Fearless, Adversarial Journalism – Spoken Edition

American scientists are under siege in the Trump administration because their work threatens to undermine Trump’s anti-science policies. As a result, some scientists have already begun trying to preserve government data they worry will be deleted, altered or removed, and many are preparing to march on Washington to protest Trump’s dangerous science denialism.

Using loopholes ithas kept secret for years, the FBI can in certain circumstances bypass its own rules in order to send undercover agents or informants into political and religious organizations, as well as schools, clubs, and businesses. If the FBI had its way, the infiltration loopholes would still be secret.

When Donald J. Trump tookthe oath of office and sworeto protect and defend the U.S. Constitution, he gained access toan FBI whose spy powers are pushing the limits of constitutional protection.

White supremacists and other domestic extremistsmaintain an active presence in U.S. police departments and other law enforcement agencies. A striking reference tothatconclusion, notable forits confidenceand the policy prescriptions that accompanyit, appears inaclassified FBI Counterterrorism Policy Guide from April 2015, obtained by The Intercept.

Following an executive order signed late Friday, President Donald Trump on Saturday launched a sweeping attack on the travel rights of individuals from more than a half dozen Muslim majority countries, turning away travelers at multiple U.S. airports and leaving others stranded without answers — and without hope — across the world.

YOU ARE A DEDICATED civil servant and you have loyally performed your job for years, but suddenly you are confronted with tasks and policies that horrify you. Should you carry on, or should you quit? This unusual question is presenting itself with urgent regularity as President Trump tries to overturn a wide array of sensible policies in his drive to implement a far-right agenda, including a chaotic travel ban aimed at Muslim immigrants.

At the end of a three-day hearing, a federal district court judge in Austin, Texas, on January 19 issued a temporary injunction blocking state officials from excising Planned Parenthood from the state’s Medicaid program — a move that would deny more than 11,000 of the state’s poorest residents from accessing preventive care from their provider of choice, and would annually strip Texas Planned Parenthood clinics of several million dollars.

In a 24-hour news cycle in which Donald Trump decreed the construction of a new border wall with Mexico and draft executive orders emerged suggesting an impending ban on refugees and the return of post-9/11 interrogation techniques, the president also hinted at more to come — from sending “the Feds” to Chicago to a Department of Justice investigation into voter fraud.

With President Trump issuing a flurry of executive orders in his first week in office, it’s important for everyone who opposes him to understand the history of this political tool. Unfortunately for thoseappalled by Trump’s directives, it cannot be said that the mere issuance of the orders is an outrageous departure from tradition. The truth is that previous presidents have successfully used executive orders to make significant policy changes.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh said in an interview that he does not believe the U.S. intelligence community proved its case that President Vladimir Putin directed a hacking campaign aimed at securing the election ofDonald Trump. He blasted news organizations for lazily broadcasting the assertions of U.S. intelligence officials as established facts. The Intercept’s Jeremy Scahill speaks with Seymour Hersh at his home in Washington, D.C.

In 2013, Ladar Levison, founder of the encrypted email service Lavabit, took the defiant step of shutting down the company’s service rather than comply with a federal law enforcement request that could compromise its customers’ communications. The FBI had sought access to the email account of one of Lavabit’s most prominent users —Edward Snowden.

Alton Rodgers was 31 years old and suffering from bilateral bronchopneumonia, bed sores, and severe malnutrition when he died of head trauma on January 19, 2016, in the custody of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Guards had found Rodgers unresponsive in his cell at the William P. Clements Unit in Amarillo, one of the most violent prisons in Texas, the previous day. His fatal injury, the official paperwork noted, was consistent with having his head “slammed onto the concrete floor.

The January 4 meeting of the Kentucky Senate Committee on Veterans, Military Affairs and Public Safety was brief. The group had convened, on just the second day of the 30-day session, to consider Senate Bill 5, a measure that had been labeled an “emergency.” Specifically, the bill would ban abortion after 20 weeks gestation, under the mistaken assumptionthat 20 weeks is the point at which a fetus feels pain, making abortion a cruel and unusual punishment.

The January 4 meeting of the Kentucky Senate Committee on Veterans, Military Affairs and Public Safety was brief. The group had convened, on just the second day of the 30-day session, to consider Senate Bill 5, a measure that had been labeled an “emergency.” Specifically, the bill would ban abortion after 20 weeks gestation, under the mistaken assumptionthat 20 weeks is the point at which a fetus feels pain, making abortion a cruel and unusual punishment.

Editor’s Note: To mark the beginning of the Trump administration, The Intercept is publishing this updated version of an article from the day after his election. Donald J. Trump is President of the United States of America. You’re terrified.I’m terrified too. It’s not hyperbole to say the United States, and in fact the world, will need someluck to get out of this one alive. So let’s concentrate on making our own luck.