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President Obama declared on Tuesday that “no information may remain classified indefinitely” as part of a sweeping overhaul of the executive branch’s system for protecting classified national security information. In an executive order and an accompanying presidential memorandum to agency heads, Mr. Obama signaled that the government should try harder to make information public if possible, including by requiring agencies to regularly review what kinds of information they classify and to eliminate any obsolete secrecy requirements. “Agency heads shall complete on a periodic basis a comprehensive review of the agency’s classification guidance, particularly classification guides, to ensure the guidance reflects...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has written the legislation in a secret chamber somewhere in Washington. His amendment was only released to the Senate after he completed the bribes to Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson.

A legal firebrand whose work fighting corruption left both Bill Clinton and Dick Cheney on the defensive today took on Barack Obama, suing the president for secret meetings with Planned Parenthood and other lobbyists on his plans to nationalize health care. Larry Klayman, founder of Judicial Watch and, more recently, Freedom Watch USA, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., under the Federal Advisory Committee Act. The law requires disclosure of records of meetings between the executive branch and outside industry lobbyists. It also requires access to meetings. Klayman raised the same issues during the early years...

WASHINGTON – The federal government improperly posted an internal guide to its airport passenger screening procedures on the Internet in a way that could offer insight into how to sidestep security. The document outlines who is exempt from certain additional screening measures, including members of the U.S. armed forces, governors and lieutenant governors, the mayor of Washington, D.C., and their immediate families. It offers examples of identification documents that screeners accept, including congressional, federal air marshal and CIA ID cards; and it explains that diplomatic pouches and certain foreign dignitaries with law enforcement escorts are not subjected to any screening...

In a massive security breach, the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) inadvertently posted online its entire airport screening procedures manual, including some of the most closely guarded secrets regarding special rules for diplomats and CIA and law enforcement officers. Photo: Massive TSA Security Breach As Agency Gives Away Its Secrets: On-line Posting Reveals a ?How To? for Terrorists to Get Through Airport Security In a massive security breach, the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) inadvertently posted online... Expand In a massive security breach, the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) inadvertently posted online its entire airport screening procedures manual, including some of the most...

Sources tell TMZ Rachel Uchitel did not make any financial deal with Tiger Woods -- and there are two reasons she torpedoed her scheduled news conference yesterday -- fear and secrets. SNIP She walked away without taking a cent from Tiger Woods. One very connected source said, "This was absolutely not about money." Sources say Rachel became "scared for her safety" because she knows so much about Tiger, his alleged affairs and a variety of other Woods matters. We're told Tiger confided in Rachel ... she knows specifics about "other women," as well as information about Tiger's marriage.

Former Secret Service agent opens window into private lives of presidents October 14th, 2009 Jamie Weinstein In his In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents they Protect, journalist Ronald Kessler gives us a peek inside the intimate lives of our presidents. Through interviews with over 100 secret service agents from the past and present—dating all the way back to John F. Kennedy—Kessler paints a picture of what our presidents are like when no one is looking. They're always watching. We learn from the agents Kessler interviews that John F....

Two in a series: Hidden in the Senate's health-care bill are huge incentives for corporate America to stop covering their workers. If that happens, the deficit could skyrocket. Now that the Congressional Budget Office has concluded that the health-care bill proposed by Sen. Max Baucus will shrink the federal deficit over the next ten years, its champions are heralding the legislation as a model of fiscal responsibility. But the CBO's comforting analysis relies on a big assumption that's highly questionable, an assumption that virtually no one on either side of the debate -- politicians, pundits, even economists -- is even...

LANGLEY, Va. - Part of the new Dan Brown novel is based on a local mystery. In the introduction to his new best-selling novel, "The Lost Symbol," author Dan Brown lists the following: "In 1991, a document was locked in the safe of the director of the CIA. The document is still there today, its cryptic text includes references to an unknown location underground. The document ... includes the phrase, 'It's buried out there somewhere.'" Brown says the 20-year-old document contains the answers to a 20-year-old mystery. WTOP's National Security Correspondent J.J. Green investigated the claim, and found out it's...

