One top military officer provided a plausible explanation, behind closed doors on Capitol Hill, The Intercept has learned. In the briefing, a high-ranking officer on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff stated that some of the people killed by the U.S. military may have been the victims of human trafficking. “No one would smuggle cocaine with 11 people on board their drug-running boat,” said a current government official who spoke with The Intercept on the condition of anonymity, noting that it was a waste of space, fuel, and created security risks. “It just is not done. Full stop.” Get the full story here: interc.pt/4uKYB1T

The Trump administration is funding its anti-immigrant campaign with money set aside for defense, Democratic lawmakers wrote. interc.pt/3KMZtBR The report noted that the Pentagon’s requested budget for 2026 indicates that the Defense Department plans to spend at least $5 billion for operations on the southern border alone. interc.pt/3KMZtBR

The Trump administration is using NSPM-7 to compile the names of alleged domestic terror groups. It won’t tell us who’s on the list. interc.pt/4oVdxYx The U.S. government has begun drawing up new lists of terrorist organizations without disclosing the identities of the groups to Congress or the American people. interc.pt/4oVdxYx

Israeli spyware company NSO Group took a big hit over the last two years after its phone hacking software was shown to play a role in serious human rights abuses.

Now, amid the Gaza war, NSO is lobbying for an urgent meeting with @SecBlinken. theintercept.com/2023/11/10/nso… NSO Group, infamous for its Pegasus phone-tapping technology, was blacklisted by the U.S. Department of Commerce in November 2021.

A month later it was revealed that Pegasus had been used to spy on American diplomats.

As Vladimir Putin has sought to replenish the ranks of Russia’s military, his close associate Yevgeny Prigozhin appears to have done the same with the Wagner Group, the infamous mercenary organization he founded, including by recruiting in Russian prisons. theintercept.com/2022/10/19/rus… Prigozhin was encouraging them to join the Wagner Group and fight in Ukraine as a way out of prison.

Before Russia’s tanks started rolling into Ukraine, we were already hearing that the best way to stop Putin’s aggression is to ramp up fossil fuel production in North America, writes @NaomiAKlein. theintercept.com/2022/03/01/war… “Within hours of the invasion, every planet-torching project that the climate justice movement had managed to block over the past decade was being frantically rushed back onto the table by right-wing politicians and industry-friendly pundits.”

The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Prisoners are some of the most vulnerable to the climate crisis given that they’re at the mercy of a prison system plagued with problems.

Climate and Punishment: interc.pt/prisonclimate Texas is ground zero in the fight over air conditioning in prisons.

Data compiled and analyzed by The Intercept shows that Texas has more jails, prisons, and detention centers impacted by severe heat than any other state. interc.pt/3BeZOnG

Yesterday, @Google's search engine removed all mentions of this @theintercept investigation by @radleybalko into Little Rock's police department and the FOP's efforts to unseat Keith Humphrey, a Black police chief appointed by the city’s first Black mayor.

https://twitter.com/theintercept/status/1472160774088974343

Although the notice of DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) removal we received from Google says the takedown is tied to a copyright claim, no violation was cited by the company. Our reporting remains suppressed from Google search globally.

A reformist Black police chief faces an uprising of the old guard interc.pt/3GZYXct by @radleybalko Keith Humphrey was appointed Little Rock police chief in April 2019 by Mayor Frank Scott, the city’s first Black elected chief executive.

Twenty years after Al Qaeda attacked America, the Biden administration is withdrawing troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, leaving behind weak and corrupt governments, hundreds of thousands dead, and off-the-books forces to fight on in secret. While the United States and its allies had propped up the Afghan government for the better part of two decades, Biden seemingly washed his and the rest of the U.S.’s hands of further responsibility. The case was the same in South Vietnam.
theintercept.com/2021/08/15/afg…

NIH documents provide new evidence U.S. funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan interc.pt/2X3fvPv by @fastlerner, @MaraHvistendahl, @maiahibbett NEW: As The Intercept’s latest reporting details, research nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance engaged in what the U.S. government defines as “gain-of-function research of concern,” intentionally making viruses more pathogenic or transmissible in order to study them.

