Is it possible to find impartial information on internet?

As a professional anti-money laundering specialist it is my job to keep the bank that pays my salary free of “the bad guys” that want to clean their ill-gotten gains. This means that the millions of transactions that are processed every day have to be scrutinized by a team of highly trained analysts using sophisticated computer programs. It would seem that with the resources available today, it would be easy to determine if a payment going from A to B is just meant to facilitate the export of the latest trendy underwear and not to purchase explosives or weapons or to let Mr. Mafia buy another Ferrari. Unfortunately (or rather, fortunately) there is still no substitute for our human brain. It is this brain that helps us determine if a 14 year old boy named “Muhammad” is the same as the 60 year old terrorist of the same name. To make these decisions an analyst uses every resource he or she can get. The internet is a treasure trove of information and can shorten the research time of every case considerably. As long as professional and neutral organizations are used to provide the necessary information the result will be a professional and neutral conclusion that won’t touch any “innocent” lives and only helps to keep the “bad” and the “good” guys apart. To find these neutral and impartial sources however is much harder then it seems.

Take for instance ‘World Check”. Founded in Switzerland and used by financial institutions and law enforcement organizations world wide, it has become the leader of “bad guy” information business. Its database is both comprehensive and without question neutral. The database is only accessible for paying and screened customers who use it for professional purposes. At the same time the public World Check web site publishes articles that are far less unbiased and neutral.

Lawyer-turned-money launderer for the South American mafia-turned consultant Kenneth Rijock publishes daily about money laundering and terrorist financing concerns. Recently however his articles seem to focus on Venezuela in general and the evils of its president Chavez in particular. No doubt that the oil rich country is waging a socialist inspired war of words with the current Bush administration and no doubt that Venezuela is a country high on the financial crime concerns list,but is it the job of a seemingly neutral information provider to focus on one country? According to mr. Rijock, Chavez and his regime are guilty of everything from from election fraud (not true) to financing FARC (might be true) to bribing US Democrats (really?). The problem is that it is very difficult to find corroborating publicly available evidence for Rijock’s accusations. Even if its all true, where are the articles about Uzbekistan, Myanmar or other countries of concern? Or is it Iran, Chavez's alleged puppet master that is the source of all evil?

Another source of information I read frequently is the Terrorist Finance blog written by David Nordell and a group of contributing experts. Mr. Nordell, like mr. Rijock is an esteemed member of the AML/ATF community and his knowledge is no doubt beyond reproach, but even he can’t hide his preferences. Instead of Venezuela, the countries of choice here are the usual suspects in the Middle East. Again, there’s nothing wrong with campaigning against or for a cause but I always advice my colleagues that there is no issue with using the information of any source on or outside the internet as long as all sides of a story are told in the final analysis. So far, I’ve only encountered a few commercial sites that I consider impartial. Stratfor, ironically called “The shadow CIA” tries it’s best to show as many sides in an international issue as possible. The last few months they’ve become a bit more Readers Digest like in their marketing strategy but the analyses I’ve read are both comprehensive and sound. It might be because they use multiple analysts or it might be because providing information (or intelligence) is what they do best but it seems to help me in unraveling the complicated puzzle that today’s world has become.