Bauer grew up in
Onamia, Minnesota and he is a graduate of the
University of California, Berkeley. In July 2009, Bauer and two companions (Joshua Fattal and
Sarah Shourd) were arrested by Iranian
border guards after straying into Iran while allegedly hiking in northern Iraq near the Iranian border. The three Americans were
held in prison in Iran on espionage charges for more than two years before their release in September 2011. They subsequently co-authored a memoir of their experience (
A Sliver of Light), as well as the cover story ("Kidnapped by Iran") for the March–April 2014 issue of
Mother Jones magazine. Bauer has worked as a
foreign correspondent, reporting from Iraq, Sudan, Chad, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. His work has appeared in
The Nation, Salon.com, the
Los Angeles Times, the
Christian Science Monitor, and
The New Yorker. In 2015 he worked as an undercover journalist for
Mother Jones while employed for six months as a
prison guard at the
Winn Correctional Center, a
private prison in
Winn Parish, Louisiana managed by the Corrections Corporation of America (now known as
CoreCivic). In 2016, he took on another undercover news assignment for
Mother Jones, infiltrating
Three Percent United Patriots, a right-wing border militia in southern
Arizona. == Works ==