Cancer survivor, teacher, single father, and part-time U.S. Census worker Bill Sparkman was found dead September 12, hanging from a tree with the word "FED" written on his chest.
posted by zoomorphic on Sep 23, 2009 - 314 comments

Big Newsfilter: US Attorney General Holder appoints a prosecutor to investigate abusive CIA interrogations in the War on Terror. [more inside]
posted by grobstein on Aug 24, 2009 - 134 comments

An expose of non-vegan ingredients in pancakes at LA Vegan Thai inspired the QuarryGirl.Com writers to conduct their own extremely thorough investigation of LA vegan restaurants, testing their meals for traces of casein, egg, and shellfish. Over $1000 and a chain of interviews up to Taiwan later, they find that half the restaurants aren't as vegan as they claim, with half registering Positive or High and one registering Overload. Some restaurants vowed to conduct their own tests or requested further assistance; one banned them from the establishment.
posted by divabat on Jul 5, 2009 - 260 comments

"At 1am on June 19, police and funeral cars arrived at the hotel, wanting to take the body away. 2,000 Shishou residents blocked the hotel entrance to protect Xu's corpse."
posted by sswiller on Jun 21, 2009 - 38 comments

The Medill School of Journalism's Washington Program revealed its Pentagon Travel project last week (multimedia). Most privately paid for travel was found to be within the bounds of federal law, but some still show a clear conflict of interest. Key findings: From 1998 through 2007, sources outside the federal government paid for more than 22,000 trips worth at least $26 million. The medical industry paid for more travel than any other outside interest — more than $10 million for some 8,700 trips, or about 40 percent of all outside sponsored travel. Among the targets: military pharmacists, doctors, and others who administer the Pentagon’s $6 billion-plus annual budget for prescription drugs. Medill acquired 10 years worth of trip data and partnered with the Center for Public Integrity to form a searchable database which includes destination, date, sponsor, sponsor nationality, cost of trip or agency.
posted by Smedleyman on Jun 16, 2009 - 3 comments

"An internal Justice Department inquiry into the conduct of Bush administration lawyers who wrote secret memorandums authorizing brutal interrogations has concluded that the authors committed serious lapses of judgment but should not be criminally prosecuted... The report by the Office of Professional Responsibility, an internal ethics unit within the Justice Department, is also likely to ask that state bar associations consider possible disciplinary action, including reprimands or even disbarment, for some of the lawyers involved in writing the legal opinions..." Meanwhile, "former Bush administration officials are launching a behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign to urge Justice Department leaders to soften" the report.
posted by Joe Beese on May 5, 2009 - 51 comments

Richard Dawkins was recently invited to speak at the University of Oklahoma’s Darwin 2009 series of lectures on March 6th, 2009. The speech to be entitled "The Purpose of Purpose" quickly grew in popularity and even had to be moved to a larger venue to accommodate the quickly increasing crowd. Of course, word eventually reached Todd Thompson. Friction ensues. [more inside]
posted by 5imian on Apr 3, 2009 - 103 comments

A New York Times investigative report on the case against alleged anthrax terrorist Bruce Ivins: "[U]nless new evidence were to surface, the enormous public investment in the case would appear to have yielded nothing more persuasive than a strong hunch, based on a pattern of damning circumstances, that Dr. Ivins was the perpetrator." [more inside]
posted by availablelight on Jan 4, 2009 - 84 comments

NASA releases the Columbia shuttle disaster report. Space shuttle Columbia broke up during re-entry in 2003 as a result of damage sustained to its thermal protection system. This report details the possible lethal incidents and the investigation board's recommendations based on their findings. [more inside]
posted by herrdoktor on Dec 30, 2008 - 65 comments

New friendly fire coverup: Army shreds files on dead soldiers. "Hours after Salon revealed evidence that two Americans were killed by a U.S. tank, not enemy fire, military officials destroyed papers on the men."
posted by homunculus on Nov 19, 2008 - 46 comments

Chances are, over the past two years you've seen lawn signs for [your_town_name]singles.com If you're like me, you wondered about the marketing strategy behind them. If you're like this guy, you launch an obsessive investigation into the phenomenon. [more inside]
posted by lekvar on Nov 6, 2008 - 41 comments

To Catch A Thief. How a Civil War buff's chance discovery led to a sting, a raid and a victory against traffickers in stolen historical documents. Related article: Pay Dirt in Montana. And photo gallery.
posted by amyms on Apr 27, 2008 - 20 comments

