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 "defenders" ...
-
Cyber Espionage: The Chinese Threat
It’s the biggest threat facing American business today but the least talked about by corporate executives. Experts at the highest levels of government agree, cyber espionage is threatening to steal American wealth, American jobs and ultimately America’s economic security and the biggest aggressor is China. Due to the nature of the crime, the cost to American businesses is nearly impossible to pinpoint. Experts say Chinese hackers are constantly probing corporate networks, sifting through endless amounts of data to decipher what is valuable intellectual property, chemical formulas or proprietary technology. One conservative estimate from the National Counter Intelligence Executive puts the cost of economic espionage at up to $400B annually, but the report states such estimates vary “so widely as to be meaningless,” reflecting the scarcity of data available. CNBC’s David Faber and the Investigations Inc. team spoke with many corporate executives about China’s aggressive effort to target American businesses and their most valuable assets, but many refused to comment on camera for our report, citing becoming more vulnerable to attack by speaking publicly about the issue. However, not one executive denied their company is at risk of cyber-attack on a daily basis or the possibility of losing valuable intellectual property to cyber spies. Government and industry experts we spoke with on-camera have witnessed such costly cyber-attacks during their careers and attest to the fact there are only two companies left in America today: Those who know they’ve been hacked and those who don’t. From a whistleblower claiming telecommunications giant Nortel was one of the first casualties of this all-out cyber war, to high profile and public attacks on Google and RSA, its clear defending against cyber espionage is the new normal for American business.
Tags: Chinese hackers; American businesses; cyber attacks; cyber espionage
-
Grim Reapers
Maricopa County, Arizona, has faced economic hurdles in paying for representation of indigent defendants charged with capital crimes. In recent years, the county supplanted other jurisdictions as the unofficial “death penalty capital” of the United States. “Grim Reaper” describes how a prominent capital criminal-defense attorney committed serious ethical and potentially criminal violations over a period of five years, during which time he collected more than $2.4 million from the county, including payment for work that he never had performed. in the wake of publication, law enforcement initiated a still-ongoing criminal investigation (as did the State Bar of Arizona), and the county's presiding judge announced sweeping and immediate changes in how criminal-defense attorneys representing indigent clients would be vetted, selected and paid.
Tags: Crimes; charges; criminal justice system; capital crimes
-
Deaf and Tased
A deaf crime victim calls police for help, but instead gets tased, beat-up, and thrown in jail for 60 hours over Easter weekend without access to an interpreter. KIRO 7’s investigative team proves police manipulated their reports to defend their actions. We also uncovered jail guards offered the deaf inmate a broken TTY phone as her only means of communication. We found that device still broken and in service two months later.
-
Scapegoat: The Chino Hills Murders and the Framing of Kevin Cooper
Scapegoat is the true story of the horrific Chino Hills murders -- the highest profile crime in San Bernardino County history. It shows how law enforcement ignored eyewitness information implicating three white men as the perpetrators in order to pin the crime on Kevin Cooper, a recently escaped black prisoner from the nearby prison in Chino, California. It shows how his public defender lost the case before the trial even began and how the justice system has failed Cooper at almost every turn. It also shows the heroic work of an international law firm headquartered in San Francisco that adopted Cooper's case pro bono just three months before his scheduled execution in 2004 and won him a stay and how lawyers from this firm continue to appeal his wrongful conviction.
Tags: Murders; crime; law enforcement; police; prison; justice system; wrongful conviction
-
Waiting for Justice
Investigation into an EEOC complaint that languished and a defendant who not only got away, but then made money off of the federal goverment. The story focused on a religious discrimination case and a fine that was never paid.
Tags: Religious Discrimination; EEOC
-
The Informants
The report examines the prosecutions of 508 defendants in terrorism related cases and finds that nearly half the prosecutions involved the use of informants, many of them incentivized by money.
Tags: terrorism; prosecutions; informants
-
Bail Bond Investigation
The investigation uncovered major loopholes in a bail bond system which allowed countless defendants to get out of jail by posting bogus bonds.
Tags: bail bonds; corruption; loophole; bondsmen; jail
-
Excessive Force on the Force
KUSA obtains a videotape from a case involving excessive police force that had been hidden from the defendants themselves and it brings new light to the case.
Tags: courthouse; excessive force; videotape; defendant; public safety
-
"Breaking Down Bond Court"
In Cook Country, very little attention is given to bond hearings. However, the hearings can have a major impact on the defendant's life and "have ripple effects for taxpayers and communities." In this story, reporters Tony Arnold and Cate Cahan reveal "rushed hearings," the errors that occur and the "drastic consequences" they have for the defendants and their families.
Tags: bond; bail; Cook County; Chicago; judge; electronic monitoring; lawsuit
-
Cracked
Fetlz's investigation "exposes how junk science has allowed Texas to keep mentally retarded inmates on death row - and execute several of them - despite a 2002 Supreme Court decision, Atkins v. Virginia, that bans such punishment for these defendants.
Tags: capital punishment; criminal justice; mental retardation; death row; execution; Texas; Atkins v. Virginia