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By Eric Hobsbawm
$13.57
By Carl Oglesby
$16.50
$23
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U.S. Navy / Matthew Bash
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A suspected Somali terrorist who was captured and secretly interrogated aboard a U.S. Navy ship for two months while a terror case was built against him was flown from the Gulf of Aden to New York earlier this week to be tried in civilian court. (more)
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AP / David Bachar
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In a plea deal with Israeli authorities, former soldier Anat Kamm has admitted to leaking more than 2,000 classified military documents to the Haaretz newspaper, including information on an Israeli operation aimed at killing West Bank Palestinian militants.
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wikileaks.org
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U.S. officials are warning foreign governments that the WikiLeaks website is about to let fly with another batch of sensitive diplomatic documents that will be “harmful to the U.S. and our interests.”
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Wikimedia Commons
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Are you in the market for some highly enriched uranium? If so, then look no further than the exquisite black markets of Georgia, where evidence in a secret trial has shed light on smuggled uranium that is allegedly for sale in the former Soviet satellite state.
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16.jpg)
World Economic Forum
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The U.S. is easy—or so says Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli prime minister was recorded in 2001, apparently without his knowledge, claiming that the U.S. was “easy” to manipulate and that Israel should launch a broad attack against the Palestinian Authority that would be “so painful that the price will be too heavy to be borne.”
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Courtesy of crossed-flag-pins.com
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Secret talks between Turkey’s foreign minister and Israel’s cabinet minister have occurred in an attempt to remedy relations between the two countries in the wake of Israel’s bloody raid on a Turk-led aid flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip in June.
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U.S. Air Force / Staff Sgt. Derrick C. Good
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Human rights researchers and former detainees agree: Despite its stated goal of improving detention conditions, the U.S. continues to run a secret prison in Afghanistan, a site that holds inmates, sometimes for weeks at a time, without access to outside groups such as the Red Cross. Another such U.S. jail is said to exist in Iraq.
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AP / Vahid Salemi
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The continuing drama surrounding Iran’s nuclear program took a daring turn earlier this month when the U.S. revealed the existence of a secret uranium enrichment plant. Now U.N. inspectors have checked out that plant, and will do so again in the next couple days.
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U.S. Air Force / Staff Sgt. Aaron Allmon
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Since 2004, U.S. operatives have been crossing the borders of friends and foes alike in a secret global hunt for al-Qaida. According to a bombshell report in The New York Times, a dozen or so raids have been conducted in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere since Donald Rumsfeld issued a secret order with the backing of the president.
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collage: realclearpolitics.com / destination360.com
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With several new polls showing Florida breaking for Barack Obama, the state’s GOP leadership convened a secret meeting of top party and campaign officials. Florida GOP Chair Jim Greer, who organized the powwow, said, “It was just to ensure the ship is on its proper course. ...”
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guardian.co.uk
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A secret executive order signed by President Bush grants U.S. military forces “carte blanche” to launch counterterrorist operations inside Pakistan. An attack last week under the auspices of the unprecedented July order is raising concerns: Pakistani officials declared the operation illegal, and international analysts fear an escalating conflict could start a regionwide war.
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commons.wikimedia.org
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A federal judge has ruled that the testimony of David Greenglass, who helped convict his sister in one of the most famous trials in American history, shall remain secret. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed 55 years ago for conspiracy to commit espionage. Greenglass has since recanted parts of his testimony.
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White House / Eric Draper
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Scott McClellan was one of George W. Bush’s most loyal aides, so it is surprising to learn that he savages the president and his administration in his new memoir. Among other bombshells, McClellan refers to the administration’s “propaganda campaign” to sell the war and accuses Karl Rove and Scooter Libby of meeting in secret during the Plamegate scandal in order to get their stories straight.
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By Ellen Goodman — I always thought that genealogy was for people whose blood ran blue. It was for folks who traced their ancestry to the Mayflower or the American Revolution, not those who came over in steerage one step ahead of the Cossacks.
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bbc.co.uk
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Diplomatic relations could be better between Iran and America, and judging by the tough-guy posturing of both nations’ presidents, neither side is likely to back down, especially when it comes to Iran’s nuclear program. But the secret “back channel” discussions going on between the U.S. and Iran for some five years present a slightly different story.
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boston.com
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At the request of House Republicans, Congress on Thursday held a closed-door session to debate the FISA warrantless eavesdropping bill. The last time a closed-door session occurred was in 1983, when lawmakers convened in secret to discuss clandestine U.S. support of Contra paramilitaries in Nicaragua.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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A Yemeni man has told Amnesty International that he was abducted and tortured and spent nearly three years in secret prisons at the hands of the CIA. Khaled al-Maqtari says that without charge, legal representation or even a word to his family he was shuttled from one prison to another and ultimately dumped into Yemeni custody, once the U.S. had finished with him.
