that can be brought against [a U.S.] citizen.”
Continue reading...February 18, 2011
Covert Drone War: Tracking CIA drone strikes and other US covert actions in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia
Chris Woods, Alice Ross and Jack Serle, Covert Drone War: Tracking CIA drone strikes and other US covert actions in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 18 February 2011 to the present (18 April 2014). John Pilger: “This [is] extraordinary work on Barack Obama’s lawless use of drones in a campaign of assassination across south Asia. Woods, Ross and Serle stripped away the façade of the secret drone ‘war’, including how it is reported and not reported in the United States: how civilian casualties are covered-up and how rescuers and funerals are targeted.”
Continue reading...January 31, 2011
Does Football Have a Future? The N.F.L. and the concussion crisis
Ben McGrath, Does Football Have a Future? The N.F.L. and the concussion crisis. The New Yorker, 31 January 2011. “The violence of football has always been a matter of concern and the sport has seen periodic attempts at safety and reform. But recent neurological findings have uncovered risks that are more insidious.”
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