Free Republic

The title of the legislation is innocent enough: the Free Flow of Information Act. The motivation behind it is a seemingly worthy one. It would give anyone in the media a shield--special protection--against being forced to reveal the names of confidential sources of information. And the result would be more and more information flowing freely to the American people, satisfying their right to know. ... You may wonder why Congress is bothering to create a media privilege in federal cases at this time. It's not as if critical, top secret information isn't flowing to the media at a record pace....

— OK, can you do some more probing? New York will want to know frank's out today. i checked already, and so did zurich. they say the question is irrelevant. he answered me with the quote i used, about we knew when he was coming this time. he's been here many times in the past, we think. thx brad. aptn is aware, but unfortunately won't make it in time, but is hoping to catch tail end. i'm pushing out another writethru with some more background details before press conference. no surprise, new york is really hot on this. they particularly...

Why would the New York Times divulge information that could prove harmful to the national security of the United States? Is it so consumed is it by hatred of anything outside their left wing agenda that the paper actually wants America to lose the war on terror. One case in point was an article the Times published on June 30, 2008, Amid U.S. Policy Disputes, Qaeda Grows in Pakistan, which quoted from a "highly-classified Pentagon order" describing internal disputes at the Pentagon over plans to capture Osama Bin Laden and defeat al Qaeda. In June 2006, both The New York...

WASHINGTON -- A secret Central Intelligence Agency initiative terminated by Director Leon Panetta was an attempt to carry out a 2001 presidential authorization to capture or kill al Qaeda operatives, according to former intelligence officials familiar with the matter. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said CIA Director Panetta, above, told lawmakers Vice President Cheney ordered information be withheld from Congress. . The precise nature of the highly classified effort isn't clear, and the CIA won't comment on its substance. According to current and former government officials, the agency spent money on planning and possibly some training. It was acting on a 2001...

Subhead of this Sunday's print edition of the Dallas Morning News reads, "0Agency reported to have hidden secret counterterrorism project from Congress on ex-VP's order." The first paragraph reads, "The Central Intelligence Agency withheld informatin about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eigght years on diret orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency's director, Leon Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday."

US President Barack Obama made a major gesture of conciliation to Iran on Thursday when he admitted US involvement in the 1953 coup which overthrew the government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. "In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government," Obama said during his keynote speech to the Muslim world in Cairo. It is the first time a serving US president has publicly admitted American involvement in the coup. (snip) Obama also said: "For many years, Iran has defined itself in part by its opposition to...

Vice President Joe Biden, well-known for his verbal gaffes, may have finally outdone himself, divulging potentially classified information meant to save the life of a sitting vice president. According to a report, while recently attending the Gridiron Club dinner in Washington, an annual event where powerful politicians and media elite get a chance to cozy up to one another, Biden told his dinnermates about the existence of a secret bunker under the old U.S. Naval Observatory, which is now the home of the vice president. The bunker is believed to be the secure, undisclosed location former Vice President Dick Cheney...

Vice President Joe Biden, well-known for his verbal gaffes, may have finally outdone himself, divulging potentially classified information meant to save the life of a sitting vice president. According to a report, while recently attending the Gridiron Club dinner in Washington, an annual event where powerful politicians and media elite get a chance to cozy up to one another, Biden told his dinnermates about the existence of a secret bunker under the old U.S. Naval Observatory, which is now the home of the vice president. The bunker is believed to be the secure, undisclosed location former Vice President Dick Cheney...

The vice president, well-known for his verbal gaffes, confirms at a dinner the existence and location of a secret hidden bunker that Cheney is believed to have used after the 9/11 attacks.

President Obama visited the CIA headquarters yesterday to placate officials dismayed by his decision to release top secret “torture” memos, a move that has provoked accusations that he is willing to compromise America’s safety out of political correctness. Mr Obama’s first visit to the CIA, to boost morale there and shore up his own reputation, came as his decision to release the memos detailing brutal interrogation sessions of terror suspects continued to attract criticism. There were claims from inside the agency’s ranks that the move had undermined its ability to extract vital intelligence from America’s enemies, and could even blow...

