A Texas prosecutor has issued subpoenas for bank records and other information of a defense contractor involved in the bribery case of a California congressman, as part of the investigation of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121405L.shtml

The United States has tied with Myanmar, the former Burma, for sixth place among countries that are holding the largest number of journalists behind bars, according to a new report by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121405K.shtml

With Congress on the verge of passing the sweeping McCain amendment, the Bush administration has taken its drive to permit torture to new depths.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121405J.shtml

Ray McGovern: McCain, himself a victim of torture in Vietnam, is trying to bring the US into compliance with international norms, while the Bush administration is trying desperately to leave the door open for CIA and contract interrogators to act beyond those norms without threat of prosecution. Who will blink, Cheney or McCain?

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121405I.shtml

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/10/15/14542/384


Informant: Friends

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_12_04.php#007213

Republican congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham recently resigned after pleading guilty to graft and tearfully admitting that he took $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors, prompting an interesting question from Joshua Micah Marshall:

"How did Duke Cunningham manage to get so far entangled in an ethics mess that he had to plead guilty to federal charges of accepting bribes without anyone referring his case to the House ethics committee?

Think about that for a second.

With all that came out about Cunningham over the last six months and not one Democrat even filed a complaint against him, let alone any Republicans?" Melanie Sloan provides the answer:

"Since 1998, there has been an ethics 'truce' in the House of Representatives, under the terms of which no member will file an ethics complaint against another member.

Because outsiders are prohibited from filing complaints with the House ethics committee, this has effectively shut down the ethics process."


SOURCE: Talking Points Memo, December 8, 2005
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4281


Informant: Friends

http://www.infowars.com/articles/Bush/bush_chb_const_paper_profane.htm


Informant: Neo Mulder

A $300 million Pentagon psychological warfare operation includes plans for placing pro-American messages in foreign media outlets without disclosing the US government as the source, one of the military officials in charge of the program says.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121405Y.shtml

CIVIL LIBERTIES An Un-PATRIOT-ic Compromise

"Benjamin Franklin once said that a country that would give up their liberties for security deserves neither," Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) remarked yesterday. "Well, we can have our security. We can have our liberties." Unfortunately, the Patriot Act deal reached by House and Senate negotiators yesterday does not accomplish that. Specifically, it doesn't do enough to protect the privacy rights of ordinary Americans. Government investigators can still obtain personal data too easily and operate without proper supervision from the courts. The bill is already causing a stir on Capitol Hill. A bipartisan group of six Senators -- Sens. Larry Craig (R-ID), John Sununu (R-NH), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Richard Durbin (D-IL), Ken Salazar (D-CO), Russ Feingold (D-WI) -- have come out against it, saying they are "gravely disappointed," and Feingold has threatened to block the legislation with a filibuster. To learn more about why Congress should reject the Patriot Act conference report, read this statement from American Progress.

WEAK PROTECTIONS AGAINST NATIONAL SECURITY LETTERS: The government began issuing National Security Letters (NSLs) in the 1970s as "narrow exceptions in consumer privacy law, enabling the FBI to review in secret the customer records of suspected foreign agents." The Patriot Act "transformed those letters by permitting clandestine scrutiny of U.S. residents and visitors who are not alleged to be terrorists or spies." NSL recipients are not allowed to tell anyone they have received them. The Washington Post reported last month that the FBI now hands out over 30,000 national security letters per year, "a hundredfold increase over historic norms," which are allowing the government to view "as never before into the telephone calls, correspondence and financial lives of ordinary Americans." Yesterday's compromise does not do enough to protect the civil liberties of the citizens these letters target. The extended NSL authority will not sunset like other controversial sections of the Patriot Act and investigators can still force courts to accept the government's argument that NSL gag orders should not be lifted.

OBTAINING PERSONAL RECORDS STILL TOO EASY: The controversial issue of library record searches intensified earlier this year, after an American Library Association (ALA) report found that "U.S. law enforcement authorities made more than 200 requests for information from libraries since October 2001." The ALA said at the time, "What this says to us is that agents are coming to libraries and they are asking for information at a level that is significant, and the findings are completely contrary to what the Justice Department has been trying to convince the public." The compromise sunsets the Patriot Act's infamous "library provisions" in four years, but will not tighten the standards the government needs to subpoena personal information. The government can still obtain personal data merely by showing "relevance" to a terrorism investigation.


Informant: Scott Munson

http://allafrica.com/stories/200512120636.html


Informant: Scott Munson