Corporate Corruption News Stories

Excerpts of Key Corporate Corruption News Stories in Major Media

Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on corporate corruption from reliable news media sources. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.

Note: This comprehensive list of news stories is usually updated once a week. Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.

Before becoming secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services and leader of the Make America Healthy Again movement, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was a swashbuckling environmental attorney who regularly took aim at the meat industry. For over a decade, a group of food safety, environmental, and animal welfare nonprofits has petitioned the US Food and Drug Administration – which Kennedy now oversees – to ban the use of ... ractopamine hydrochloride. Fed to pigs in the final weeks of their lives, ractopamine speeds up muscle gain so that pork producers can squeeze more profit from each animal. But the drug has been linked to severe adverse events in pigs, including trembling, reluctance to move, collapse, inability to stand up, hoof disorders, difficulty breathing, and even death. Earlier this year, the FDA denied the petition to ban the drug. While 26 countries have approved ractopamine use in livestock, more than 165 have banned or restricted it, and many have set restrictions on or have altogether prohibited the import of pork and beef from ractopamine-fed animals. The bans stem primarily from concerns that the trace amounts of the drug found in meat could harm consumers, especially those with cardiovascular conditions. Given the lack of trials, ractopamine's threat to human health is unclear. But there's a clear case to be made that ractopamine ought to be banned because of its awful effects on animals.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on factory farming and food system corruption.

Late last month, some 14,000 baby chicks in Pennsylvania were shipped from a hatchery – commercial operations that breed chickens, incubate their eggs, and sell day-old chicks – to small farms across the country. But they didn't get far. They were reportedly abandoned in a US Postal Service truck in Delaware for three-and-a-half days without water, food, or temperature control. By the time officials arrived at the postal facility, 4,000 baby birds were already dead. More than 9 billion chickens raised for meat annually in the US are kept on factory farms – long, windowless buildings that look more like industrial warehouses than farms. Up to 6 percent die before they can even be trucked to the slaughterhouse. The average consumer, if they think about farm animal suffering at all, may only think about it in the context of factory farms or slaughterhouses. But the factory farm production chain is incredibly complex, and at each step, animals have little to no protections. That leads to tens of millions of animals dying painful deaths each year in transport alone, and virtually no companies are ever held accountable. These deaths are just as tragic as the thousands who died in the recent USPS incident, and they are just as preventable. The meat industry could choose to pack fewer animals into each truck, require heating and cooling during transport, and give animals ample time for rest, water, and food on long journeys. But such modest measures would cut into their margins.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on factory farming and food system corruption.

American-style intensive livestock farms are spreading across Europe, with new data revealing more than 24,000 megafarms across the continent. In the UK alone, there are now 1,824 industrial-scale pig and poultry farms. The countries with the largest number of intensive poultry farm units are France, UK, Germany, Italy and Poland in that order. For poultry farming alone, the UK ranks as having the second-highest number of intensive farms at 1,553, behind France with 2,342. Intensive livestock units are farms where 40,000 or more poultry, 2,000 or more fattening pigs, or 750 or more breeding sows are being held at any one time. The increase in so-called megafarms across Europe comes as the number of small farms has reduced dramatically, and the income gap between large and small farms has increased. The rise in intensive farming has coincided with a decline in birds, tree species and butterfly numbers. Across Europe the rise in large intensive poultry units is a key driver of river pollution. Chicken droppings contain more phosphates – which starve fish and river plants of oxygen – than any other animal manure. According to data released under freedom of information laws to Terry Jermy, the MP for South West Norfolk, megafarms in England have breached environmental regulations nearly 7,000 times since 2015. The Environment Agency carried out about 17 inspections of intensive livestock units a week in which 75% of those inspections found breaches.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on factory farming and food system corruption.