Vanity Fair sits down with Larry Flynt --his history and hits and misses, how much he pays for scandals involving hypocritical public figures, and a new (and limp) Nixon anecdote -- and tons of other juicy tidbits, of course).
posted by amberglow on Dec 20, 2007 - 26 comments

"A detective does his job in the only possible way. He follows the requirements of the law to the letter -- or close enough so as not to jeopardize his case. Just as carefully, he ignores that law's spirit and intent. He becomes a salesman, a huckster as thieving and silver-tongued as any man who ever moved used cars or aluminum siding -- more so, in fact, when you consider that he's selling long prison terms to customers who have no genuine need for the product." [more inside]
posted by dhammond on Nov 29, 2007 - 95 comments

Danger in Tow - Driving with rented risks. U-Haul International is the nation's largest provider of rental trailers. A Los Angeles Times investigation finds the company's practices raise the risk of accidents on the road.

This in-depth article is the first in a 3 part series. "Times reporters Alan C. Miller and Myron Levin reviewed thousands of pages of court records, police reports and other documents on U-Haul operations and accidents. They interviewed more than 200 people, including about 60 current and former U-Haul employees and dealers. They spoke at length with senior U-Haul executives and toured company facilities in Phoenix." (About this series.)
posted by The Deej on Jun 24, 2007 - 49 comments

Newsfilter: Emilia DiSanto, chief investigator for Chuck Grassley was attacked at her home. Was the attack connected to the Finance Committee's investigations into Medicare Fraud, drug secrets and insider trading, or the Abramoff scandal? (via)
posted by pandaharma on Nov 7, 2005 - 22 comments

Pickle's pickle. "The sergeant at arms is facing the oddly postmodern task of investigating a Senate leak of a report on the investigation of a Senate leak."
posted by Slagman on Mar 10, 2004 - 9 comments

"fleet owners of a tanker companies" = the new evil doers?
what kind of questions do yesterday's discovery of ricin in the capitol, and the january 9th article ask about our "war on terror"? [ initial link via TPM ]
posted by specialk420 on Feb 3, 2004 - 28 comments

Complaint to nic.cx results in goatse.cx being suspended. Obligatory online petition is started. Screams and sobbing are heard on a regular basis on Slashdot. Links are SFW, but any investigation further may not be. This is truly a dark time for the internet.
posted by angry modem on Jan 15, 2004 - 70 comments

Did you die on 9/11? If so, the government would like a word with you.
A woman whose husband died in the WTC disaster received a letter today from the Department of Commerce, requesting the deceased's assistance with their investigations. Presumably, many of the other victim's families received this letter too.
After all, they *were* witnesses, weren't they?!
posted by insomnia_lj on Dec 6, 2003 - 10 comments

The Kennedy Assassination It seems forty years later, more people believe in a conspiracy theory. So what do you think of Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby and others? Was Mark Lane right? Maybe Prouty had even more answers he didn't share.
A previous post here : ...Up Close and Personal
posted by alethe on Nov 21, 2003 - 35 comments

Attorney General Is Closely Linked to Inquiry Figures Karl Rove, President Bush (news - web sites)'s top political adviser, whose possible role in the case has raised questions, was a paid consultant to three of Mr. Ashcroft's campaigns in Missouri, twice for governor and for United States senator, in the 1980's and 1990's, an associate of Mr. Rove said on Wednesday. Jack Oliver, the deputy finance chairman of Mr. Bush's 2004 re-election campaign, was the director of Mr. Ashcroft's 1994 Senate campaign, and later worked as Mr. Ashcroft's deputy chief of staff. No wonder 69% of Americans think that an independent counsel should conduct the investigation.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly on Oct 2, 2003 - 48 comments

CIA Seeks Probe of White House
At the risk of a Newsfilter callout, this is pretty big news. The CIA has asked the Justice Department to find out if White House officials were responsible for blowing Valerie Plame's cover. Previous Plame discussion here.
posted by emelenjr on Sep 26, 2003 - 132 comments

FBI questions man for reading a critique of Fox News. Marc Shultz, a freelance Atlanta writer was reading a print out of this article in a coffee shop when another patron reading over his shoulder apparently found the content seditious enough to deserve a quick call to the Feds, who sent out two agents to check it out.
posted by jonson on Jul 18, 2003 - 53 comments

