In Defense of Gumshoes

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McClatchy reports that authorities stopped two major terror plots in Germany and Denmark. Turns out the governments didn’t have to torture anyone to stop either of the bombings—it was just good old-fashioned police work. “Both groups had been under surveillance for months,” according to the McClatchy story. But instead of immediately arresting suspects and bringing them in, authorities watched them, found out who they were connected to, and built a legal case against them. As Bruce Grady reminded John O’Hagen, “It’s called routine police work.” The Financial Times reported that police had been watching the German group since spotting one of its members spying on a U.S. military base in Hanau in December 2006. Would someone who was noticed spying on a military base in the U.S. be followed and watched for eight months instead of simply shipped off to Guantanamo and water-boarded?

— Nick Baumann

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

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