Haiti could be Erik Prince's deadliest gambit yet. Prince's Blackwater reigned during the Global War on Terror, but left a legacy of disastrous mishaps, most infamously the 2007 Nisour massacre in Iraq, where Blackwater mercenaries killed 17 civilians. This, plus his willingness in recent years to work for foreign governments in conflicts and for law enforcement across the globe, have made Prince one of the world's most controversial entrepreneurs. A desperate Haiti has now hired him to "conduct lethal operations" against armed groups, who control about 85% of Haitian capital Port-Au-Prince. Prince will send about 150 private mercenaries to Haiti over the summer. He will advise Haiti's police force on countering Haiti's armed groups, where some Prince-hired mercenaries are already operating attack drones. The Prince deal is occurring within the context of extensive ongoing American intervention in Haiti. Currently the U.S.-backed, Kenyan-led multinational police force operating in Haiti to combat the armed groups is largely seen as a failure. Previously, a U.N. peacekeeping mission aimed at stabilizing Haiti from 2004 through 2017 was undermined by scandal, where U.N. officials were condemned for killing civilians during efforts aimed at armed groups, sexually assaulting Haitians, and introducing cholera to Haiti. Before that, the U.S. was accused of ousting Haitian leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide after he proved obstructive to U.S. foreign policy goals, in 2004.

Note: This article doesn't mention the US-backed death squads that recently terrorized Haiti. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on corruption in the military and in the corporate world.

When National Public Data, a company that does online background checks, was breached in 2024, criminals gained the names, addresses, dates of birth and national identification numbers such as Social Security numbers of 170 million people in the U.S., U.K. and Canada. The same year, hackers who targeted Ticketmaster stole the financial information and personal data of more than 560 million customers. In so-called stolen data markets, hackers sell personal information they illegally obtain to others, who then use the data to engage in fraud and theft for profit. Every piece of personal data captured in a data breach – a passport number, Social Security number or login for a shopping service – has inherent value. Offenders can ... assume someone else's identity, make a fraudulent purchase or steal services such as streaming media or music. Some vendors also offer distinct products such as credit reports, Social Security numbers and login details for different paid services. The price for pieces of information varies. A recent analysis found credit card data sold for US$50 on average, while Walmart logins sold for $9. However, the pricing can vary widely across vendors and markets. The rate of return can be exceptional. An offender who buys 100 cards for $500 can recoup costs if only 20 of those cards are active and can be used to make an average purchase of $30. The result is that data breaches are likely to continue as long as there is demand.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Tech and the disappearance of privacy.

Hundreds of emails and internal documents reviewed by WIRED reveal top lobbyists and representatives of America's agricultural industry led a persistent and often covert campaign to surveil, discredit, and suppress animal rights organizations for nearly a decade, while relying on corporate spies to infiltrate meetings and functionally serve as an informant for the FBI. The documents ... detail a secretive and long-running collaboration between the FBI's Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate (WMDD)–whose scope today includes Palestinian rights activists and the recent wave of arson targeting Teslas–and the Animal Agriculture Alliance (AAA), a nonprofit trade group representing the interests of US farmers, ranchers, veterinarians, and others across America's food supply chain. The AAA has been supplying federal agents with intelligence on the activities of animal rights groups ... with records of emails and meetings reflecting the industry's broader mission to convince authorities that activists are the preeminent "bioterrorism" threat to the United States. Spies working for the AAA during its collaboration with the FBI went undercover at activism meetings, obtaining photographs, audio recordings, and other strategic material. The records further show that state authorities have cited protests as a reason to conceal information about disease outbreaks at factory farms from the public.

Note: Read more about how animal rights activists are being targeted as terrorists. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on corruption in factory farming and in the intelligence community.

Tens of thousands of bogus research papers are being published in journals in an international scandal that is worsening every year, scientists have warned. Medical research is being compromised, drug development hindered and promising academic research jeopardised thanks to a global wave of sham science that is sweeping laboratories and universities. Last year the annual number of papers retracted by research journals topped 10,000 for the first time. Most analysts believe the figure is only the tip of an iceberg of scientific fraud. The startling rise in the publication of sham science papers has its roots in China, where young doctors and scientists seeking promotion were required to have published scientific papers. Shadow organisations – known as "paper mills" – began to supply fabricated work for publication in journals there. The practice has since spread to India, Iran, Russia, former Soviet Union states and eastern Europe, with paper mills supplying fabricated studies to more and more journals as increasing numbers of young scientists try to boost their careers by claiming false research experience. In some cases, journal editors have been bribed to accept articles, while paper mills have managed to establish their own agents as guest editors who then allow reams of falsified work to be published. One study, by Nature, revealed that in 2013 there were just over 1,000 retractions. In 2022, the figure topped 4,000 before jumping to more than 10,000 last year.