The United States Goverment 911 Investigation finally opens just in time to be buried in the fog of major media coverage of War with Iraq. The commision is officially called "The National Commision on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States. Another investigation has been underway on the Internet for some time now called The People's Investigation of 9/11:
posted by thedailygrowl on Apr 2, 2003 - 1 comment

Secret Police strike again. What country is this, again?
posted by donkeyschlong on Mar 31, 2003 - 63 comments

Buy a Flight Manual, Get a Grand Jury Subpoena? A guy qualified to fly and instruct on the Boeing 737 buys a CD on Ebay that contains the ground course for the same plane. Then the FBI gets involved, and, courtesy of section 501 (d) of the "USA Patriot Act", he can no longer even discuss the issue. [more inside]
posted by Irontom on Dec 23, 2002 - 24 comments

The president of a counterterrorism consulting firm has been charged with possessing 2,352 unregistered small military missiles. Investigators also found 4,000 pounds of explosives at High Energy Access Tools (HEAT), an anti-terrorism and police training company that was conducting classes for students from the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. More....
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood on Aug 18, 2002 - 13 comments

This LA Times article goes into some of the details of the Bush/Harken SEC investigation. While it leaves a lot of questions unanswered, it's largely exculpatory.
posted by electro on Jul 14, 2002 - 1 comment

Anthrax and the Agency "Now that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has officially put the anthrax investigation on a back burner, it is time for Americans to think the unthinkable: that the FBI has never been keen to identify the perpetrator because that perpetrator may, in fact, be the U.S. Government itself. Evidence is mounting that the source of the anthrax was a top secret U.S. Army laboratory in Maryland and that the perpetrators involve high-level officials in the U.S. military and intelligence infrastructure." Granted, there's more than a few blips on the radar screen these days, but...whatever happened to this investigation? I'm no conspiracy theorist, but the case laid out in this piece gives me pause. Any other good theories out there?
posted by martk on Apr 10, 2002 - 21 comments

New Scientist article about the Anthrax attacks. "After months of bungled investigation, it now looks certain that America's anthrax attacks came from within. The implications are terrifying".
posted by talos on Feb 21, 2002 - 8 comments

Ex-CIA official to head investigations of intelligence failure in 9/11 attacks. Whether you trust the government or not -- do you think the truth will come out with someone so close to the agencies running the investigation?
posted by bas67 on Feb 14, 2002 - 17 comments

FBI investigating Enron shredding Some recent postings of commentary seem to feel that Enron wea merely the fault of public not paying attention to stock pics, or the failure of a company that is a risk of the open market....why, then, the FBI being called to find out why key documents destroyed? And whn does it become time for a special prosecutor? This is much bigger than Whitewater. Example: some 1.3 billion lost in pension money for firemen, police and teachers
posted by Postroad on Jan 22, 2002 - 11 comments

It's About Freaking Time! Finally, Someone is actually looking into whether or not Enron might maybe have violated the law. Until now, Ashcroft's little Department was just about the only organization in Washington DC not investigating these jokers. For those who haven't been paying attention, allegations include accounting irregularities, improper partnerships, price fixing, single handedly causing the California Energy Crisis, and failing to let thier employees get thier 401k money out of company stock before it dropped precipitously.
posted by ilsa on Jan 9, 2002 - 10 comments

Killer Paid Online Data Broker for Material Obtained Through Trickery A stalker who eventually murdered his victim acquired her home address via a company named Docusearch. However, Docusearch didn't get it via database mining, but through a process they call "pretexting" (aka "human engineering" or "pretending to be someone else"). Docusearch, on the stalkers behalf, called the victim's business associates posing as an insurance rep or some such, and tricked the colleagues into giving over the victim's address. Legal? Perfectly legal. Ethical? Maybe. It's a tried and true investigative technique employed by private investigators for decades. It reminds us once again that the human dufus at the next desk over is the biggest security risk. However, this is an issue of an investigative firm exercising a typical, long-standing investigative practice for a purpose that, unfortunately, turned nefarious. Given that, why did the Post put the online data broker spin on the article?
posted by monkey-mind on Jan 4, 2002 - 20 comments

Hijack Suspects Looked for Hookers in Boston .. For real or PsyOps? What would you do on your last night on earth. In Boston.
posted by stbalbach on Oct 10, 2001 - 33 comments