The truth of what really happened on July 18, 1969, on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts will never be known. What is known is that at the end of the evening, Mary Jo Kopechne was found dead in a car that Edward (Ted) Kennedy had been driving. Was her death the result of a tragic accident or due to gross negligence on the part of Ted Kennedy? Ted Kennedy and Mary Jo Kopechne attended the same party on the evening of July 18, 1969. Kennedy left the party with Kopechne as a passenger in his car and accidentally drove off the road...

Ex-Wives Eagerly Await UBS Tax-Cheater List By Stephen Gandel It's not just the U.S. government that wants to get its hands on the list of Americans who hold secretive Swiss bank accounts. Ex-wives, creditors and former business partners are also salivating over the idea that a settlement between the U.S., the Swiss government and a Swiss bank may lead to the public disclosure of as many as 4,450 U.S. individuals that used the foreign bank accounts to hide money. Prominent New York City divorce lawyer Raoul Lionel Felder says he is already getting calls from clients who want to know...

The Federal Reserve Board, despite being ordered to disclose to whom it awarded roughly $2 trillion in discount "stimulus" loans, is fighting to keep the information under wraps as a protected "trade secret." Earlier this week, a U.S. district court judge rejected the Fed's argument that the names of borrowers are exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act and ordered the board to release the information by Monday, Aug. 31. The Fed's board of governors, however, has now filed a motion asking the judge to delay enforcement of the order, seeking time to appeal and arguing that disclosing...

Tonight’s Poll Would you trust your senator or congressman with a secret? Yes 5% 205 No 95% 4139 Total Votes: 4344 This is not a scientific poll ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Your America Below you will find the information you need to contact the leaders of Your America: To find your Senator, click here. To find your Representative, click here. Or call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Email: sf.nancy@mail.house.gov Phone: 202-225-4965 Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Email: senator_reid@reid.senate.gov Phone: 202-224-3542 President Barack Obama To Email President Obama, click here. Phone: 202-456-1111 Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano Mail: Department of...

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...

No president in modern times has managed to conceal so much of his biography as this one. The journalists assigned to the Obama beat seem to have lost their traditional avidity for digging out the missing details. We do not have a medical report, or a college transcript from Columbia, or a notion of how well he did in Harvard Law School. These things are not automatically significant, but they can be. Nobody thinks the president has some basic medical problem. He shows every sign of being in excellent physical condition. But so did John F. Kennedy, who turned out...

When liberals feel as much empathy for our own troops as they feel for our enemies, I will pay attention to what they say. When they show as much concern for Daniel Pearl as for the man who beheaded him, I will listen. When they are as distressed by the 3000 innocent people who died horribly on 9/11 as by the discomfort of 28 terrorists who are still alive, I will hear them. Until then, they should shut up. Listening to them is painful − in fact, it might be “torture.”

Health insurance can seem impenetrable. For starters, have you tried reading your policy? It's dense. With different regulations in each state, countless varieties of policies and elusive pricing practices, health insurance can seem downright confounding. And wrapped up in all this are myths about health insurance that were perhaps once true -- or never were. Here's a look at seven things you probably didn't know about your health insurer.

Last week, the computer hacker Gary McKinnon was given a Thursday deadline to apply for an oral judicial review, which is the last legal challenge that could stop his extradition to the United States. As he runs out of time and chances, it seems to me and others from across the political spectrum that we should look again at the fundamental case for extradition. There are strong arguments for allowing McKinnon to stand trial in the UK and serve any sentence in this country. The London-based hacker, who is alleged to have broken through Pentagon and Nasa security, has recently...

