The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "National Security News Service" ...
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WAMU: Inside The Collapse
It's October 2008: major banks are failing, Congress is bailing them out with taxpayer dollars. The public deserves to know how we got into the mess. ABC News Nightline's "Inside the Collapse" was first to expose a top-down, company-wide reckless lending strategy that led to the biggest bank failure in U.S. history: Washington Mutual Bank. Senior Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas got inside Washington Mutual's culture and uncovered what really went wrong using original reporting, an exclusive whistleblower interview, a video of a jubilant company party, exclusive internal company documents, former employee interviews and victim interviews. His piece, as well as a follow-up on World news with Charles Gibson and articles on ABCNews.com, caught the attention of law enforcement. Two days after the piece aired, federal prosecutors announced that because of "intense public interest" they were investigating the bank's activities with assistance from the FBI, FDIC, SEC and IRS. The story was widely reported in the national media in the following weeks.
Tags: Washington Mutual; Securities and Exchange Commission; Internal Revenue Service; Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; FDIC; Federal Bureau of Investigation; economics
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The No-Fly List
CBS News reported that the No-Fly List, compiled after 9/11 to "prevent an Islamic terrorist who's associated with al-Queda from getting on a plane" is "incomplete, inaccurate, outdated, and a source of aggravation to thousands of innocent Americans." The version available to airport screeners is "sanitized of the most sensitive information", because "intelligence agencies that supply the names don't want them circulated to airport employees in foreign countries for fear that they could end up in the hands of terrorists." Before 9/11 the list had 16 names on it; after 9/11, the list grew to include 44 thousand names, not including an additional 75 thousand names on the additional security screening list. Now there's another list: names of people who have shouldn't be on the first list. You have to apply to get on that list. The list airport screeners see has no birth dates or physical descriptions. For the past three years, the TSA has spent about 144 million dollars to develop a program called Secure Flight-- it hasn't been implemented yet.
Tags: Department of Homeland Security; anti-war activists; Iraq; No-Fly List; wiretaps; FBI; Excel; heads-of-state; Transportation Security Administration; TSA; data dump; National Security News Service; Joe Trento; NSA; Zaccarias Moussaoui; FBI Terrorist's Screening Center; Donna Bucella; Dawud Salahuddin; David Belfield; Kip Hawley; Cathy Berrick; General Accounting Office; Secure Flight
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Holding GSEs to Accounting Standards
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are the nation's fourth and fifth largest financial services companies. They hold a combined $1.5 trillion in loans and mortgage-backed securities on their books and guarantee payment on another combined $2.4 trillion in MBS held by other investors. Both the Federal Reserve and Bush Administration think the companies have grown too big, too fast and worry that they could upend the broader markets if their interest-rate hedges are wrong and there's a sudden and unexpected rate shift in the opposite direction. Kopecki broke the news that Fannie's accounting woes stretched far beyond those the government-sponsored enterprise previously disclosed. Kopecki also chronicled the problems with two Federal Home Loan Bank System board members suspected with using non-public information to sell large stakes of the Bank's stock.
Tags: GSE; government-sponsored enterprises; financial services companies; insider trading; loans; mortage-backed securities; accounting