Investigations: Pulitzer Winner Documents Vietnam Atrocity Cover-Ups

The U.S. Army ignored confessions by its own soldiers about massacres and atrocities they committed during the Vietnam War, says Pulitzer winner Deborah Nelson, who documents the abuses in her new book The War Behind Me. The book centres around the slaughter of 19 Vietnamese civilians, including babies and an old man, according to this account of Nelson's talk at a book signing.

TAGS: books, investigations, military

Awards: IRE '08 Winners Announced

The group Investigative Reporters and Editors has announced its 2008 award winners recognizing the most outstanding watchdog journalism of the year. Read more here.

TAGS: awards, investigations

Investigations: Huffington Post Starts New I-Fund

Here's some positive news for the times. The Huffington Post and Atlantic Philanthropies are giving a boost to investigative journalism with a new $1.75-million fund for investigative projects. Read more here. Thanks to Bilbo for the tip.

TAGS: investigations

In the Courts: Jury Sides With First Nations Scholar in 9/11 Firing

Interesting series of stories on the court victory of First Nations scholar Ward Churchill over his politically charged termination as a professor at the University of Colorado. Churchill's firing came after he wrote an essay blaming 9/11 on U.S. policies, which resulted in Colorado's governor calling for his dismissal. Here is law prof Stanley Fish's take on the sordid affair in a New York Times opinion piece. And here is one of the initial news reports on the jury ruling. Churchill will be in Montreal Wednesday, April 15, to speak at Concordia University at 7 p.m. (room H-110). Email scott.montreal@sympatico.ca for more information. Thanks to Mike for alerting me to these stories.

TAGS: Aboriginal, law

Back From the Break

Sorry for my lack of posts for the past few weeks. I'm back from an extended family vacation in sunny Spanish Wells, the Bahamas. Beautiful place and beautiful people! (See more in this piece I did after our first trip two years ago.) I'll be resuming my regular posting schedule.

Documents: Inside the CIA's No-So-Public Archives

"In a quiet, fluorescently lit room in the National Archives' auxiliary campus in suburban College Park, Maryland, 10 miles outside of Washington, are four computer terminals, each providing instant access to the more than 10 million pages of documents the CIA has declassified since 1995. There's only one problem: these are the only publicly available computers in the world that do so."

So starts an interesting story by Bruce Falconer in Mother Jones on the CIA's semi-secret horde of declassified archives: "Inside the CIA's (Sort of) Secret Document Stash."

Stephen Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists also writes about the collection at his Secrecy News blog. His post Monday mentions an interesting journal paper in Intelligence and National Security that reviews the documents.

TAGS: intelligence, FOI