Note: According to The Lancet, half of all scientific literature may simply be untrue. "Trust the science" sounds noble–until you realize that even top editors of world-renowned journals have warned that much of published medical research is unreliable, distorted by fraud, corporate influence, and conflicts of interest. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on corruption in science.

Palantir has long been connected to government surveillance. It was founded in part with CIA money, it has served as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contractor since 2011, and it's been used for everything from local law enforcement to COVID-19 efforts. But the prominence of Palantir tools in federal agencies seems to be growing under President Trump. "The company has received more than $113 million in federal government spending since Mr. Trump took office, according to public records, including additional funds from existing contracts as well as new contracts with the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon," reports The New York Times, noting that this figure "does not include a $795 million contract that the Department of Defense awarded the company last week, which has not been spent." Palantir technology has largely been used by the military, the intelligence agencies, the immigration enforcers, and the police. But its uses could be expanding. Representatives of Palantir are also speaking to at least two other agencies–the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service. Along with the Trump administration's efforts to share more data across federal agencies, this signals that Palantir's huge data analysis capabilities could wind up being wielded against all Americans. Right now, the Trump administration is using Palantir tools for immigration enforcement, but those tools could easily be applied to other ... targets.

Note: Read about Palantir's recent, first-ever AI warfare conference. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Tech and intelligence agency corruption.

As a sales rep for drug manufacturers Questcor, Lisa Pratta always suspected the company's business practices weren't just immoral but illegal, too, as she explains in "False Claims – One Insider's Impossible Battle Against Big Pharma Corruption." Pratta began working for Questcor in 2010 as the sales rep in the Northeast region for Acthar, a drug which helped relieve autoimmune and inflammatory disorders. "If prescribed correctly, Acthar could help people walk again. And talk again," writes Pratta. But, she adds, "Questcor made more money when it was prescribed incorrectly." They would do anything to sell Acthar. From paying doctors to prescribe it to using bogus research studies proclaiming its miraculous efficacy, they were so successful that Achtar's price rose from $40 per vial in 2000 to nearly $39,000 in 2019 – an increase of 97,000%. Some sales reps were making up to $4 million a year and, in turn, kept the physicians doing their bidding in a life of luxury. "They took them on scuba diving trips and bought clothes and shoes for their wives. One guy bought his doctor a brand new Armani suit and expensed it to Questcor," she recalls. In March 2019, the Department of Justice served a 100-page lawsuit against Mallinckrodt, alleging illegal marketing of Acthar, bribing doctors to boost sales and defrauding government health care programs. It also mentioned Pratta's role in the case, meaning her long-held anonymity was now public knowledge.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on corruption in science and Big Pharma profiteering.

I had to pay a student to go island hopping to find basic records in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The territory's opaque laws and corruption makes it a haven for misdeeds. Albert Bryan Jr., the current governor, used his position to curry favor for Jeffrey Epstein for years. He helped bestow tax exemptions on Epstein's shadowy businesses and pushed for waivers allowing the former financier to dodge USVI sex offender laws. Bryan, whose hand-selected Attorney General swiftly ended the J.P. Morgan lawsuit that revealed a gusher of damning documents about Epstein's network, is now tapping Epstein victim settlement funds ... to pay for various earmarks and unrelated government debts. Former Attorney General Denise George led a series of lawsuits against Epstein's estate and former associates. Bryan fired her. In 2024, Bryan named a new Attorney General–none other than Gordon Rhea, a private practice attorney who previously defended Richard Kahn during the Epstein estate lawsuit. Not long ago, Kahn and Indyke were described by the U.S. Virgin Islands as "indispensable captains" of Epstein's alleged criminal human trafficking enterprise. We still have many unanswered questions. Why did U.S. Virgin Islands police and customs agents never act to protect the young girls they saw taken to Epstein's islands? What is clear, however, is that an attorney who worked to protect Epstein's estate is now the chief law enforcement officer of the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Note: Read our comprehensive Substack investigation covering the connection between Epstein's child sex trafficking ring and intelligence agency sexual blackmail operations. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on government corruption and Jeffrey Epstein's child sex trafficking ring.