Belgrade, 1 August (AKI) – Bosnia's wartime president Radovan Karadzic may testify "embarrassing" secrets to the UN's Hague war crimes tribunal, a former senior international representative, Christian Schwarz-Schilling, said on Friday . "I believe Karadzic knows certain things which in any case aren’t pleasant for the international community,” Christian Schwarz-Schilling (photo) told German radio on Friday. “I suppose that he, having been involved in the events, will have to say some new things which were unknown until now,” Schwartz-Schilling said. Schwarz-Schilling, a German diplomat, was appointed High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina and as the European Union's special representative in...

Both Presidential contenders have released a list of their top Texan Contributors on their respective websites... While McCain released the donors occupation and employer, Barry withheld that information. Granted that information is public record that can be located on the Federal Election Commission website, my question is why did the Obama campaign go out of there way to conceal that information on the site? Because honestly ladies and gentleman, would could Barry possibly have to hide? ::coughs:: Special Interests::coughs::

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new book on the scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon alleges that White House counsel John Dean ordered the infamous Watergate break-in in 1972, a charge Dean strongly rejected. James Rosen, a Fox News Channel correspondent in Washington, made the charge based on interviews and an exhaustive review of documents for "The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate." Dean called Rosen's assertion "pathetic." Rosen quoted from a 1990 interview from another central Watergate figure, Jeb Magruder, that "the first plan that we got had been initiated by Dean." To help build his...

My hobby is Secrets. I am fascinated by secrets — the bigger the secret, the better I like it. Over the years, I have spent many hours and lots of money digging through mildewed stacks of forgotten government documents in libraries, reading reams of self-published zines and newsletters and pamphlets by crazy, semi-literate po' buckra, and going from link to link on the Tubes trying to glean tidbits of verifiable (or at the very least entertaining) information from various websites, all in an effort to discover the hidden truths that I crave. To this end I spent several years doing...

US military secrets sent to Suffolk tourist site By Tom Chivers Last Updated: 5:00pm GMT 29/02/2008 A tourist information website promoting a small Suffolk town has had to shut down after it received a barrage of thousands of classified US military emails. USAF F16s from Mildenhall. Thousands of sensitive emails have been misdirected to a tourist website Sensitive information including future flight paths for US Presidential aircraft Air Force One, military strategy and passwords swamped Gary Sinnott's email inbox after he established www.mildenhall.com, a site promoting the tiny town of Mildenhall where he lives, the Anglia Press Agency reports. As...

LONDON, Dec 19 (Reuters Life!) - Italian scientists have cracked open the genetic make-up of Pinot Noir, responsible for the great red wines of Burgundy, in a breakthrough that may lead to hardier vines and cheaper fine wines. The researchers said on Wednesday they had found more than 2 million genetic variants within the Pinot Noir grape, providing winegrowers with a "treasure trove" in the hunt for new strains. Pinot Noir, made famous by the 2004 film Sideways, has been dubbed the "heartbreak grape" because it is so difficult to grow and susceptible to disease. Understanding what makes up the...

Source: North Dakota State University Date: September 10, 2007 Bog Mummies Yield Secrets Science Daily — Human remains yield secrets. Researchers, including Dr. Heather Gill-Robinson, assistant professor of anthropology at North Dakota State University, are now probing the secrets of 'bog mummies' some dating back 2000 years, preserved from the Iron Age with amazing detail in peat bogs of Europe. Dr. Heather Gill-Robinson of North Dakota State University, Fargo, studies several peat bog mummies in her research, including Damendorf man, discovered near Damendorf, Germany in 1900. Using CT scanning and other technology, Dr. Gill-Robinson has identified five lower vertebrae, a...

Maintenance Man Charged With Stealing Nuclear Secrets Posted: 11:31 AM Jul 19, 2007 Maintenance Man Charged With Stealing Nuclear Secrets Knoxville (WVLT) - A former Bechtel Jacobs maintenance man at an Energy Department facility in Oak Ridge has pleaded not guilty to federal charges of stealing materials used for uranium enrichment and then trying to sell it to a foreign power. Sixty-five-year-old Roy Lynn Oakley is accused of trying to sell national secrets from the East Tennessee Technology Park. But he is home with his wife after bonding out minutes after his arraignment and only hours after turning himself in...