WASHINGTON – Days after releasing top-secret memos that detailed the CIA's use of simulated drowning while interrogating terror suspects, President Barack Obama went to the spy agency's Virginia headquarters on Monday to defend his decision and bolster the morale of its employees. "I acted primarily because of the exceptional circumstances that surrounded these memos, particularly the fact that so much of the information was public," Obama said.

former Army colonel says President Obama gave all the terrorists planning to do "bad things" to the United States a huge assurance today when he released memos from the Bush presidency regarding interrogation techniques for such suspects. The actions were "bad form, bad tactics, bad strategy until this war is over," according to retired U.S. Army Col. Bob Maginnis.

The U.S. Justice Department released four memos last week that show the agency’s lawyers approval of the Central Intelligence Agency’s use of such techniques as sleep deprivation, slapping, nudity and waterboarding. The memos also discussed how far interrogators are allowed to go. Almost an outline of what terrorists have to train for. It has been reported the release was made over the objections of CIA director Leon Panetta. The purpose of the interrogation methods has nothing to do with gaining confessions for some military or civilian trial. The CIA used those methods to get information and prevent future terror attacks....

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Amid calls for torture prosecutions, former Bush administration officials Friday slammed President Barack Obama's release of terror interrogation memos, warning the move would fuel "timidity and fear" among US spies. Unhappy with Obama's promise not to prosecute CIA officials, human rights groups have demanded criminal investigations of officials who approved or used the interrogation techniques chillingly detailed in the Justice Department memos. But in an editorial in The Wall Street Journal, former CIA director Michael Hayden and former attorney general Michael Mukasey charged that disclosure of the memos "was unnecessary as a legal matter, and is unsound...

Barack Obama reveals George Bush's 'torture' techniques President Barack Obama has disclosed the controversial CIA interrogation techniques of the Bush administration, including the threat of stinging insects, simulated drowning and depriving prisoners of sleep for up to 180 hours. By Alex Spillius in Washington 16 Apr 2009 Leg shackles on the floor at at the U.S. Naval Base, in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba Photo: REUTERS The US government released four memos written by the Justice Department in 2002 and 2005 to provide legal cover for methods that have been widely criticised as torture and which the new president has already disowned....

Barack Obama today released four top secret memos that allowed the CIA under the Bush administration to torture al-Qaida and other suspects held at Guantánamo and secret detention centres round the world. But, in an accompanying statement, Obama ruled out prosecutions against those who had been involved. It is a "time for reflection, not retribution," he said. Ten techniques are approved, listed as: attention grasp, walling (in which the suspect could be pushed into a wall), a facial hold, a facial slap, cramped confinement, wall standing, sleep deprivation, insects placed in a confinement box (the suspect had a fear of...

Our sister publication, The Wall Street Journal, reports that President Obama is considering the release of CIA memos revealing in detail the interrogation techniques used in questioning terror suspects in the desperate days and months after 9/11. The president's decision will tell us much about him. It is no secret that U.S. intelligence agents subjected key captives to rough treatment to extract information. Senior intelligence officials have said that the information obtained was some of the best they got and was vital to preventing further attacks. But the methods were harsh, to include the simulated drowning known as water boarding,...

Obama Weighs Airing CIA Tactics Top Officials at Odds Over Whether to Withhold Some Details in Interrogation Memos By EVAN PEREZ and SIOBHAN GORMAN WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is leaning toward keeping secret some graphic details of tactics allowed in Central Intelligence Agency interrogations, despite a push by some top officials to make the information public, according to people familiar with the discussions. These people cautioned that President Barack Obama is still reviewing internal arguments over the release of Justice Department memorandums related to CIA interrogations, and how much information will be made public is in flux. Among the...

Sources have forwarded this Report news of a serious gaffe by Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein. It proves she apparently has no business chairing the Senate Intelligence Committee. This serious embarrassment was virtually smothered by American media outlets. The CIA and The Pentagon refused to comment on this matter when questioned by The UK’s Daily Telegraph. In a breathtaking example of incompetence Feinstein publicly revealed a military secret during an open Committee hearing last Friday. In what must have been a “senior moment” the new Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, confirmed that American unmanned drone spy planes are being launched...