Jeffrey Epstein, the registered sex offender, met with many powerful people in finance and business during his career, but the financier invested with only a few of them. One of those people was Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley billionaire. In 2015 and 2016, Mr. Epstein put $40 million into two funds managed by Valar Ventures, a New York firm that was co-founded by Mr. Thiel. Today that investment is worth nearly $170 million. The investment in Valar, which specializes in providing start-up capital to financial services tech companies, is the largest asset still held by Mr. Epstein's estate. There's a good chance much of the windfall will not go to any of the roughly 200 victims whom the disgraced financier abused when they were teenagers or young women. Those victims have already received monetary settlements from the estate, which required them to sign broad releases that gave up the right to bring future claims against it or individuals associated with it. The money is more likely to be distributed to one of Mr. Epstein's former girlfriends and two of his long-term advisers, who have been named the beneficiaries of his estate. Just one major federal civil lawsuit remains pending against the executors of the estate, a potential class action filed on behalf victims who haven't yet settled with the estate. In the past, victims have received settlements ranging from $500,000 to $2 million.

Note: Read our comprehensive Substack investigation covering the connection between Epstein's child sex trafficking ring and intelligence agency sexual blackmail operations. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Tech and Jeffrey Epstein's child sex trafficking ring.

Too many people are being prescribed antidepressants to deal with stressful life events or social problems, according to a growing chorus of doctors and researchers. More than 14% of Australians are currently taking antidepressants, one of the highest rates in the world. Dr Matt Fisher, who researches wellbeing and the impact of stress, says while he has heard health workers talk about this "as a good thing, because it means more people are getting access to help", he doesn't see it as a success story. Fisher ... is concerned Australia's high use of antidepressants "constitutes a failed attempt to medicate away what are, in fact, social problems". He says while "antidepressants may be of benefit to some people suffering persistent psychosocial distress," they should not be the default, first response. Chronic stress, where people are exposed to an ongoing, recurrent stressor without any easy or accessible way to resolve it – increasing the risk of isolation, exclusion, humiliation and harm – is a significant driver of mental distress in Australia. The common causes of chronic stress include things such as being in debt, having a low income, poor working conditions, or being exposed to racism or domestic violence. "Governments evade the problem by persisting with individualised, medicalised, drug-based strategies," he says. "These strategies aren't reducing high rates of mental distress, sometimes do harm, and marginalise attention on social causes."

Note: The UK's medicines regulator is launching a review of over 30 commonly prescribed antidepressants, including Prozac, amid rising concerns about links to suicide, self-harm, and long-term side effects like persistent sexual dysfunction–especially in children. Our latest Substack, Lonely World, Failing Systems: Inspiring Stories Reveal What Sustains Us, dives into the loneliness crisis exacerbated by the digital world and polarizing media narratives, along with inspiring solutions and remedies that remind us of the true democratic values that bring us all together.

Joan Doyle trusts her doctors. Between her husband's epilepsy and diabetes, her daughter's Down syndrome and her own car accident years ago, the 65-year-old Sharonville resident and her family have relied on a whole host of doctors to guide them through new diagnoses and prescriptions. So when she searched her family's doctors in Open Payments, a public database that shows which doctors have received money from Big Pharma, Doyle was curious about what she'd find. "Certainly none of my doctors are on this list," she remembered thinking before searching the database. She was surprised. "Every single one of them," Doyle said. "Everybody from our dentist to our family doctor to all of our ologists." All 12 of the doctors Doyle searched accepted payments or in-kind forms of compensation from pharma or medical device companies between 2017 and 2023. The total sum varied widely, from less than $300 for her OB-GYN to more than $150,000 for her husband's oncologist. Payments like these are pervasive: A 2024 analysis found that more than half of doctors in the U.S. accepted a payment from a pharmaceutical or medical device company over the past decade. Most don't earn millions of dollars ... but research shows that when a doctor was bought a single meal of less than $20 by a drug company, they were up to twice as likely to prescribe the medication the company was marketing.

Note: 60% of U.S. doctors who shaped the DSM-5-TR–the "bible" of psychiatric diagnosis–received $14.2 million from the drug industry, raising concerns over conflicts of interest in psychiatric guidelines. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on health and Big Pharma profiteering.

