- WorldNetDaily reported two days after the D.C.-area sniper shootings began Oct. 2 that authorities were looking for two Hispanic men rather than the "lone white guy" commonly discussed in the media. Suspects John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo, both black, were arrested Oct. 24. Less than a week prior to the arrests, WND reported that investigators believed the Beltway killer's tactics were similar to those taught by the U.S Army. Muhammad was later reported to be a Persian Gulf War veteran trained at two U.S. bases.
- On Sept. 5, WND broke the news of the 15-year-old Canadian al-Qaida terrorist held by the U.S., which became the biggest story in Canada for several days. The youth was held in Afghanistan for the murder of a U.S. Special Forces medic, intelligence sources told WorldNetDaily. The teen is the son of Ahmed Saeed Khadr, a Canadian citizen whom the U.S. has accused of having direct ties to Osama bin Laden. On Sept. 6, WND reported that more information surfaced closely tying the teen's family to bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network. Sources said the Canadian government was pressuring Washington for the return of its citizen, while the U.S. government investigated the death of the Special Forces medic.
- WND first reported that sources close to the preparations for a U.S. invasion of Iraq were concerned about what they perceive to be the military's inadequate preparation of Arabic-language interrogators – a critical component not only of a battlefield victory but a nation-building operation afterwards. Current training exercises emphasize battlefield interrogation techniques, overlooking the need for understanding tribal conflicts, terrorist infrastructures, Islamic politics and other concerns, the sources said.
- In WorldNetDaily's battle with the Senate Press Gallery to acquire credentials to cover Congress, Washington Bureau chief Paul Sperry discovered that the lead obstructionist in the case worked for Bloomberg, "an electronic newspaper" that, similar to WND, went through a full year of "stonewalling" and "bully" tactics by the gallery committee to gain its own credentials. Sperry also showed that the gallery has admitted state-run newspapers from totalitarian countries, including China's Xinhua News Agency, considered by the Pentagon to be a front for Beijing intelligence-gathering operations. The Vietnam News Agency and Egypt's Al-Ahram are other state organs that have unfettered access to the Capitol.
- The Senate Press Gallery itself also has qualifications problems, Sperry reported Aug. 21. A 25-year federal bureaucrat with the inside track on a $111,000 position running the gallery – a job that requires a minimum six years "news media experience" – counts as journalism experience a 1970s stint at the Tucson Citizen, where he worked in the circulation department as a newspaper deliveryman.
- In a Sept. 5 report, WND revealed that the press gallery accredited a nonprofit educational group run by "left-wing San Francisco hippies," yet denied WorldNetDaily press credentials because it was spun off from the nonprofit Western Journalism Center, which the Clinton White House tried to tie to the so-called "vast right-wing conspiracy." While WND applied as a completely separate, for-profit company, the San Francisco-based Center for Investigative Reporting applied and was accepted as an advocacy group, despite press gallery rules.
- WorldNetDaily first reported Sept. 19 that the Justice Department ordered the INS to fingerprint and track visitors from some of the United States' Muslim allies, including Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. A Pakistan Embassy spokesman in Washington told WND that the policy "will certainly leave a bad taste among Pakistanis." The administration fears Pakistan may be sending terrorists to the U.S. and therefore has subjected the country to the same immigration restrictions imposed on the five known Middle Eastern terrorist-sponsoring countries, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Libya and Syria.
- In a story followed up by Agence France-Presse, WorldNetDaily reported Sept. 21 that U.S. immigration inspectors, beginning in October, would be allowed to fingerprint, photograph and track visiting aliens who have traveled to Indonesia or Malaysia and can't credibly explain their trips there, according to a confidential Justice Department memo obtained by WorldNetDaily. In a story from Kuala Lumpur Sept. 25, AFP quoted Lim Kit Siang, chairman of the Chinese-based opposition Democratic Action Party in Malaysia, who noted that WorldNetDaily published a copy of the four-page Justice Department memo.
- Clothing found in Sept. 11 hijacking ringleader Mohamed Atta's bags wasn't a pilots' uniform, as first reported, but his paradise wedding suit, WND revealed Sept. 11. An American Airlines employee who was with authorities when they first opened Atta's luggage told WND the navy suit was eerily laid out as if Atta were in it. At the foot of the bag was a leather-bound Quran painted gold.
