Media for his series on exposing the use of Islamophobic material to train recruits in counterterrorism at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. Following the revelations, at the mandate of the Obama Administration, the FBI launched an investigation and turned to the U.S. Army's Combating Terrorism Center at West Point before eventually purging the materials. In a January 2012 column for Tablet magazine, Ackerman expressed disagreement with the use of the term "Israel Firster", writing, "if you can’t do it without sounding like Pat Buchanan, who has nothing but antipathy and contempt for Jews, then you’ve lost the debate." Identifying himself as part of the Jewish left, Ackerman noted the term was first used by far-right activist Willis Carto and neo-Nazi David Duke. The Jerusalem Post editorial board and Commentary's then assistant editor, Alana Goodman, came to Ackerman's defense. He was criticized by Richard Silverstein in Eurasia Review and Philip Weiss in Mondoweiss. The Guardian In June 2013, Ackerman joined The Guardian as a national security editor, initially at their Washington bureau before relocating back to New York. During his onboarding process, Ackerman's job orientation functioned as cover for a briefing on the 2013 Global surveillance disclosures, which the publication had just received from Edward Snowden. He contributed to several stories on the NSA’s surveillance programs based on these leaks, leading to The Guardian winning the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Ackerman and colleagues also shared the Investigative Reporters and Editors medal for investigative journalisml and the 2014 Scripps Howard Foundation Roy W. Howard Award for Public Service Reporting. Alongside his colleague Zach Stafford, Ackerman was a 2016 finalist for the Online New Association's Online Journalism Awards for their reporting on a previously little-known detention facility run by the Chicago Police known as Homan Square. The investigation began when Ackerman profiled the U.S. military's employment of Richard Zuley, a Chicago Police investigator, to develop interrogation techniques on detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. A source mentioned the Chicago Police operated a facility resembling a black site. Ackerman uncovered the facility and revealed that interrogators engaged in beating, rape, excessive shackling, deprived arrestees access to counsel for extended periods, and turned attorneys away from the facility. Starting in 2015, Ackerman attached a statement to his email signature, warning that unilateral declarations of anonymity from potential sources would not be honored. In an interview with CNN's Brian Stelter on Reliable