Shades of Valerie Plame, Guatanamo and Abu Ghriab somebody’s telling all the secrets and putting lives in jeopardy and it ain’t Karl Rove or Dick Cheney either!

A Chinese-born engineer who worked on U.S. naval technology sought to give China information on propulsion of future submarines, a federal prosecutor said Monday in urging jurors to convict the defendant of conspiring to export defense materials and other crimes. "The defendant was spying for China," Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Missakian said in closing arguments. "This man's life has been defined by one thing and that is hiding his connection to the People's Republic of China." The six-week case against Chi Mak, 66, a naturalized U.S. citizen, went to the jury later in the day after prosecutors claimed he took...

Text reveals more ancient secrets By Rebecca Morelle Science reporter, BBC News The commentary on Aristotle lay hidden within the parchment Experts are "lost for words" to have found that a medieval prayer book has yielded yet another key ancient text buried within its parchment. Works by mathematician Archimedes and the politician Hyperides had already been found buried within the book, known as the Archimedes Palimpsest. But now advanced imaging technology has revealed a third text - a commentary on the philosopher Aristotle. Project director William Noel called it a "sensational find". The prayer book was written in the 13th...

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Prosecutors in the trial of US engineer Chi Mak said Wednesday that secret US submarine technology information he had tried to smuggle to China was aimed at helping it take control of Taiwan. Assistant US attorney Greg Staples said the sensitive data on a computer disk Mak tried to provide China through his brother included information on Quiet Electric Drive, a technology under development to make submarines silent. China's navy "is supportive of the re-taking of Taiwan (and) the chief impediment to retaking Taiwan is the 7th fleet of the US Navy," Staples said as the...

A jury of eight women and four men was selected Tuesday for the federal trial of a Chinese-American engineer accused of stealing military secrets and conspiring to send them to China. The panel and four alternates, who will hear opening statements on Wednesday, were chosen after the judge and attorneys quizzed prospective jurors on a range of issues including views on Chinese immigrants, China's role in the world, the U.S. Navy, protection of military technology and occupations. Among jurors were a woman whose husband works with the Navy and government agencies, a man who loads trucks for a container company,...

Stonehenge secrets may lie by side of the road By Chris Hooper The stones at Berwick St James which are believed to be the altar stone from Stonehenge. DB1860P2 AN archaeological expert has claimed that two innocuous-looking stones at the side of a road in Berwick St James could hold clues to the secrets of Stonehenge. Dennis Price, who is a renowned expert on the site and used to work with Wessex Archaeology, believes the two large stones standing at the side of a lane next to the B3083 could be parts of Stonehenge's mysterious altar stone. The altar stone,...

Damage from Berger's theft understated, Davis saysBy Jerry Seper THE WASHINGTON TIMES January 10, 2007 Samuel R. Berger's theft of documents from the National Archives compromised national security "much more than originally disclosed" and resulted in "incomplete and misleading" information being given to the September 11 commission, says the former chairman of the House Government Reform Committee. "It is now also clear that Mr. Berger was willing to go to extraordinary lengths to compromise national security, apparently for his own convenience," Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, Virginia Republican, said yesterday. "No one ever told the commission Mr. Berger had access...

California man charged in theft of military secrets By Jerry Seper THE WASHINGTON TIMES December 15, 2006 A former Chinese national has been charged in a 36-count indictment in the theft of military trade secrets that authorities said he sought to sell to China, Malaysia and Thailand. U.S. Attorney Kevin V. Ryan in California said Xiaodong Sheldon Meng, 42, of Cupertino, Calif., is charged with stealing military combat and commercial simulation software and other materials from his San Jose, Calif.-based former employer, Quantum3D Inc. "This case highlights the vital importance of protecting the intellectual property and trade secrets not only...

