"A file detailing aspects of AT&T's alleged participation in the National Security Agency's warrantless domestic wiretap operation is sitting in a San Francisco courthouse. But the public cannot see it because, at AT&T's insistence, it remains under seal in court records." (...)AT&T claims information in the file is proprietary and that it would suffer severe harm if it were released.

Based on what we've seen, Wired News disagrees. In addition, we believe the public's right to know the full facts in this case outweighs AT&T's claims to secrecy.

As a result, we are publishing the complete text of a set of documents from the EFF's primary witness in the case, former AT&T employee and whistle-blower Mark Klein -- information obtained by investigative reporter Ryan Singel through an anonymous source close to the litigation. "

Over at Wired

The full text should be here soon...

Tags: Bush, NSA, CIA, DHS

"Judith Miller, the Pulitzer Prize-winning ex-New York Times reporter at the center of the ongoing perjury and obstruction of justice case involving former top White House official I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby. Miller spent 85 days in jail before finally disclosing that Libby was the anonymous source who confirmed to her that Valerie Plame was a CIA official, although Miller never wrote a story about Plame.

Now, in an exclusive interview, Miller reveals how the attack on the Cole spurred her reporting on Al Qaida and led her, in July 2001, to a still-anonymous top-level White House source, who shared top-secret NSA signals intelligence (SIGINT) concerning an even bigger impending Al Qaida attack, perhaps to be visited on the continental United States.

Ultimately, Miller never wrote that story either. But two months later -- on Sept. 11 -- Miller and her editor at the Times, Stephen Engelberg, both remembered and regretted the story they "didn't do.""

Full story and interview with Judith Miller at Alternet

"A majority of Americans initially support a controversial National Security Agency program to collect information on telephone calls made in the United States in an effort to identify and investigate potential terrorist threats, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll."

"Federal agents yesterday raided the home and office of the CIA's outgoing number three in a dramatic deepening of corruption investigations at America's premier spy agency."

Story in The Telegraph

"Three major phone companies wiretapped millions of citizens. Today former top NSA officials are speaking out against the warrantless spying. [complete transcript from Amy Goodman's syndicated radio program Democracy Now!]"

"SurvivaBalls save managers from abrupt climate change

An advanced new technology will keep corporate managers safe even when climate change makes life as we know it impossible."

Yes. The Yes Men are back!

Greg Palast, znet.org: The President Says Immigrants "Must Learn To Misinterpreate English"

Mr Bush told the CNBC television network the revolt of passengers on the hijacked flight 93 on September 11, 2001, was the "first counter-attack to World War III". READ THIS!

"Ray McGovern, who was in the CIA for twenty seven years asked him why he lied about the run-up to the Iraq war. Rumsfeld then proceeded to lie to McGovern to cover up his earlier statements about WMD's being in Iraq. He also tries to use the troops in his defense, a terrible strategy, but not uncommon unfortunately. Notice, at the end of the clip, Ray gets vilified for asking Rumsfeld some pointed questions. We can't have that, no-no-no."

Tags: Rumsfeld, CIA, War

"It's easier to rig an electronic voting machine than a Las Vegas slot machine, says University of Pennsylvania visiting professor Steve Freeman. That's because Vegas slots are better monitored and regulated than America's voting machines, Freeman writes in a book out in July that argues, among other things, that President Bush may owe his 2004 win to an unfair vote count."

Story in the Washington Post

"Rock and Roll "The effect of rock and roll on young people, is to turn them into devil worshippers; to stimulate self-expression through sex; to provoke lawlessness; impair nervous stability and destroy the sanctity of marriage. It is an evil influence on the youth of our country."

• Minister Albert Carter, 1956

Videogames "The disturbing material in Grand Theft Auto and other games like it is stealing the innocence of our children and it's making the difficult job of being a parent even harder ... I believe that the ability of our children to access pornographic and outrageously violent material on video games rated for adults is spiraling out of control."

• US senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, 2005"

Great story at Wired

"If you believe that the ultra rich capitalist overlords wanted war to increase their profits, you have to believe they were willing to kill hundreds of thousands of people to get it. THAT’s the part I don’t buy. There can be sociopath billionaires to be sure, but I can’t see them being the majority force in the government.

I have a theory that only people who have never been rich would believe that the rich are routinely willing to kill enormous amounts of people to get richer. Personally, I’ve been poor and I’ve been rich. And I can speak from first hand experience about how it changes you. I’m far less bloodthirsty than before."

Cartoonist Scott Adams has a wonderful blog!

"President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ''whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research."

Story at Boston.com

"Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the FBI is 'investigating whether two contractors implicated in the bribery of former Rep. Randall ‘Duke’ Cunningham supplied him with prostitutes and free use of a limousine and hotel suites.' The Journal also said the investigators are exploring 'whether any other members of Congress' are involved.

Last night on MSNBC’s Scarborough Country, Dean Calbreath of the San Diego Union Tribune – which recently won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the Cunningham case – said that 'as many as a half a dozen' members of Congress could ultimately be implicated in the prostitution scandal."

Video and more at thinkprogress.org

Znet: Six Nations Does Not Stand Alone

" U.S. and Iraqi inspectors have discovered abuse of prisoners in detention centers run by Iraq's Interior Ministry that were visited as recently as February, the Washington Post reported on Monday.