- On July 25, veteran FBI agents told WND that the the Clinton administration "de-emphasized" fighting Arab international terrorism to focus on domestic terrorism – namely, white "right-wing" militia groups – which led to the FBI ignoring Arab nationals flocking to U.S. flight schools. They say the shift was so dramatic at the FBI that dozens of boxes of evidence that agents gathered in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing case were never analyzed – until it was too late. The evidence held valuable clues to al-Qaida's network and operations, they say.
- WorldNetDaily broke the story Aug. 7 that the strain of West Nile virus spreading rapidly across the country is a genetic match to one found in Israel, indicating the U.S. bug came from the Middle East. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientist said the virus that was introduced into New York in 1999 is closely related to a virus that has infected hundreds of Israelis. Federal scientists, however, said the mode of entry into the U.S. still is unknown. In another exclusive report, Aug. 7, WND interviewed scientists who explained how the West Nile virus can spread through mosquitoes, while HIV cannot be transmitted by the insects.
- In a follow-up to WND's scoop that 14 young Syrian men entered the U.S. to attend a Texas flight school just a few weeks after the Islamic Sept. 11 hijackings, Washington bureau chief Paul Sperry reported June 27 that the INS closed down another flight program in the state. Federal authorities forced closure of the school, popular among Arab nationals, after discovering many of its foreign students overstayed their visas, WorldNetDaily learned.
- An FBI informant says the family of Elvis Presley staged a grave-robbing in an attempt to press officials to allow the rock idol's body to be moved to Graceland, which is now a $15 million-a-year tourist attraction, WorldNetDaily reported Aug. 15. A veteran FBI agent told WND that "the King's" father, and executor of his estate at the time, wanted his son buried on the mansion grounds, but it was in an area not zoned for burials.
- WorldNetDaily reported June 13 that the largest group representing victims of sexually abusive priests wants the Roman Catholic Church to allow clergymen to break the so-called "sacred seal of confession" and reveal sex secrets heard during priest-to-priest confessions. The church forbids priests to disclose information, even involving criminal activity, that they get while hearing weekly confessions. But Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests claims the rule also protects abusive priests.
- WND first reported June 6 that despite a parade of embarrassing FBI scandals, headquarters has showered top agency officials with hundreds of thousands of dollars in prestigious rank awards on top of annual performance bonuses. Special agents running FBI field offices, meanwhile, were passed over for such awards, even though the incompetence seems to be centered in Washington.
- Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy took the FBI to task for missing terror warnings before Sept. 11, but it was Leahy, Hill sources say, who in 2000 blocked FBI and other reforms that might have prevented the attacks. The nearly $2 million study, which called for much of the same FBI intelligence-sharing and -gathering reforms announced this year, was delivered June 5, 2000, to Congress in the wake of the U.S. embassy bombings in Africa. The bipartisan panel that produced the report warned that religiously motivated groups, namely al-Qaida, were hellbent on inflicting "mass casualties on American soil."
- WND reported May 1 that Sunoco Inc.'s 4,150 service stations pump Saudi-free gas, though the gas retailer's decision to shun crude oil from Saudi Arabia has less to do with patriotism than practicality. Sunoco's refineries are configured to process light, or "sweet," crude, which contains less sulfur. And although Saudi Arabia sells a light crude, most of its stock is heavy, or "sour."
- George Stephanopoulos' sister, a Russian Orthodox nun in Jerusalem, insisted that she was "not spreading propaganda" when she claimed in April that Israeli soldiers "defecated" on the floors of a West Bank medical clinic they raided, WND reported. Sister Maria Stephanopoulos, who runs a school for Palestinian girls, pleaded with priests in the U.S., via e-mail, to "get on the phone and ask your congressman and senators why the United States government is backing this invasion of Israeli forces into sovereign [Palestinian] areas, [and] why so many innocent civilians are being terrorized." Ten days prior, Stephanopoulos was the victim of a Palestinian boy's e-mail hoax, when she passed on a report that claimed Israeli soldiers raped Palestinian girls.
- WND staff writer Jon Dougherty reported April 27 that despite post-9-11 calls for stemming the flow of potential criminals crossing U.S. borders, rules and procedures still in use by the INS continue to favor potential terrorists attempting to gain entry. Security specialists said little had changed in the nearly seven months since the assaults.
