Welcome to Deep Background

Posted on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 4:12 PM ET

By Jim Popkin, NBC News Senior Investigative Producer

Welcome to Deep Background, the NBC News investigative blog. We hope you'll turn here for breaking investigative news, and for analysis of stories involving terrorism, espionage, politics, corruption and government waste, fraud and abuse.

NBC's top correspondents and producers will be contributing to these pages, and we hope you'll let us know what you think.

Right now, we are tracking an undercover video investigation by the Humane Society of the United States into a California slaughterhouse. The video appears to show workers at the plant using electric shocks to move cows too weak to stand on their own, and drivers using forklifts to roll the so-called "downer" cows. It's appalling to watch, especially considering that the companies where these practices took place sell their meat to the nation's school-lunch programs.

We're also working on a timely analysis of the 911 Commission Final report. It shows that much of what we know about the planning and execution of the terror attacks on New York and Washington was derived from interrogations of high-ranking al Qaeda operatives who had been subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques", including waterboarding.

Much more to come... 

 

Comments

HI
I just can not understand something.  Maybe someone can help me out here.  With all the fear that surrounds most Americans that another terriost attack could occur, the media contiues to tell the nation that the pentagon is unprepared.  Isn't this something that the whole nation does not need to know?  Isn't that like giving someone an opportunity to attack while we are so called "unprepared?"

Tamra-Wisconsin (Thursday, January 31, 2008 7:00 PM)

Is there any more information the news corporations could make available to our enemies to further expose our security forces' strategies and techniques ?  The way I see this, the news corporations are the ones making money off all of this, then the terrorist get better information on how to counter our security forces techniques, then finally caught in the cross hairs is the american public (like a lone foxes being hunted by hundreds of dogs in the good old fasshioned fox hunts).  But hey YOU'RE MAKING MONEY OFF THIS, SO WHO CARES ! Nice. Rome fell from within and since we are going in that direction, let's continue to do everything we can to help our enemies subvert every means of attack and defense we discover or currently have at our disposal.

Charles, Newark, NJ (Thursday, January 31, 2008 11:40 PM)

Information is absolutely indespensable in a republic such as ours (america). I may not like what is reported at times but i am glad "big brother" has not been able to stop the free flow.I wuold like to see more reporting and less commentary in the media and as i have just recently discovered this particular outlet i am undecided as to the validity of info being presented. I will continue to visit Deep Background so long as there is no evidence of personal agenda pushing disguised as reporting. If that time comes i have the american freedom of take it or leave it. Keep it coming Mr. Popkin, lets see what you have and thanks.  

John Allen, Sedalia MO. (Friday, March 21, 2008 11:27 PM)



Send a comment

PLEASE READ: All comments must be approved before appearing in the thread; time and space constraints prevent all comments from appearing. We will only approve comments that are directly related to the blog, use appropriate language and are not attacking the comments of others.

Message (please, no HTML tags. Web addresses will be hyperlinked):

Your name, city and state (John Doe, Seattle, Wash.): 

 Your e-mail address (jdoe@msnbc.com):

Your website (it's okay if you don't have one):

Remember me? (We'll keep it private)

About the blog

Deep Background is NBC News’ investigative blog. It covers national security, terrorism, spies, Iraq, and politics, as well as government waste, fraud and abuse. It is edited by NBC News Senior Investigative Producer Jim Popkin.

Recent Posts

Archives


Browse by topic:

Browse by date:

Add this blog to your news reader

msnbc.com weblogs