The Texas Transportation Commission unrolled Sept. 28 the long-awaited road map for the Trans-Texas Corridor. Release of the Master Development Plan will result also in public disclosure of the full contract between the state and Cintra-Zachry, a private joint venture between the Spanish firm Cintra and the Texas highway contractor Zachry. Both Cintra-Zachry and the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) appealed a ruling from the Texas Attorney General’s office that the full contract is an open record. A trial was scheduled for Oct. 10 in Travis County district court. The master plan calls for the prompt building of seven segments...

Democratic Texas Supreme Court nominee Bill Moody said Monday that a construction firm may be using political contributions to win favor from the state’s highest civil court in a potential eminent domain lawsuit about the Trans-Texas Corridor. “My opponent and other members of the Supreme Court have taken sizable contributions from the Zachry group, well-knowing there is going to be an eminent domain case,” Moody said during a Waco campaign visit with the Tribune-Herald editorial board. Moody cited contributions from Zachry Construction Corporation’s political action committee and executives to his opponent, Republican Texas Supreme Court Justice Don Willett, and four...

We Americans are a suspicious lot. Gas prices go down and a good many of us assume there's a conspiracy that starts and ends in the White House. Take the results of a recent Gallup poll. Forty-two percent of those surveyed agreed with the statement that the Bush administration "deliberately manipulated the price of gasoline so that it would decrease before this fall's elections." It's a good yarn, but I can't ignore the fact that nearly two-thirds of those who said they suspected President Bush of pulling a fast one heading into the Nov. 7 elections are registered Democrats. Plus,...

Drivers willing to pay to leave Interstate 35 in the dust could have an alternative as early as the summer of 2013. For 15 cents a mile, drivers could cruise the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor for nearly 100 miles, from Hillsboro to the north Austin suburbs. The rest of the 370-mile corridor could be running in 2017, the report said. That is according to a new 1,600-page master plan for the tollway, railroad and utility corridor that the firm Cintra-Zachry developed as it prepares to build the controversial project. The report said the company’s investment will increase by $3.5 billion, construction...

Their headline is Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terror and the New York Times and Mark Mazzetti will surely get away with revealing another of America’s secrets: A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released...

Espionage: Beijing stole secrets to every U.S. nuclear warhead while funneling millions to Bill Clinton’s and other Democrats’ campaigns. Now comes news that on Clinton’s watch China recruited CIA officers as spies. Anew book by Washington Times national-security reporter Bill Gertz exposes how Chinese intelligence last decade recruited at least three CIA officers as spies, bribing them with hundreds of thousands of dollars. One CIA officer alone pocketed $600,000 in Chinese cash. Clues about the spies were first discovered in 1999 by counterespionage officials who were able to trace some of the money paid by Beijing, Gertz writes in “Enemies:...

The call from California to China, placed Oct. 19, 2005, was intercepted by the long electronic ears of the U.S. National Security Agency. Mak's reference to Red Flower of North America brought a breakthrough in a yearlong investigation into one of the most damaging losses of defense technology in American history. Chinese spies used those code words to authenticate themselves when making contact with communist China's intelligence bureaus. Other often-used code words include Winter Chrysanthemum and Autumn Orchid. ............ The fact that the spy ring went undetected for two decades was a major counterintelligence failure. Worse, the U.S. government would...