- WND was the first to highlight a new study showing that child molestation and pedophilia occur far more commonly among homosexuals than among heterosexuals on a per capita basis. "Overwhelming evidence supports the belief that homosexuality is a sexual deviancy often accompanied by disorders that have dire consequences for our culture," wrote Steve Baldwin in "Child Molestation and the Homosexual Movement," to be published by the Regent University Law Review.
- The FAA rescinded a rule allowing commercial airline pilots to be armed the same month it received a classified briefing that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network might be planning hijackings of U.S. airliners, WND reported. An FAA spokesman had previously confirmed to WND that its armed-pilot rule, which was adopted in 1961 in response to the Cuban missile crisis, was repealed in July 2001 – just two months before the Sept. 11 attacks – because in 40 years, not a single U.S. airline took advantage of it.
- A pro-life research organization says data collected as a result of an ongoing investigation into teen pregnancy show that the number of underage girls being "sexually exploited" by adult men has reached "epidemic" proportions in the U.S. and that Planned Parenthood facilities are knowingly concealing such sex-abuse crimes, WND reported. The group, Texas-based Life Dynamics, said "among girls 15 and younger who become pregnant, between 60 percent and 80 percent of them are impregnated by adult men." Some girls are even as young as 10 years old, the group said. In another story, WND reported that Life Dynamics also said school districts that refer girls to such services also may be culpable.
- Saudi Arabian intelligence officials warned the FBI about an Iraqi plot to attack federal facilities in 1995, including the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, according to an Oklahoma lawyer teaming up with a noted Washington, D.C., public-interest law firm. Mike Johnston, co-counsel for Judicial Watch, said that on April 19, 1995 – the day of the Oklahoma City bombing – Saudi intelligence alerted CIA officials in Washington, who in turn advised FBI agents at the Washington Metropolitan Field Office.
- White commercial farmers in Zimbabwe have lost much of this year's tobacco crop due to theft by operatives loyal to dictatorial President Robert Mugabe, WND reported. The crops have been sold to U.S. and other international firms for pennies on the dollar, say sources inside the African nation. Many of the farms have been occupied by so-called "war veterans" for months now, with the tacit approval of the government.
- WND was first to report that terrorists might use ground-based portable missiles to target commercial aircraft. The mid-May warning said al-Qaida operatives may have managed to smuggle an undisclosed number of U.S.-made "Stingers" or Russian-made SA-7 surface-to-air missiles into the country.
- WND was first to report on a suit in August against Planned Parenthood clinics in Los Angeles and San Diego on behalf of a California woman who alleges she was required to offer medical services – including assisting physicians with abortions – that she was not licensed to perform. The United States Justice Foundation action alleges the clinic was "blatant" about its use of unqualified staffers. In September, WND reported that the Medical Board of California asked the state attorney general's office for an opinion as to whether Planned Parenthood-sponsored abortion clinics have a duty to report child abuse to authorities. Officials with the USJF said the board sought clarification of reporting rules it says may be a conflict of interest between the right to privacy for teen-age girls and women receiving abortions and the clinics' duty as medical providers to report cases of child sexual abuse.
- WorldNetDaily Washington bureau chief Paul Sperry was first to report that federal overseas economic-development agencies financed or underwrote 18 Enron Corp. projects, exposing U.S. taxpayers to a total of more than $1.73 billion in potential liability. Enron, which filed for the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history, secured funding from the Clinton administration for nearly all of the risky foreign projects, WorldNetDaily learned.
- As WND first reported Jan. 11, Enron executives, including chairman Ken Lay, got seats on no less than 11 Clinton overseas trade trips. WND also first reported that the largest U.S.-backed Enron project – a $3 billion power plant in India – sped Enron's collapse, according to Wall Street analysts.
- On Feb. 4, Sperry learned that some Commerce Department economists believed the National Bureau of Economic Research called a recession too early. The bureau, which officially dates U.S. business cycles, ruled in November 2001 that the record-long economic boom ended the previous March and a recession began at the same time. But the traditional definition of a recession is at least two consecutive quarters of negative real GDP growth, as measured by Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis, and that didn't happen.
