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The Blair Church Massacre, Continued. A Chronology of the Timor Killings.

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

allannairn.com - By Allan Nairn - Jan. 09 (Special Report) - Though Blair was instructed to tell the killers -- the armed forces of Indonesia -- to stop, he chose not to do so. He did the opposite. He offered them support and US aid, instead, and the killings intensified. They culminated with the torching of the Bishop's house (plus executions), a church massacre of perhaps 200, in Suai, a slaughter at the Catholic diocesan office, the rapes and assassinations of clergy, the burning of perhaps 80% of Timor's housing, and the murders of more than 1,000 civilians.

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Agencies Move to Restrict FOIA Access in Last-Minute Regs

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

ProPublica - By Jennifer LaFleur - Jan. 06 (News Report) - As one of the most secretive presidential administrations in history gets ready to close up shop, it's closing a few more things -- records. Over the past few months, some federal agencies have issued rules that would eliminate public disclosure of information -- or, in some cases, make it more difficult for requesters to get information.

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Election a big story, but 9/11 trumps all

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Sand Mountain Reporter - By David Clemons - Jan. 05 (Opinion) - Bush had the highest-ever popularity ratings that day. He’ll leave office as the president whose poll ratings went lower than any other. Much of that is earned.

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Ghana's tight election appears to produce victory for the opposition

Sat, 03 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Economist - By - Jan. 03 (News Analysis) - As officials appeared poised on Saturday January 3rd to declare, at last, the result of Ghana’s presidential elections, it looked most likely that the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) party would claim a narrow victory over the ruling New Patriotic Party

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Another brutal year for liberty

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Salon - By Glenn Greenwald - Jan. 01 (Opinion) - It is clearer than ever what the Obama administration can and must do in order to arrest and reverse the decade-long war on the Constitution waged by our own government.

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Sex offenders must hand over passwords - Crime & courts- msnbc.com

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

MSNBC - By - Dec. 30 (News Report) - ATLANTA - Privacy advocates are questioning an aggressive Georgia law set to take effect Thursday that would require sex offenders to hand over Internet passwords, screen names and e-mail addresses. Georgia joins a small band of states complying with guidelines in a 2006 federal law requiring authorities to track Internet addresses of sex offenders, but it is among the first to take the extra step of forcing its 16,000 offenders to turn in their passwords as well.

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FBI official in 'Omaha Two' case was master media manipulator and self-described liar

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Op Ed News - By Michael Richardson - Dec. 30 (Special Report) - In a rare moment of candor, Sullivan confessed to his deceptions. "The bureau system made liars of us all. If you didn't lie you couldn't survive."

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You’re Likable Enough, Gay People

Sun, 28 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Frank Rich - Dec. 28 (Opinion) - You can’t blame V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the first openly gay Episcopal bishop and an early Obama booster, for feeling as if he’d been slapped in the face. “I’m all for Rick Warren being at the table,” he told The Times, but “we’re talking about putting someone up front and center at what will be the most-watched inauguration in history, and asking his blessing on the nation. And the God that he’s praying to is not the God that I know.”

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Child maid trafficking spreads from Africa to US

Sun, 28 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Boston Globe - By Rukmini Callimachi - Dec. 28 (Investigative Report) - IRVINE, Calif.—Late at night, the neighbors saw a little girl at the kitchen sink of the house next door. They watched through their window as the child rinsed plates under the open faucet. She wasn't much taller than the counter and the soapy water swallowed her slender arms.

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The Choice Is Ours Now

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Melissa Etheridge - Dec. 23 (Opinion) - I received a call from Pastor Rick, and before I could say anything, he told me what a fan he was. He had most of my albums from the very first one. What? This didn't sound like a gay hater, much less a preacher. He explained in very thoughtful words that as a Christian he believed in equal rights for everyone. He believed every loving relationship should have equal protection. He struggled with proposition 8 because he didn't want to see marriage redefined as anything other than between a man and a woman. He said he regretted his choice of words in his video message to his congregation about proposition 8 when he mentioned pedophiles and those who commit incest. He said that in no way, is that how he thought about gays.

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U.S. Military Preparing for Domestic Disturbances

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

newsmax.com - By Jim Meyers - Dec. 23 (News Report) - The report from the War College’s Strategic Studies Institute warns that the U.S. military must prepare for a “violent, strategic dislocation inside the United States” that could be provoked by “unforeseen economic collapse” or “loss of functioning political and legal order.”