Aggrieved that its publication of the government's secret efforts to monitor terrorist finances has been criticized as "giving aid and comfort to the enemy," Bill Keller, executive editor of the New York Times has come out swinging. "It's not fair that the Times should be singled out for giving aid and comfort to the enemy," said Keller. "Everybody's doing it." Keller pointed out that since his paper broke the story hundreds of other media outlets have repeated it in various forms. "Are they going to arrest every editor in America?" "And it's not only the media that could be accused...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Three former employees of a US auto parts company have been indicted on charges of stealing company secrets and providing them to a Chinese rival, authorities said. The Justice Department said that Anne Lockwood, formerly a vice president for sales at Metaldyne, her husband Michael Haehnel, a former Metaldyne engineer and Fuping Lui, an ex-Metaldyne metallurgist were indicted in Detroit, Michigan, on 64 counts. "Regardless of the highly competitive rough and tumble of today's global automotive industry, stealing is still stealing," US Attorney Stephen J. Murphy said in a statement. The indictment unsealed Wednesday alleges that the...

Verizon: Do you remember? On 9/11, 500 Verizon employees had to run for their lives and three of them didn't make it. “As we walk through the building, which is filled with smoke and dust, it is difficult to see, difficult to breathe. Equipment is covered with dirt and soot and all sorts of things,” [Verizon Vice Chairman] Lawrence T. Babbio said. The New York Times, by irresponsibly publishing legal counterterrorism measures, has put 53 million Verzion customers in danger. Please visit Stop the New York Times and ask Verizon to stop advertising there.

When we finally sat down on the park bench, I was tired. But my curiousity wouldn't let it rest. I had to ask. "Grandpa, you know when we passed that hot dog stand guy back there? And how you picked up that wallet on the cart? And how you walked over to the kid who left it and bumped into him? I saw the wallet fall out of your hand, and you remarked to his Dad how clumsy you were getting, as you got older. I don't understand..." "Why not? The young man got his wallet back, and won't have...

If anyone doubts that the most serious threat to American security is the lack of fundamental loyalty on the part of significant segments of our population beginning with members of our intelligence and military agencies (egged on by irresponsibile leaders of the Democratic Party and the media), one has only to read this item from Reuters in today's news. Apparently some officials in the Pentagon, concerned that the White House might take action against Iran have leaked classified information to the press (which the press, of course, is all to eager to publish for our enemies to view). This particular tidbit of...

Despite a plea from the Bush Administration, the New York Times ran a story revealing that the U.S. government was tracking terrorists through their bank accounts. The classified information disclosed in the Times piece was obtained from unnamed sources alleged to be working for the CIA. “The Bush Administration’s claim that this disclosure would aid America’s enemies is ludicrous,” said an unsigned Times editorial. “The Bush Administration is America’s most dangerous enemy. Anything we can do to thwart its evil designs is our patriotic duty. In this regard, strange as it might first seem, the so-called terrorists are actually our...

Over the past decade or so, I have been amazed at the amount of secrecy that goes on within churches. Important information has been withheld from church members and the public. For example: pastors have resigned, but the whole truth of their departure has never been made public; sometimes a positive spin has been put on what is essentially a negative message. Another example is when churches have talked about how they are meeting their budget, neglecting to mention the fact that the budget is not large enough to maintain their building. Recently, I heard a lawyer explain that the...

MIDI - THE OLD GRAY MARE Seems the Old Gray Whore, she ain't what she used to be, ain't what she used to be, ain't what she used to be The Old Gray Whore, she ain't what she used to be Once she was on our side...once she was on our side...once she was on our side Seems the Old Gray Whore is helping our enemies, helping our enemies, helping our enemies The Old Gray Whore is helping our enemies She has caused men to die...she has caused men to die...she has caused men to die Seems the old...

LOS ANGELES Two family members were charged Wednesday in the federal case against a Chinese-American engineer accused of trying to send sensitive information about Navy warships to China. An indictment returned by a grand jury in Santa Ana charged Billy Mak, 26, and his mother, Fuk Heung Li, 48, with making false statements and acting as agents of a foreign government, namely China, without prior notification to the U.S. attorney general, said FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller. Billy Mak is the nephew of Chi Mak, who allegedly took computer disks from an Anaheim defense contractor where he was lead engineer on...