Here is another example of a lib passing military secrets to the enemy. Where is the outrage of those who thought Cheney and Bush should hang for "blowing" the cover of an agent not currently undercover? Read on

When reporters asked President Franklin Roosevelt where Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle's raiders launched their daring 1942 raid on the Japanese mainland, he puckishly answered, “from our new secret base at Shangri-La.” Contrast Roosevelt's slyness with Sen. Diane Feinstein's recent comment regarding the secret location of the launch sites for Predator hunter/killer drones — “As I understand it, these are flown out of a Pakistani base.” Sen. Feinstein's defense for discussing this highly sensitive information, that she was only repeating what she read in the papers, is greatly unconvincing. It is true that the Washington Post first reported Predators operating out...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, announced that U.S. drone aircraft are flying from bases within Pakistan. This revelation embarrasses the Pakistani government and endangers the lives of U.S. and Pakistani personnel.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - A senior U.S. lawmaker said Thursday that unmanned CIA Predator aircraft operating in Pakistan are flown from an airbase inside that country, a revelation likely to embarrass the Pakistani government and complicate its counterterrorism collaboration with the United States. The disclosure by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, marked the first time a U.S. official had publicly commented on where the Predator aircraft patrolling Pakistan take off and land. At a hearing, Feinstein expressed surprise at Pakistani opposition to the ongoing campaign of Predator-launched CIA missile strikes against Al Qaeda targets along...

WASHINGTON, D.C. A senior U.S. lawmaker said Thursday that unmanned CIA Predator aircraft operating in Pakistan are flown from an airbase inside that country, a revelation likely to embarrass the Pakistani government and complicate its counterterrorism collaboration with the United States. The disclosure by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, marked the first time a U.S. official had publicly commented on where the Predator aircraft patrolling Pakistan take off and land. At a hearing, Feinstein expressed surprise at Pakistani opposition to the ongoing campaign of Predator-launched CIA missile strikes against Al Qaeda targets along Pakistan's...

You can stiff the president on a policy issue and defy him on a political one, but who can turn down an invitation to the White House? Using one of the world’s most famous private residences as bait, President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama are unleashing a bipartisan charm offensive and exploiting every square inch of their new home to make friends and influence rivals. The social calendar suggests a return to the days of Camelot. Since moving into their new digs, the first couple has hosted a half-dozen gatherings — from bipartisan cocktail receptions to a public...

MUNICH – In an effort to strike at a key income source for Taliban militants, the top NATO commander said Sunday that operations to attack drug lords and labs in Afghanistan will begin within the "next several days." Gen. John Craddock, who also heads the U.S. European Command, also said that the U.S. and its allies are making progress in their efforts to fill the need for more troops, equipment and intelligence gathering in Afghanistan. He, however, would not disclose any specific commitments he got this weekend as world leaders met at a security conference here. NATO defense ministers, during...

The U.S. military has prepared a list of U.S. military bases that could be used to house as many as 250 detainees currently being held at the U.S. Naval base in Guantanamo Bay, military officials tell ABCNews.com. The list -- which includes Camp Pendleton in California, Fort Leavenworth in Kansas; the Marine Air Station in Miramar, California; and the U.S. Naval Consolidated Brig in South Carolina -- has been circulated in a classified brief to members of Congress and was prepared by the Pentagon's Joint Staff. President-elect Barack Obama is expected to order that the Guantanamo Bay detainee facility be...

Secret agendas have never been "Denny" Blair's style. The reserved former four-star admiral, who is widely understood to be President-elect Barack Obama's choice as director of national intelligence, is well known in Washington as an intellectual who values straightforwardness and has mastered the byzantine interagency process during his various government stints. Blair would be the third recently retired four-star officer nominated by Obama for a top post, an unusual trend for a Democratic administration and one that has surprised both political camps. Former Marine Gen. James L. Jones is the nominee for national security adviser, and former Army chief of...

Thomas M. Tamm was entrusted with some of the government's most important secrets. He had a Sensitive Compartmented Information security clearance, a level above Top Secret. Government agents had probed Tamm's background, his friends and associates, and determined him trustworthy. It's easy to see why: he comes from a family of high-ranking FBI officials. During his childhood, he played under the desk of J. Edgar Hoover, and as an adult, he enjoyed a long and successful career as a prosecutor. Now gray-haired, 56 and fighting a paunch, Tamm prides himself on his personal rectitude. He has what his 23-year-old son,...