Exclusive: The Taliban have seized U.S. military biometrics devices that could aid in the identification of Afghans who assisted coalition forces, current and former military officials have told The Intercept. interc.pt/2XCRNcE The devices, known as HIIDE, for Handheld Interagency Identity Detection Equipment, were seized last week during the Taliban’s offensive, according to a Joint Special Operations Command official and three former U.S. military personnel.

How Trump ally Michael Flynn nurtured — and profited from — the QAnon conspiracy theory interc.pt/35Tf0rZ by @CandaceRondeaux Of the many mysteries surrounding the final days of Trump’s presidency, few have been more confounding than the connections between former national security adviser Michael Flynn, the QAnon conspiracy theory, and Trump’s #StoptheSteal campaign.

Empire Politician

“Joe Biden might tell you one thing one day, and really believe it. And then the next day he’s doing the exact opposite because he’s cut some side deal that maybe we’ll hear about in some years.”

Read the full series: interc.pt/3sWKVRl Joe Biden eagerly supported the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, saying in 2002 that he wanted the U.S. to deploy “badasses” who “shoot and kill people.” But by 2009, as Obama’s vice president, he argued against troop surges, citing “profound questions” around counterinsurgency.

Democrats planning legislation to expand the Supreme Court from 9 to 13 justices interc.pt/2Q4UIar by @ryangrim The bill is led by House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler, Subcommittee chair Hank Johnson, and freshman Rep. Mondaire Jones. 

In the Senate, the bill is being championed by Ed Markey of Massachusetts.

Exclusive: Internal NYPD documents shed new light on the Strategic Response Group, the heavily militarized police unit behind the crackdown on George Floyd protesters. interc.pt/3fQC6ps In Brooklyn, on May 30, an officer pulled down a man’s Covid-19 mask and pepper-sprayed him at close range, bragging about it to fellow officers but failing to provide the man with medical assistance, as required by police regulations.

LIVE: @NaomiAKlein joins Rep. @IlhanMN for “Digital Dragnet: How the Surveillance State is Spying on You.”

@ConMijente’s digital town hall bringing together organizers to discuss tech surveillance. twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1… “We can't trust ICE to protect the civil liberties of American citizens, much less asylum seekers and migrants, but we want to give them state of the art technology to track the border?” asks Rep. @IlhanMN. #DigitalDragnet

Amazon’s Twitter army was handpicked for “great sense of humor,” leaked document reveals interc.pt/3fupkwC by @kenklippenstein Amazon's Twitter army was quietly conceived in 2018 under the codename “Veritas,” which sought to train and dispatch select employees to defend Amazon and its CEO, Jeff Bezos, according to an internal description of the program obtained exclusively by The Intercept.

Documents show Amazon is aware drivers pee in bottles and even defecate en route, despite company denial interc.pt/3vZdi3U by @kenklippenstein If employees actually had to pee in bottles, Amazon said, “nobody would work for us.”

Yet the practice is so widespread due to pressure to meet quotas that managers frequently reference it during meetings and in formal policy documents and emails provided to The Intercept.

Ten years ago, at the age of 42, Dodie Harrington was the first of her group of friends to develop breast cancer.

“‘She said that, if one of us had to get it, she was glad it was her and not any of us,’” Jill Pierce remembers. theintercept.com/2021/03/18/epa… Harrington and Pierce are part of a tight circle of eight friends who met in elementary school.

“We called ourselves the Lucky 7 because each one of us was lucky to have seven best friends,” said Pierce.

Entire staff of Nevada Democratic Party quits after democratic socialist slate won every seat interc.pt/3teNwqv by @akela_lacy, @ryangrim On March 6, a coalition of progressive candidates backed by the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America took over the leadership of the Nevada Democratic Party, sweeping all five party leadership positions.