Exposed: The Washington Post Hid a Secret CIA Prison
In case you missed it, we've been ahead of them all along.
In 2007, Raw Story broke one of the biggest national security stories of the Bush era: exposing the exact location of a secret CIA black site in Poland where the Bush Administration was renditioning terror suspects.
The prison had previously been used by both the Nazis and the Soviets—a detail that made the story even more chilling.
I edited the story, written by an intelligence reporter who tracked down sources overseas. When we called the CIA for comment, they wouldn’t confirm anything on the record—but they also declined to deny it.
Guess who didn’t reveal the location of the secret prison, even though they knew exactly where it was?
The Washington Post.
This week, as Jeff Bezos completed his demolition of that same Washington Post—laying off 300 journalists and closing entire sections—it’s worth remembering what corporate media really is: a system designed to serve power, not truth.
That’s why I founded Raw America. We go where the story leads, not where access requires. Every subscription funds reporting that breaks stories oligarchs won’t touch. Join our people-powered movement, and help us restore investigative journalism that can’t be silenced.
When I started Raw Story in 2004 as a liberal alternative to the Drudge Report, I worked hard. Those early days were pure guerrilla journalism: printing articles to pin on coffee shop bulletin boards, taping our URL to telephone poles, emailing every blogger I could find begging for a link.
That scrappy approach worked because we had something corporate outlets never will: the freedom to make enemies in high places. We didn’t need Pentagon access or White House invitations. We needed sources, determination, and readers who valued truth over comfort.
The Washington Post knew about that CIA prison. They chose not to tell you where it was. They complied with the Bush Administration, and today they’re kowtowing to the Trumps.
This isn’t just about one story from 2007. It’s about the systematic difference between journalism that serves readers and journalism that serves power. Between outlets that break stories and outlets that bury them. Between media that answers to you and media that answers to billionaire owners with government contracts.
Your subscription doesn’t just fund our work—it funds the alternative to oligarch-controlled media. Raw America proves that reader-supported journalism can still break the stories corporate outlets won’t touch. Subscribe and join the thousands building independent media that makes enemies in the right places.
We’re building what investigative journalism should be: fast, fearless, and funded by people who want the truth regardless of who it threatens. Thom Hartmann and British Chris deliver daily news that corporate outlets ignore. And we’re just getting started.
Every subscription to Raw America is a bet that investigative journalism can still matter. That readers will choose truth over access, scoops over stenography, independence over compliance.
We’re still first to the story, still willing to publish what power wants buried, still betting that readers want journalism that breaks stories instead of breaking bread with sources. Become a paying subscriber and fund the movement that exposed the location of a CIA prison.
Our kids will inherit either a country where independent journalism survived this oligarch takeover, or one where it didn’t. Where their parents funded the press democracy required, or where they assumed corporate outlets would do the job.
Corporate outlets can’t do it. They’ll do what the Washington Post did: sit on the details and let someone else tell the truth.
Raw America tells the truth. First, fast, and without asking permission.
Thank you for understanding that real journalism isn’t a luxury—it’s a necessity. Thank you for choosing scoops over stenography, independence over access, truth over power.
Because democracy dies when the press serves power instead of people.
—John Byrne, Founder
Raw Story and Raw America