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 "spies" ...
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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
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Wild Bill Donovan
The biography of General William J. "Wild Bill" Donovan is the story of spies and their covert war agains the Axis in World War II. It is also a story of Washington political intrigue at the highest levels of government.
Tags: Wild Bill Donovan; covert war; World War II; spies
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Spy Drones Aiding Police
Government surveillance drones have been used, with no public notice, to assist local police departments inside the U.S. find suspects and conduct. A Los Angeles Times/ Tribune Co. Washington Bureau investigation uncovered for the first time over two dozen uses of the Department of Homeland Security drones to help local law enforcement in North Dakota, where two of the department's nine Predator B aircraft are based.
Tags: Government Surveillance; Department of Homeland Security; North Dakota; Drones; Security
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NYPD Spying
This AP investigative series has found that the NYPD has secretly conducted widespread spying on Muslim communities
Tags: spying; Muslims; New York Police Department
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Watching the Protesters
This article exposes the military and local police intelligence operations worked to infiltrate and spy on a the ranks of peaceful protesters, dispaching a Ft. Lewis operative to not only heal lead protest demonstrations, but to provide secretive blow-by-blow accounts of the protesters' plans and positions to the police and Army. In effect, the Army double agent helped organize and lead them to their arrests and prosecutions.
Tags: army; police; Seattle; Washington; Army Force Protection Unit; Washington State Fusion Center; FBI; Homeland Security; Department of Justice; Posse Comitatus Act;
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Double Exposure
The author discovers that a celebrated civil rights photographer actually doubled as an FBI informant in the late 1960s. The author pieces together elements of his undercover work and finds that the informant's work included reporting on the activities of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and a 1968 Memphis sanitation workers strike.
Tags: spy; FBI; FBI informant; civil rights; confidential
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Sabotaging the System
This story includes the “first confirmed account of a successful cyber attack against an electric utility company, resulting in major blackouts that lasted for days”. The electric grid not only supplies electricity but also keeps water, telephones, trains, and air traffic control up and running. Also in the U.S., government agencies, defense contractors, and banks are hacked everyday by foreign spy agencies.
Tags: National Intelligence; Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); cyber security; Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); computers; technology
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"The Spy Who Loved Us"
Thomas A. Bass tells the story of famous reporter turned spy, Pham Xuan An. While working as a journalist for Time and acting as bureau chief in Saigon, An was also North Vietnam's top spy for 20 years. While he kept his cover, An received 16 military medals, most being awarded "for direct involvement in military campaigns." In his book, Bass focuses on the "elusive relationship between" journalists and "spies at war."
Tags: Vietnam War; Communist; North Vietnam; Time; Ho Chi Minh; spy; Ap Bac; Tet Offensive; Orange Coast College
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Blackwater
Blackwater, hired by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) “to participate in a program to assassinate al Qaeda leaders.” Furthermore, Blackwater was used to “help carry out snatch and grab operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.” This series also looked at the relationship between the “CIA and several of Afghanistan’s most powerful and possibly most corrupt government officials.”
Tags: Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); Surrogates; Afghanistan; Iraq; Private security; Clandestine mission; al Qaeda; Karzai; Spies; Spy agency; Xe Services
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The New War
The information age has created new vulnerabilities to US national security. This investigation reveals the holes in the nation’s defense against cyber spies and pushing policymakers to do something about it. Some examples are the “breaching of the US electric grid, an expensive fighter-jet project and the US drones in the war in Iraq.” Further, this investigation also reveals innovative technologies to stop these cyber spies.
Tags: information age; US national security; spies; cyberspies; cyber espionage; technology; cyberspace; US electric grid; Iraq