Hello, welcome to the Asa Clancho.

Today with somewhat less Ezra Clancho than normal, probably a welcome relief for everybody.

I'm on vacation this week, but we're giving you an episode of our sister podcast Sway,

led by Cara Swisher, a podcast about power.

You can follow Sway wherever you get your podcasts, but for now, please enjoy.

I'm Cara Swisher and you're listening to Sway.

My guest today is Elliot Higgins.

He created Bellingcat, the open source investigative team that's part online detective agency and

part news outlet.

Higgins Group has broken some of the biggest stories in recent years.

Bellingcat found evidence linking Russia to the downing of flight MH17, identified alt-light

protesters in Charlottesville, and unveiled the alleged poisonous who targeted Russian

opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Bellingcat has become a major thorn in the side of powerful and dangerous people like Vladimir

Putin.

I want to understand how Higgins decides what's worth investigating and what distinguishes

his organization from online vigilantes.

But first I asked him how he came up with the name Bellingcat in the first place.

So Bellingcat is based off the fable of Bellingcat, where there's a group of mice who are

very friesons of a large, ferocious cat.

So they decide that they need a plan to deal with it and they come up with the idea of

putting a bell around the cat's neck, but then they realize they don't actually know

...