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supremecourtus.gov
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The Supreme Court rejected an appeal related to the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretap program on Tuesday, offering no explanation. The American Civil Liberties Union and others have had a hard time proving the plaintiffs were spied on because the evidence they need is considered a government secret.
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By Eugene Robinson — It is insane to waste time and energy worrying that somewhere, doubtless in a high-tech subterranean lair, Republican masterminds are cackling over their diabolical plot: The use of reverse psychology to lure unsuspecting Democrats into nominating Barack Obama, an innocent lamb who will be chewed up by the attack machine in the fall. Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!
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By David Sirota — A recent study found that one-third of Americans “believe in a broad smorgasbord of conspiracy theories,” which really isn’t that surprising considering we have a government that has gone out of its way to undermine the rule of law and public accountability.
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guardian.co.uk
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The British government’s Foreign Affairs Committee will look into charges by a number of sources, including human rights groups and a retired U.S. general, that sovereign British land has been used as a CIA “black site” prison. The island of Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean, has been leased to the United States and is the site of an American military base but remains British territory.
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washingtonpost.com
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It sounds far-fetched, but a number of protesters swear they’ve spotted robotic insects hovering around anti-war rallies. The government denies deploying robot spies, but it’s known that the U.S. military has had robotic flies, such as the one above, since World War II.
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In 2005, the Justice Department issued two secret opinions on torture that endorsed and protected the administration’s desire to use physically and psychologically traumatizing interrogation techniques. Then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey reportedly warned his colleagues that they would be “ashamed” when their work became public.
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whitehouse.gov
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Julia Wilson, a 14-year-old honor student, was removed from her class and interrogated by Secret Service agents for writing “kill Bush” on her MySpace page. The teen said the agents’ “unnecessarily mean” questioning brought her to tears, but ultimately encouraged her activism against the Iraq war.
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This week, our selection of the best Truthdig-flavored videos contains Keith Olbermann’s iconic Ground Zero diatribe against President Bush; Matt Lauer’s harsh questioning of the president on torture and secret CIA prisons; and George Clooney’s impassioned plea to the U.N. to act against the looming threat of genocide in Darfur.
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NBC host Matt Lauer confronts President Bush on a fundamental apparent inconsistency in his interrogation policy: If it’s legal, why are we doing it in secret CIA prisons abroad? Cornered, Bush doesn’t answer straight. Watch the fireworks.
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Illustration by Peter Scheer
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In 2002 Abu Zubaydah, a captured Bin Laden henchman, experienced two radically different kinds of interrogation as the FBI and the CIA secretly engaged in a debate that continues today. As one official put it: ?When you rough these guys up, all you do is fulfill their fantasies about what to expect from us.?
Posted on Sep 9, 2006
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The AP is reporting that the president is transferring 14 key terrorist leaders, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed, above, from secret CIA custody to the U.S. military-run prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to be prepared for eventual trials. The prisoners will apparently be afforded some rights consistent with the Geneva conventions.
Yeah, well, Bush also signed a bill in December outlawing the torture of detainees, and then made a “signing statement” announcing his intention to flout that law. So excuse us for being cynical about the president’s motives and intentions here.
UPDATE: Former DOJ lawyer and law prof Marty Lederman says Bush’s new bill actually authorizes “enhanced interrogation techniques.”
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Illustration by Peter Scheer
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A bipartisan Senate bill that would have created a public database of all government contracts has been blocked by an unknown senator. The bill, which passed its committee unanimously, can now move forward only if the mysterious senator who placed it on “secret hold” removes the constraint. (h/t: Crooks and Liars)
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digitalpicturesoncd.com
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This tale of corporate theft is too good to miss: Insiders at Coca-Cola got nabbed in a sting operation when they tried to sell trade secrets about a new soft drink to the folks at Pepsi.
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The former president bemoans the current White House’s obsession with secrecy: “Increasingly, developed and developing nations are recognizing that a free flow of information is fundamental for democracy.”
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The logs will show how often the convicted lobbyist met with Bush administration officials—and with whom he met.
Posted on May 1, 2006
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By Molly Ivins — It’s nice to know that the investigative reporter Jack Anderson is still under investigation, although seriously dead.
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Vice President Cheney’s indicted former top aide, Scooter Libby, has told a grand jury that his “superiors” granted him permission to give secret information to reporters to help bolster the White House’s case for war on Iraq. | story
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Christian Lutz / AP
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The charge comes from the head of a European probe into alleged secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe. | story
Posted on Jan 24, 2006
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Fifty-six percent says government should get warrants to eavesdrop on U.S.-international calls | more
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Quelle Surprise! Haiti on the Mend
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