In this award-winning investigative podcast, host Maren Machles explores how accountability failures in Washington D.C. impact the lives of people all over the country, and she showcases the investigators, experts, and activists who work to keep our government working for the people.
In the second season, Maren and POGO’s investigative reporters take a look at the Department of Homeland Security. They trace how an agency established to protect the nation from security threats has doubled down on detaining migrants, sometimes in horrifying conditions, while failing to address the more immediate security threat caused by far-right extremism — even within the agency’s own ranks.
In the first season, Maren focused on the department’s Office of Inspector General, revealing a shocking pattern of misconduct that resulted in a failure to investigate some of the most troubling events in recent history.
In 2024, Bad Watchdog was a silver medalist at the New York Festivals Radio Awards and a nominee for the Ambie Awards' Best Politics or Opinion Podcast.
For more, visit pogo.org/podcasts/bad-watchdog
Bad Watchdog is a member of the Airwave Media network and a part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what’s broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.
All content for Bad Watchdog is the property of Project On Government Oversight and is served directly from their servers
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In this award-winning investigative podcast, host Maren Machles explores how accountability failures in Washington D.C. impact the lives of people all over the country, and she showcases the investigators, experts, and activists who work to keep our government working for the people.
In the second season, Maren and POGO’s investigative reporters take a look at the Department of Homeland Security. They trace how an agency established to protect the nation from security threats has doubled down on detaining migrants, sometimes in horrifying conditions, while failing to address the more immediate security threat caused by far-right extremism — even within the agency’s own ranks.
In the first season, Maren focused on the department’s Office of Inspector General, revealing a shocking pattern of misconduct that resulted in a failure to investigate some of the most troubling events in recent history.
In 2024, Bad Watchdog was a silver medalist at the New York Festivals Radio Awards and a nominee for the Ambie Awards' Best Politics or Opinion Podcast.
For more, visit pogo.org/podcasts/bad-watchdog
Bad Watchdog is a member of the Airwave Media network and a part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what’s broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.
For the past few episodes, Maren has explored the reality of immigration detention, uplifting the conditions in Department of Homeland Security (DHS) centers where thousands are held under the presumption that they may be threats to national security. In the season finale of Bad Watchdog, we return to where we started, with the DHS’s counterterrorism mission. Maren breaks down the current landscape of terrorism in the United States, where the most dangerous threat isn’t posed by those who’ve crossed our borders illegally, but by homegrown, far-right, violent extremists. And, as Maren learns, domestic violent extremism isn’t just a problem across the country — it’s a problem in DHS’s own ranks as well.
Domestic terrorism experts Daryl Johnson and Alejandro Buetel walk Maren through the rise of far-right violent extremism in the U.S. and interrogate whether DHS is taking the threat seriously. Maren discusses both shortfalls and potential solutions for how DHS could address far-right violent extremism with the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty’s Spencer Reynolds. POGO Senior Investigator Nick Schwellenbach shares his investigation into just how many Oath Keepers are or were employed at DHS. And Maren connects with people who are working to make this broken system more humane, including activists Arely Westley and Berto Hernandez, Las Americas Director of Cross-Border Strategies Crystal Sandoval, former POGO Senior Researcher Freddy Martinez, and POGO Senior Paralegal Lance Sims.
To report waste, fraud, or abuse in the federal government, please visit us at https://www.pogo.org/send-us-a-tip.
If you enjoy Bad Watchdog, sign up for emails from the Project On Government Oversight to learn more about POGO’s mission and work.
Bad Watchdog is a member of the Airwave Media network and a part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what’s broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.
Bad Watchdog
In this award-winning investigative podcast, host Maren Machles explores how accountability failures in Washington D.C. impact the lives of people all over the country, and she showcases the investigators, experts, and activists who work to keep our government working for the people.
In the second season, Maren and POGO’s investigative reporters take a look at the Department of Homeland Security. They trace how an agency established to protect the nation from security threats has doubled down on detaining migrants, sometimes in horrifying conditions, while failing to address the more immediate security threat caused by far-right extremism — even within the agency’s own ranks.
In the first season, Maren focused on the department’s Office of Inspector General, revealing a shocking pattern of misconduct that resulted in a failure to investigate some of the most troubling events in recent history.
In 2024, Bad Watchdog was a silver medalist at the New York Festivals Radio Awards and a nominee for the Ambie Awards' Best Politics or Opinion Podcast.
For more, visit pogo.org/podcasts/bad-watchdog
Bad Watchdog is a member of the Airwave Media network and a part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what’s broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.