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Did Bush officials commit war crimes? Maybe, but trials aren't likely

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

McClatchy - By Marisa Taylor - Dec. 22 (News Analysis) - Emboldened by a Democratic win of the White House, civil libertarians and human rights groups want the incoming Obama administration to investigate whether the Bush administration committed war crimes. They don't just want low-level CIA interrogators, either. They want President George W. Bush on down.

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'Deep Throat' betrayed murdered policeman in 'Omaha Two' case

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Op Ed News - By Michael Richardson - Dec. 22 (Opinion) - William Mark Felt, the infamous 'Deep Throat' of Watergate fame, was no hero. Felt, who had engaged in and covered up dirty tricks and illegal conduct of FBI agents for years, was making a move to become the new boss.

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Nervous Russia stomps dissent

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Christian Science Monitor - By Fred Weir - Dec. 20 (News Analysis) - The collapse of oil prices and the Russian ruble have ignited relatively small protests against the government here. But reaction from the Kremlin has been fast and furious.

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China's All-Seeing Eye

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Rolling Stone - By Naomi Klein - Dec. 19 (Investigative Report) - Over the past two years, some 200,000 surveillance cameras have been installed throughout the city. Many are in public spaces, disguised as lampposts. The closed-circuit TV cameras will soon be connected to a single, nationwide network, an all-seeing system that will be capable of tracking and identifying anyone who comes within its range — a project driven in part by U.S. technology and investment. Over the next three years, Chinese security executives predict they will install as many as 2 million CCTVs in Shenzhen, which would make it the most watched city in the world. (Security-crazy London boasts only half a million surveillance cameras.)

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Why Justice Lawyers Defied President Bush

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Newsweek - By Daniel Klaidman - Dec. 14 (News Report) - It is one of the darkly iconic scenes of the Bush Administration. In March 2004, two of the president's most senior advisers rushed to a Washington hospital room where they confronted a bedridden John Ashcroft. White House chief of staff Andy Card and counsel Alberto Gonzales pressured the attorney general to renew a massive domestic-spying program that would lapse in a matter of days. But others hurried to the hospital room, too. Ashcroft's deputy, James Comey, later joined by FBI Director Robert Mueller, stood over Ashcroft's bed to make sure the White House aides didn't coax their drugged and bleary colleague into signing something unwittingly. The attorney general, sick and pain-racked from a rare pancreatic disease, rose up from his bed, gathering what little strength he had, and firmly told the president's emissaries that he would not sign their papers.

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The Whistleblower Who Exposed Warrantless Wiretaps

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Newsweek - By Michael Isikoff - Dec. 14 (Special Report) - 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, Terry, calls a "passion for justice." For that reason, there was one secret he says he felt duty-bound to reveal.

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Mumbai was not our 9/11

Sat, 13 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Common Dreams - By Arundhati Roy - Dec. 13 (Opinion) - ...But November isn't September, 2008 isn't 2001, Pakistan isn't Afghanistan and India isn't America. So perhaps we should reclaim our tragedy and pick through the debris with our own brains and our own broken hearts so that we can arrive at our own conclusions

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Mike Huckabee Pt. 2

Sat, 13 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Daily Show - By - Dec. 13 (Interview) - Just because Mike Huckabee doesn't support the idea of changing the definition of marriage doesn't mean he's a homophobe.

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Total Information Awareness

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

New Republic - By James Grimmelmann - Dec. 11 (News Analysis) - Barack Obama deployed a campaign database that made the GOP's data-gathering efforts look like the work of amateurs.

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Spying on pacifists, environmentalists and nuns

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Los Angeles Times - By Bob Drogin - Dec. 09 (News Report) - Maryland officials now concede that, based on information gathered by "Lucy" and others, state police wrongly listed at least 53 Americans as terrorists in a criminal intelligence database -- and shared some information about them with half a dozen state and federal agencies, including the National Security Agency.

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At OpEdNews: COINTELPRO plot against 'Omaha Two' included a cadre of top FBI officials

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Op Ed News - By Michael Richardson - Dec. 09 (Investigative Report) - In Omaha, Nebraska the leaders of a Black Panther group, Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa (formerly David Rice), were the targets of a clandestine operation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation code-named COINTELPRO. J. Edgar Hoover, then FBI director, had ordered the massive but secret operation against the Panthers and other domestic political organizations and individuals. Hoover's goal was to "disrupt" the Black Panthers out of existence by targeting its leadership for elimination, prosecution and a host of dirty tricks.

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