Conventional wisdom holds that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald ordered the FBI to arrest Rod Blagojevich before sunrise Tuesday in order to stop a crime from being committed. That would have been the sale of the Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama. But the opposite is true: Members of Fitzgerald’s team are livid the scheme didn’t advance, at least for a little longer, according to some people close to Fitzgerald’s office. Why? Because had the plot unfolded, they might have had an opportunity most feds can only dream of: A chance to catch the sale of a Senate seat on...

Bloomington, IN -- The Planned Parenthood staff member in Indiana who appears in a recent undercover video covering up an alleged case of statutory rape has been fired. The video sent shockwaves throughout the nation as "Diana" didn't want more information on the abuse and told a girl how to get a secret abortion.

A SOUTH Wales couple caught in the Mumbai terror attacks claimed last night that CNN put their lives at risk by broadcasting where they were. Lynne and Kenneth Shaw, of Penarth, warned that terrorists were listening in to the media to pinpoint Western victims. Mrs Shaw claimed the American cable TV channel had broadcast details of where they were at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. She has appealed to the media to be careful with the information it broadcasts because safety could be compromised and lives lost. The couple flew back into Heathrow yesterday morning on a flight arranged by...

News channel put our lives at risk: UK couple LONDON: A British couple caught in the Mumbai terror attacks have complained that a news channel had put their lives at risk by broadcasting their location in the Taj Mahal Hotel. Lynne and Kenneth Shaw, who live in South Wales, said that terrorists were listening in on the media to pinpoint Western victims. Lynne claimed that CNN had broadcast details of where they were at the hotel.She has appealed to the media to be careful with the information it broadcasts because safety could be compromised and lives could be lost. The...

U.S. intelligence officials kept a file on former Prime Minister Tony Blair's "private life", a former U.S. Navy communications operator said yesterday. David Murfee Faulk, who worked at a listening post in Fort Gordon, Georgia, told ABCNews.com he saw the file on Blair in 2006. But he refused to provide details of the contents of the file, held in an intelligence database called Anchory, other than to say it was a file on his "private life" and included information of a personal nature. Whistleblower Faulk said he heard "pillow talk" phone calls of Iraq's first inter impresident, Ghazi al-Yawer, a...

President Bush is unhappy the conversation between him and President-elect Barack Obama has been cast as a trade-off between Bush signing a second stimulus package in exchange for congressional passage of the Colombia Free Trade Deal, administration officials told FOX News on Tuesday.

Reports leaking out of the meeting suggested that Bush indicated he would support Obama's hopes for another round of stimulus checks for U.S. taxpayers if Congress would also approve a long-stalled, free-trade pact with Colombia. Leaks also said that Obama urged Bush to use part of the $700 billion in bailout funds to help the country's automobile makers immediately, to which Bush remained noncommital. Obama's camp was mum today, but White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters before the ceremony aboard the USS Intrepid that the president did not try to cut a deal with Obama on his stimulus request....

The New York Times today splashed the details of yesterday’s first meeting between President George W. Bush and President-elect Barack Hussein Obama. It was a private meeting between the president and president-elect with no staff attending. To get the story out, once again the journalistically unprofessional NYT took advantage of citing unidentified sources, indicating their information came from “advisers to Mr. Obama”. “Advisers to Mr. Obama” would have known nothing without Obama filling them in. Meanwhile, among the legions of unknowns about Obama, and who he really is, comes a proven known: Obama blows confidences. Ego comes first! Country and...

When Barack Obama takes the oath of office on January 20, Americans won't just get a new president; they might finally learn the full extent of George W. Bush's warrantless domestic wiretapping. Since The New York Times first revealed in 2005 that the NSA was eavesdropping on citizens' overseas phone calls and e-mail, few additional details about the massive "Terrorist Surveillance Program" have emerged. That's because the Bush administration has stonewalled, misled and denied documents to Congress, and subpoenaed the phone records of the investigative reporters.

