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At midnight on Dec. 31, hundreds of millions of pages of secret documents will be instantly declassified, including many FBI cold war files on investigations of people suspected of being Communist sympathizers. After years of extensions sought by federal agencies behaving like college students facing a term paper, the end of 2006 means the government's first automatic declassification of records. Secret documents 25 years old or older will lose their classified status without so much as the stroke of a pen, unless agencies have sought exemptions on the ground that the material remains secret. Historians say the deadline, created in...

President Bush is bracing for what could be an onslaught of investigations by the new Democratic-led Congress by hiring lawyers to fill key White House posts and preparing to play defense on countless document requests and possible subpoenas. Bush is moving quickly to fill vacancies within his stable of lawyers, though White House officials say there are no plans to drastically expand the legal staff to deal with a flood of oversight. "No, at this point, no," Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, said recently. "We'll have to see what happens." Snow rebutted the notion that Bush is casting about...

Defense lawyers who had hoped that the public disclosure a year ago of the National Security Agency's wiretapping program would yield information favorable to their clients are being rebuffed by the federal judiciary, which in a series of unusually consistent rulings has rejected efforts by terrorism suspects to access the records. In at least 17 criminal cases, federal district judges nominated to the federal bench by presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush have ruled against requests to force the government to tell defendants, most accused of terrorism-related crimes, whether the NSA eavesdropped on them without a...

This may be useful at various 9/11 events. Poster has a 9/11/2001 image of New York City and New York Harbor. I've added some information about Able Danger and appropriate quotes for this solemn, sad day. Never Forget. Never Again. Download instructions to download/save PDF version to desktop. : Scroll down to the Click on the Download for free with... Basic Scroll to the Click here to begin your download link. Left click to download/save. Double click to open, then and print the 9-sheet color artwork (trim 1-2 edges, then glue stick or tape into the large poster) Takes only...

A Brit newspaper is reporting that the US "secret services" -- presumably the CIA and NSA -- were spying on Princess Diana, bugging her telephone conversations in the summer of 1997, up to and including the day she died. But why would anyone bother? The British royals aren't much involved in politics or matters of national security. There's only one reason I can think of. Was Clinton wanting to get the lowdown on her before asking for a date? I am pursuing other information from experts, trusted sources, and the usual suspects

Representative Nancy Pelosi, the incoming House speaker, sent a strong new signal on Friday that Democrats intend to confront the White House by naming a Texas congressman who opposed the war in Iraq as the next chairman of the House intelligence committee. Mrs. Pelosi chose him over Ms. Harman in part because he has repeatedly taken a more combative stance toward Bush administration policies like the invasion of Iraq, military tribunals for terrorist suspects, and the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program. Mr. Reyes voted against authorizing President Bush to go to war with Iraq, and in June he said...

WASHINGTON - Several members of a government board appointed to guard privacy and civil liberties during the war on terror say they're impressed with the protections built into the Bush administration's electronic eavesdropping program. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board received a long-awaited briefing on the secret program last week by senior members of the National Security Agency. Two of the five board members told The Associated Press on Monday they were impressed by the safeguards the government has built into the NSA's monitoring of phone calls and computer transmissions and wished the administration could tell the public more...

Republicans who limped back to Washington for a lame duck congressional session last week found a host of marching orders from President Bush, but perhaps none more urgent than this: Before Democrats take control of Congress in January, they must pass legislation authorizing the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program. His plea for a legislative stamp of approval on the controversial spy effort is an "important priority in the war on terror," Bush said. The response: deafening silence. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist quickly dispatched aides to put out the word on Bush's request: Not gonna happen. Outgoing Senate Judiciary...

WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency is not required to release details about its secret wiretapping program, a federal judge said Monday. The People for the American Way Foundation, a liberal advocacy group, sued to obtain records under the Freedom of Information Act. The group sought to find out how many wiretaps were approved and who reviewed the program. President Bush has acknowledged the existence of the program, which he calls the Terrorist Surveillance Program. The National Security Agency monitors phone calls and e-mails between people in the U.S. and people in other countries when a link to terrorism is...

The ACLU, still fighting the NSA program in court, calls upon Congress to block legislation for the NSA program. In Washington, the ACLU is urging Congress to live up to its constitutional responsibility to provide checks and balances to the executive and judicial branches, de-fund the illegal spying program and undertake a thorough investigation into the NSA warrantless eavesdropping. Between its return on November 13 and its adjournment, the 109th Congress may vote on key issues such as a potential $15 billion give-away to telephone companies which would immunize companies from any liability for participating in the NSA spying program....

