A criminal case may appear to begin with a traffic stop, an informant, or one officer experiencing a miraculous burst of curiosity. Sometimes that visible beginning is not the beginning. Parallel construction occurs when investigators protect an original source by creating a separate path to the same evidence. Civil liberties advocates sometimes call the abusive... Read More “RSG #334: How To…
Happy Wednesday from the nation where DHS apparently names domestic surveillance operations like rejected Jason Bourne movies, local governments are spending opioid recovery money on license plate cameras, and the administration wants to spend billions encouraging migrant children to leave the country. Meanwhile, Florida voters bounced scandal plagued Congressman Cory Mills, Angie Nixon pulled…
Happy Tuesday from the nation where the president’s family is moving closer to operating its own federally regulated bank, DHS allegedly treated lawful Minnesota protesters like members of a terrorist financing network, contractors are being hired to chase deported immigrants through foreign countries for money, and bulldozers are chewing into Big Bend National Park. Meanwhile,... Read More “Day…
Secret government watchlists and risk scores can influence who gets stopped, searched, questioned, investigated, denied a benefit, or quietly assigned extra scrutiny. Yet the affected person may never see the record, learn the rule, or receive a useful explanation. Nothing says procedural fairness quite like being judged by a spreadsheet nobody admits exists. Auditing these... Read More “RSG#333:…
Public money rarely travels in a straight line. Congress funds an agency. The agency awards a state, city, university, or nonprofit. That recipient sends part of the award to another organization. A fiscal sponsor may then hold the money for a project that has no separate tax exemption, public filing, or obvious legal identity. By... Read More “RSG #332: How To Trace Public Money Through Pass…
Happy Monday from the country where the president’s family crypto company is one regulatory step away from operating a federally chartered trust bank, the Attorney General will not promise independence from the White House, intelligence hubs want more power to investigate Americans, and the Supreme Court just told Donald Trump no again in the E.... Read More “Day 573: Trump Loses at the Supreme…
Happy Friday from the nation currently running secret maritime operations, rewriting immigration rules in obscure PDFs, threatening television licenses over news coverage, dismantling financial transparency, and somehow finding time to redesign aircraft carriers because Donald Trump still has feelings about steam. Meanwhile, ICE detention deaths are raising horrifying questions, 23,000 federal…