California Watch

I should have done this a while back, but I'm including a link to the California Watch website on your starboard as well as here. Former Chronicle writer (and former Ramparts contributor!) Louis Freedberg has been serving as founding director, but I just received an email from him announcing that he will now become a senior reporter.

California Watch is a project of the Center for Investigative Reporting, which was co-founded in the 1970s by David Weir, Dan Noyes, and Lowell Bergman--all of whom I've met, one way or another, through the Ramparts project.

Dan is the only one I haven't met personally, but we exchanged email about Angus Mackenzie's book, Secrets: The CIA's War at Home, which appeared in 1998. In addition to writing a superb book, which Dan helped see the light of day, Mackenzie worked for the Center for Investigative Reporting.

Although I mention Mackenzie and cite Secrets in the Ramparts book, Dan thought I could have been more generous with my credit. A trade book needs to keep the story hurtling forward, and there's little opportunity to praise one's sources, no matter how valuable, along the way. But let the record show that I learned a lot from the book and recommend it highly to everyone.