Since 1999, more than 800,000 Americans have died from opioid overdoses. The latest headlines focus on fentanyl, yet the staggering toll can be traced to the widespread availability of opioid pills made possible by decades of overprescribing. Few users start with fentanyl. Experts date the start of the opioid epidemic to within three years of the approval of OxyContin in 1995. Reports from emergency departments across the US showed Purdue's pills were being crushed and injected or snorted as early as 1997. "My eyes popped open," recalls one FDA medical officer of seeing the reports. "Nobody wanted to see it for what it was. You would've had to have your head in the sand not to know that there was something wrong." By 2000, Purdue was selling $1.1 billion annually in OxyContin. Higher doses led to higher profit. Sales reps were coached accordingly. In five years, oxycodone prescribing had surged 402%, and hospital emergency room mentions of oxycodone were up 346%. By 2012, OxyContin sales were almost $3 billion annually. And many other companies were cashing in. In the preceding six years, 76 billion opioid pills had been produced and shipped across the US, as the FDA faced a national crisis of epic proportions. In the 2010s, the US, with less than 5% of the global population, was consuming 80% of the world's oxycodone. And with coordinated pharmaceutical campaigns to destigmatize opioids, brands other than Purdue's and Roxane's benefited.

Note: Read our Substack on the dark truth of the war on drugs. Read how Congress fueled this epidemic over DEA objections. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on government corruption and Big Pharma profiteering.

More than a dozen chemicals used in popular weed killers like Roundup could be raising the risk of prostate cancer, shocking new research has revealed. In a report published in the journal Cancer, researchers analyzed 300 pesticides and found that 22 were directly linked to the development of prostate cancer, and four were shown to increase the probability of death. The study comes after Bayer AG was ordered to pay $2.25 billion in January after a Pennsylvania jury unanimously ruled that its Roundup weed killer gave a man cancer. In the new study, researchers assessed data related to the annual usage of pesticides between 1997 and 2001 as well as between 2003 and 2006. Taking into account the slow-growing disposition of prostate cancer, they then compared those figures against diagnoses made between 2011 and 2015 and between 2016 and 2020, respectively. The team said that 19 of the 22 pesticides linked to an increased risk of prostate cancer have not previously been associated with the disease. Deaths from prostate cancer are expected to jump 136% from 2022 to 2050. Pesticide consumption has grown nearly 60 percent since 1990, reaching 5.86 billion pounds by 2020. Roundup – the most widely used weed killer in the US – reportedly contains 41% of the herbicide glyphosate, a known endocrine disruptor. Endocine disruptors interfere with hormone systems, causing ... infertility, birth defects, developmental disorders and increased cancer risk.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on health and toxic chemicals.

Americans are becoming progressively sicker with chronic diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, immune disorders, and declining fertility. Six in 10 Americans suffer from at least one chronic disease, and four in 10 have two or more. The increase in incidence of chronic diseases to epidemic levels has occurred over the last 50 years in parallel with the dramatic increase in the production and use of human-made chemicals, most made from petroleum. These chemicals are used in household products, food, and food packaging. There is either no pre-market testing or limited, inappropriate testing for safety of chemicals such as artificial flavorings, dyes, emulsifiers, thickeners, preservatives, and other additives. Exposure is ubiquitous because chemicals that make their way into our food are frequently not identified, and thus cannot realistically be avoided. The result is that unavoidable toxic chemicals are contributing to chronic diseases. Critically, the FDA today does not require corporations to even inform them of many of the chemicals being added to our food, and corporations have been allowed to staff regulatory panels that determine whether the human-made chemicals they add to food and food packaging are safe. The FDA blatantly disregarded this abuse of federal conflict-of-interest standards, which resulted in thousands of untested chemicals being designated as "Generally Recognized As Safe" (GRAS).

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on toxic chemicals and food system corruption.