Security: The New York Times is reporting the U.S. military has "broad, secret authority" to kill al-Qaida terrorists anywhere on Earth. As is too often the case, the Times has spilled information it should have sat on.None dare call it treason, of course, this telegraphing of information that is useful to our enemies. But the Times nudged up against it when it revealed in Monday's edition the existence of a "secret order" from 2004 that "gave the military new authority to attack the al-Qaida terrorist network anywhere in the world, and a more sweeping mandate to conduct operations in countries...

A classified order authorising attacks on al-Qaeda anywhere in the world, even in countries not a war with the US, was approved by Mr Bush and signed by former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the newspaper said, citing anonymous US officials.

WASHINGTON: The United States military since 2004 has used broad, secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks against Al Qaeda and other militants in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere, according to senior American officials. These military raids, typically carried out by Special Operations forces, were authorized by a classified order that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld signed in the spring of 2004 with the approval of President George W. Bush, the officials said. The secret order gave the military new authority to attack the Qaeda terrorist network anywhere in the world, and a more sweeping mandate to conduct...

WASHINGTON — The United States military since 2004 has used broad, secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks against Al Qaeda and other militants in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere, according to senior American officials. These military raids, typically carried out by Special Operations forces, were authorized by a classified order that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed in the spring of 2004 with the approval of President Bush, the officials said. The secret order gave the military new authority to attack the Qaeda terrorist network anywhere in the world, and a more sweeping mandate to conduct...

NYT MONDAY: SECRET ORDER LETS U.S. RAID AL-QAIDA IN MANY COUNTRIES... Dozen previously undisclosed attacks against al-Qaida and other militants in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere...Developing...

Shares Of The Hartford Plunge 32% Waning Confidence Also Affects MetLife, Prudential By DIANE LEVICK October 3, 2008 It was a blood bath Thursday for shares of The Hartford, while MetLife Inc. and Prudential also plummeted on fears that the tumult in financial markets could push some insurers over the edge. Some of the investor panic Thursday followed a comment Wednesday from Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., that a well-known but unnamed insurer was on the brink of bankruptcy. A spokesman for Reid, the Senate majority leader, issued a statement Thursday backtracking on the comment, and The Hartford, Prudential and MetLife...

WASHINGTON: In a makeshift prison in the north of Poland, Al Qaeda's engineer of mass murder faced off against his Central Intelligence Agency interrogator. It was 18 months after the 9/11 attacks, and the invasion of Iraq was giving Muslim extremists new motives for havoc. If anyone knew about the next plot, it was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. The interrogator, Deuce Martinez, a soft-spoken analyst who spoke no Arabic, had turned down a CIA offer to be trained in waterboarding. He chose to leave the infliction of pain and panic to others, the gung-ho paramilitary types whom the more cerebral interrogators...

There is something unique about what has come to be called the War on Terror. In this conflict, as the U.S. government struggles to defeat the enemy and keep our people safe, it is up against not only those who overtly and unambiguously seek to destroy us. It also confronts those prepared to reveal classified information and programs, even when that makes it harder to vanquish our foes and protect this country. The latter fall into four principal categories: • Some call themselves "journalists" who work for traditional news organizations, notably the New York Times. On occasion, they win Pulitzer...

The Air Force and Lockheed Martin are giving a secret retirement send-off to the world's first radar-evading fighter.They were born shrouded in mystery in a windowless building in Burbank. They flew combat missions over Serbia and Iraq virtually invisible to enemy radar. And today, the black, bat-like F-117A Night Hawks will fly quietly into the night as stealthily as they came. The last four of the world's first stealth fighters will make their final flights from Palmdale to a secret desert base in Nevada, where they will be locked up indefinitely in a secure concrete hangar. But unlike the passing...

TOKYO, March 21 (AP) - (Kyodo)—The Japanese Air Self-Defense Force said Friday it suspended a 33-year-old captain for 30 days from its base in Okinawa Prefecture over an incident in 2006 in which information, including intelligence related to U.S. operations in Iraq, was leaked on the Internet from his private computer. The ASDF also reprimanded the then first lieutenant's three superiors at the time, who belong to Air Squadron 302 based in the prefectural capital of Naha, saying they failed to prevent him from leaking the information from a personal computer loaded with a file-sharing software Winny in November 2006....

Now the world knows Prince Harry is in Afghanistan, the question on many lips is whether it was right for the media to keep quiet about it for so long.