Legislation aimed at President Bush's once-secret program for wiretapping U.S.-foreign phone calls and computer traffic of suspected terrorists without warrants shows all the signs of not moving ahead, notwithstanding President Bush's request this week that a lame-duck Congress give it to him. Senate Democrats, emboldened by Election Day wins that put them in control of Congress as of January, say they would rather wait until next year to look at the issue. "I can't say that we won't do it, but there's no guarantee that we're going spend a lot of time on controversial measures," Democratic Whip Richard Durbin of...

The importance of next Tuesday’s election to the security of each and every American can be summed up in a single thirty-second spot, called “Wiretap.” It was written by former Clinton pollster Dick Morris, and is being aired nationwide by Dave Bossie’s Citizens United, a conservative interest group. Here is the script. Two Arabic-speakers are discussing an imminent terrorist attack, as an NSA tape-recorder captures their conversation. “All is now prepared,” says the first. “Is everything in place? “It is done. When do we attack? “Be prompt. Plant the bomb at—“ At that point, the screen goes blank, and the narrator delivers the come-on: “This terrorist wiretap...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. intelligence community on Tuesday unveiled its own secretive version of Wikipedia, saying the popular online encyclopedia format known for its openness is key to the future of American espionage. The office of U.S. intelligence czar John Negroponte announced Intellipedia, which allows intelligence analysts and other officials to collaboratively add and edit content on the government's classified Intelink Web much like its more famous namesake on the World Wide Web. A "top secret" Intellipedia system, currently available to the 16 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community, has grown to more than 28,000 pages and...

Two news items from last week speak volumes about the Democratic Party’s priorities on national security. First, Democratic majorities in the House and Senate -- including all the presidential aspirants -- voted against the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which authorized military tribunals to try terrorist suspects and established guidelines for their aggressive interrogation. Then, late on Thursday, 177 House Democrats voted to thwart the passage of the Electronic Surveillance Modernization Act, which expanded electronic surveillance of terrorists on foreign soil. Civil liberties dogmatists like the ACLU applauded these obstructionist efforts, but they came to naught. Both pieces of legislation...

On the Probity of Reading Other People's Messages At the outset, let me say I am gratified by the resignation of Mark Foley from his seat in Congress. The Clinton-Lewinsky matter had made me suspect that the ethical standards of government are really so much below those that prevail in academe that the abuse of power present in a sexual liaison with a subordinate over whose career the superior has tremendous leverage is of no consequence in Washington. It is not the primary purpose of this article to consider the moral and legal issues of ex-Congressman Foley’s behavior. On the...

Indict the New York Times By Henry Mark Holzer FrontPageMagazine.com | September 29, 2006 It is an article of faith on the Left and among its fellow travelers that the Bush administration stole two elections, made war on Iraq for venal reasons, tortured hapless foreigners, and conducted illegal surveillance of innocent Americans. A corollary of this mindset is that the press, primarily the Washington Post and The New York Times, has a right, indeed a duty, to print whatever they want about the administration—even if the information compromises national security. Not true. The press is not exempt from laws that...

I guess we need to inform the country about some of the realities of the NSA Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP) and what is possible and not possible to resolve all the concerns for privacy protections. I say this because the house just passed a good bill on the NSA TSP. This topic is especially important in light of some leftwing prosecutorial abuse against a Rep Candidate for AG in NY who has had her phone monitored for discussing ways to catch her cheating husband publicized - we can be voyuers against Reps but it is unconstitutional to monitor terrorists contacting...

The federal judge who ordered a halt to the Bush administration's program of domestic wiretapping on Thursday allowed the surveillance to continue for a week to allow an appeals court to weigh in on an issue expected to end up with the U.S. Supreme Court. U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit denied the Justice Department's request for a lengthy stay pending an appeal of her August ruling that the National Security Agency's surveillance program violates the civil rights of Americans. Instead, Taylor gave the government a seven-day window to get a stay from the federal appeals court in...

The media is terrible at reading comprehension, as has been proven time and time again. From the erroneous reporting on the NSA’s Terrorist Surveillance Program (were they wrongly claimed the NSA was bypassing the NSA when in fact NSA leads were for the first time being used to identify and monitor possible terrorists in the USA via FISA warrants) to the GITMO abuse claims, our ‘reporters’ cannot read and understand what they have read. Whether it is lack of skill or partisan blinders is irrelevant. It is beyond them. I see this all the time when the media tries to...

See for example this thread first. Over the course of the past couple of weeks, a large scandal has broken concerning the efforts of unscrupulous, highly-placed individuals to gain access to the private phone records and conversations of dissenters. The rights of these dissenters are guaranteed by law. Does this sound familiar? Are you thinking of the words “NSA interecpt / wiretap program?” If you are, then we are not connecting here. I am speaking of the recent controversy regarding some of the corporate executives at Hewlett-Packard, and their attempts to unearth the source of leaks of corporate secrets (or...