The first White House report of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission ... was published yesterday. The Commission is chaired by [Robert F.] Kennedy, now Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, and features other prominent administration officials including USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary. The report outlines the massive increase in youth health problems in the country that spends more per capita on healthcare than any nation in history. Many of these diseases are metabolic: obesity, diabetes, and Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease. Others involve the immune system, such as asthma, allergies, and autoimmune disorders. Still others are psychiatric, such as depression and anxiety. Perhaps the most baffling development is the massive spike in autism spectrum disorder. This once-rare condition reportedly affects one in 31 American children. The MAHA Commission focuses on four key drivers of such change: food, exposure to environmental chemicals, the pervasive use of technology and a corresponding decline in physical exercise, and the overuse of medication that sometimes creates more problems than it solves. The Commission's first report ... does not call for a ban on specific pesticides or vaccines. What it does manage, however, is to reframe the debate over public health and set a bold agenda to reform the system.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on health and Big Pharma profiteering.

In President Dwight D. Eisenhower's famous 1961 speech about the dangers of the military-industrial complex, he also cautioned Americans about the growing power of a "scientific, technological elite." "The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by federal employment project allocations and the power of money is ever present," warned Eisenhower. And he was right. Today, many of the people protesting the Trump administration's cuts to federal funding for scientific research are part of that scientific, technological elite. But there's a good chance that slashing federal spending will liberate science from the corrupting forces that Eisenhower warned us about. Thomas Edison's industrial lab produced huge breakthroughs in telecommunications and electrification. Alexander Graham Bell's lab produced modern telephony and sound recording, all without government money. The Wright Brothers–who ran a bicycle shop before revolutionizing aviation–launched the first successfully manned airplane flight in December 1903, beating out more experienced competitors like Samuel Langley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, who had received a grant from the War Department for his research. Of course, government funding has led to major breakthroughs both during and after World War II. In an influential 2005 paper, Stanford University professor John Ioannidis flatly concluded that "most published research findings are false." He argued that the current peer review model encourages groupthink. "You end up with a monolithic view, and so you crush what's so important in science, which is different ideas competing in a marketplace of ideas."

Note: "Trust the science" sounds noble–until you realize that even top editors of world-renowned journals have warned that much of published medical research is unreliable, distorted by fraud, corporate influence, and conflicts of interest. For more along these lines, read about how the US government turns a blind eye to the corporations fueling America's health crisis.

Amber Scorah knows only too well that powerful stories can change society–and that powerful organizations will try to undermine those who tell them. While working at a media outlet that connects whistleblowers with journalists, she noticed parallels in the coercive tactics used by groups trying to suppress information. "There is a sort of playbook that powerful entities seem to use over and over again," she says. "You expose something about the powerful, they try to discredit you, people in your community may ostracize you." In September 2024, Scorah cofounded Psst, a nonprofit that helps people in the tech industry or the government share information of public interest with extra protections–with lots of options for specifying how the information gets used and how anonymous a person stays. Psst's main offering is a "digital safe"–which users access through an anonymous end-to-end encrypted text box hosted on Psst.org, where they can enter a description of their concerns. What makes Psst unique is something it calls its "information escrow" system–users have the option to keep their submission private until someone else shares similar concerns about the same company or organization. Combining reports from multiple sources defends against some of the isolating effects of whistleblowing and makes it harder for companies to write off a story as the grievance of a disgruntled employee, says Psst cofounder Jennifer Gibson.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Tech and media manipulation.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has canceled plans to introduce new rules designed to limit the ability of US data brokers to sell sensitive information about Americans, including financial data, credit history, and Social Security numbers. The CFPB proposed the new rule in early December under former director Rohit Chopra, who said the changes were necessary to combat commercial surveillance practices that "threaten our personal safety and undermine America's national security." The agency quietly withdrew the proposal on Tuesday morning. Data brokers operate within a multibillion-dollar industry built on the collection and sale of detailed personal information–often without individuals' knowledge or consent. These companies create extensive profiles on nearly every American, including highly sensitive data such as precise location history, political affiliations, and religious beliefs. Common Defense political director Naveed Shah, an Iraq War veteran, condemned the move to spike the proposed changes, accusing Vought of putting the profits of data brokers before the safety of millions of service members. Investigations by WIRED have shown that data brokers have collected and made cheaply available information that can be used to reliably track the locations of American military and intelligence personnel overseas, including in and around sensitive installations where US nuclear weapons are reportedly stored.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on Big Tech and the disappearance of privacy.

Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.