- WorldNetDaily first reported Jan. 30 that the U.S. Army was set to lose about half of its instructors at its interrogation and counter-intelligence schoolbecause it planned to reduce its private contractors' pay by 50 percent. Reporter Jon Dougherty's source close to the situation concluded that it would cripple the Army's ability to properly train its counter-intelligence personnel at a time when intelligence assets are sorely needed to fight the war on terrorism. In fact, the source said, the Pentagon had to recall active duty linguists and other intelligence-related personnel – some who were completely out of the military – to fill needed voids.Dougherty's story made it to the highest levels of the Pentagon and eventually became the subject of an in-depth GAO study that reached the same conclusions.
- WorldNetDaily first reported March 6 that Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge appeared to be out of step with the majority of Americans on arming airline pilots. While Ridge said it didn't "make sense" to allow them to have firearms, officials sorting through comments sent by thousands of Americans said the "prevailing opinion" seems to favor it.
- The threat to privacy by supermarket shopper cards was reported by WorldNetDaily in February. A wealth of data is being collected by stories via electronic cards that could be linked with other biometric technology to form in-depth personal databases without a person's permission or knowledge. Along with some of the obvious short-term privacy concerns is the prospect that the information could be subpoenaed and used against people in court. The FBI, in fact, tried to profile the Sept. 11 terrorists using their shopper card records.
- WND reporter Jon Dougherty learned that data collection is lucrative for supermarkets, which can make money selling information. According to a privacy expert, companies that collect information from places like supermarkets "know about your religion, what books you read, how much education you have, your income and even your health condition, based on your supermarket shopping habits." If you bought adult diapers, for example, you could be marked by the consumer information collection groups as someone with a bladder-control problem, and if that information were sold to your insurance company you could be considered a higher health risk, resulting in higher premiums.
- WorldNetDaily first reported Jan. 17 that some U.S. senators were taking a fresh look at evidence that cast doubt on former special counsel John Danforth's conclusion that FBI agents did not fire on Branch Davidians who were fleeing their burning complex outside of Waco, Texas, nine years ago. The new activity was said to be part of 'interest in cleaning up the FBI.'
- WorldNetDaily was first to report, Feb. 25, that Congress planned to take up a case concerning two Americans who have been prevented from leaving Saudi Arabia for the last 16 years. California resident Pat Roush says her Saudi-born husband kidnapped their two daughters in 1986. Roush told WorldNetDaily she hoped "the truth will be revealed about how the U.S. State Department has sacrificed the lives of my daughters for the sake of this 'special relationship' with the Saudi princes – for economic, military and political gain."
- WND first reported Feb. 27 that an internal Federal Aviation Administration memo summarizing the Sept. 11 hijackings said a passenger aboard American Airlines Flight 11 was shot to deathby a single bullet. The memo reads: "The passenger killed was Daniel Lewin, shot by passenger Satam Al Suqami. One bullet was reported to have been fired."The FAA claimed the memo was written in error, but a former FAA agent familiar with the memo and its source said the government and the airline may be denying the existence of a gun aboard the plane out of fear of being suedby Sept. 11 victims' families.The Washington Post, USA Today and United Press International all followed up on WND's exclusive
- On March 27, WND reported that an FAA-certified machine was tied to three bomb scares in nine daysat California airports. The CTX bag scanner mistook a Mickey Mouse snow globe, a dummy grenade and a food processor for bombs, causing a shutdown of parts of major California airports.The Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg Business News followed up on the story.
- WND reported March 21 that on his first full day in office Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, a Democrat, ordered the removal of all "Virginia Exile" highway signs and billboards bearing the name of former Republican Gov. Jim Gilmore, who signed the successful anti-gun-crime measure into law.The tough Exile program carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in a Virginia prison for violent felons convicted of possessing a firearm, or anyone convicted of brandishing a gun on school property or caught with an illegal gun and hard drugs.A Warner spokesman insisted the move had nothing to do with politics. He said they were removed "because they prominently billboarded the name of a former governor," but Gilmore's name on the trooper bumper stickers is so small it can barely be read from another car. The same can be said for the billboards and signs.Two days later, the Washington Post cited the WND scoop, and a week later the Washington Times cited WND in a story about whether the Exile program would be spared from the budget knife under Warner.