michael July 23rd, 2008

During the summer, POGO hosts a weekly Brown Bag Lunch for Everett interns in the D.C. area who are curious about issues related to government oversight.  Our goal for the series is to educate upcoming generations about the importance of government accountability, and to give them the tools necessary to convert that knowledge into action.  The luncheons give us a unique opportunity to connect with top government experts in a casual setting (and to score some free pizza!).

At the beginning of the summer, we learned about the media’s coverage of defense issues from veteran reporters Tony Capaccio and Mike Fabey. On July 11th, we got the chance to hear from Louis Fisher from the Law Library of Congress, a widely respected expert on separation of powers.

Mr. Fisher spent most of the lunch talking about the history of the “state secrets privilege,” in which the government, particularly the executive branch, can deny access to documents, particularly for use in court, by claiming that the documents contain state secrets.

Mr. Fisher also discussed Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and NSA surveillance, the CIA’s “extraordinary renditions” program (in which terrorist suspects are abducted and transported to other countries to be imprisoned and often tortured or abused), examples of executive branch misconduct, the failure of the legislative and judicial branches to provide proper checks on power, and widespread misconceptions about how the Constitution separates powers.

– John Cappel
POGO Everett Intern

Check out some pictures below from the lunch!

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michael July 9th, 2008

A few weeks ago, we joined over 100 of our friends and supporters at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., to celebrate the release of David Einhorn’s new book, “Fooling Some of the People All of the Time: A Long Short Story.”

Einhorn, who’s the president of Greenlight Capital, has spent years investigating Wall Street corruption. In his latest book, Einhorn paints a disturbing picture of a financial system that has been plagued by fraudulent corporate accounting practices, lax oversight by government regulators, and other factors that have contributed to the recent economic meltdown. The book has received rave reviews from the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and others.

Einhorn has decided to give POGO a portion of the proceeds from the book. He notes that “the book shows, if nothing else, that we need better investigative journalism and effective government watch dogs.”

The party was a smashing success! Thanks to everyone who joined us, and we hope you had as much fun as we did. Click on the picture below to see our slide show from the event. (Sometimes the Simpleviewer takes a couple of seconds to load.)

 

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