Citing U.S. and Iraqi sources involved with the inspections, the Post said U.S. troops did not respond by transferring all of the detainees to safety, as they did after finding 173 prisoners, some of whom showed signs of torture, in a secret Baghdad bunker in November."

Story by Reuters

Another one by Alex Jones. Haven't seen it yet!

This funny flash-site has some nice new stuff.

"The former top economist in Bush's Department of Labor, Morgan Reynolds, will speak out on the 9/11 inside job at the State Historical Society, University of Wisconsin-Madison on Saturday, May 6th. (...) Dr. Reynolds, who holds three U.W.-Madison degrees, and who is currently Professor of Economics at Texas A&M University, will present evidence that top Bush Administration officials orchestrated the controlled demolition of the World Trade Center, and the murder of almost 2,500 Americans, as a pretext for initiating their pre-planned “long war” in the Middle East. "

“Governments throughout history have provoked or staged attacks on their own people to serve the powers behind the throne (‘the money power’), glorify themselves, engage in vast government spending, reward friends, exert domestic control, stimulate the juices of war, annex neighbors and pursue vast geostrategic rearrangements (the ‘global domination project)” Reynolds asserts. He notes that every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff signed off on the “Operation Northwoods” plan to murder Americans in fake “Cuban terrorist” attacks in 1962. The planned Operation Northwoods murders of ordinary Americans in fake terrorist bombings and a fake “airliner shoot-down” would have involved hundreds of military and intelligence personnel. Yet the existence of Operation Northwoods was successfully kept secret from the American people for forty years until James Bamford revealed it in his book Body of Secrets, published in January 2002."

From milwaukee.indymedia.org

Related: Former German Cabinet Minister Attacks Official Brainwashing On September 11 Issue - Points at "Mad Dog" Zbig and Huntington (Source: Tagesspiegel, 13 Jan 2002)

Salon: Taking aim at the sleeping dragon - Imperial and imperious, the Bush administration's containment strategy for China may herald the next cold war.

The truly commanding objective -- the underlying basis for budgets and troop deployments -- is the containment of China. This objective governed White House planning during the administration's first seven months in office, only to be set aside by the perceived obligation to highlight anti-terrorism after 9/11; but now, despite Bush's preoccupation with Iraq and Iran, the White House is also reemphasizing its paramount focus on China, risking a new Asian arms race with potentially catastrophic consequences."

The Independent: Story here

"They terrorize other government officials, and they’re so secretive that their names aren’t even revealed to a harmless federal employee directory. And they’ve helped ruin the country. Meet Dick Cheney’s staff." American Prospect Online...

"Intelligence experts warn that a proposal to merge two Pentagon intelligence units could create an ominous new agency."

Newsweek

From a headline in the Washington Post.

"The joke in some Pentagon circles is that if Rumsfeld were meeting with the service chiefs and commanders and a group of terrorists barged into the room and kidnapped him, not a single general would lift a finger to help him." Interesting story at SLATE about the upcoming military coup in the US. Hey, sure, if everything else fails, let the military do the job.

This story on awfultruth.com is too good to be true! An insider reports from the White House:

"Donald Rumsfeld needs to wear iced underwear because of some medical condition, and he has his secret service detail hold his spares. He was recently getting uncontrollable long-term erections and had to change up his medical treatments. The underwear and the erections is why he uses a standing desk, not because he is some super-man. He also wears nylon stockings, not because he's gay, but to control some vascular problem with his legs which causes him intense pain.

President Bush uses anti-depressant medication, a lot of it, at a stupendous dosage, and he is hiding it from the American public. This is the real reason he stopped drinking. Because of the dosage, he is also impotent. (...) President Bush, when dining at the white-house, does not eat any item of food which has not been first sniffed by a trained dog before being prepared. Think about that.

Word among the staff is that Cheney was drunk when he shot that lawyer, and secluded himself for a day to sober up and avoid felony firearms charges."

"Bush's bogus document dump

(...)Lacking evidence of a real-world link between Saddam and the perpetrators of 9/11, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, headed by Bush appointee John Negroponte, has apparently decided to create one in cyberspace -- by seeding its new online Operation Iraqi Freedom Documents archive with suggestive jihadist materials, and by linking the site to an entirely unrelated database of al-Qaida materials." Story at Salon

"It's a crime. No kidding. But the media has it all wrong. As usual.

'Scooter' Libby finally outed 'Mr. Big,' the perpetrator of the heinous disclosure of the name of secret agent Valerie Plame. It was the President of United States himself -- in conspiracy with his Vice-President. Now the pundits are arguing over whether our war-a-holic President had the legal right to leak this national security information. But, that's a fake debate meant to distract you."

Greg Palast: GANGSTER GOVERNMENT A LEAKY PRESIDENT RUNS AFOUL OF 'LITTLE RICO'...

"If you're launching yourself as Britain's FBI and say you will make the lives of organised criminals "hell" then you need a dynamic logo to match the job.

The Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) has chosen a fierce big cat bearing its fangs and leaping over a stylised silver globe, with a crown capping it all.

It's bold but bears a striking resemblance to the logo of the 1980s children's cartoon series Thundercats. "

BBC...

Essential reading in The New Yorker...