Domestic Glance
The filing in a federal court case also makes clear that Cheney was at the center of White House machinations rebutting criticism from former US Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who charged in summer 2003 that the Bush administration had "twisted" intelligence to justify invading Iraq in March 2003. While seeking to discredit Wilson, administration officials disclosed to reporters that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, worked for the CIA.
DOJ Reveals Details About Cheney's Interview With Patrick Fitzgerald
NSA Shields Government Networks With More AT&T Secret Rooms
Just a week after the Defense Department announced plans to put the National Security Agency in charge of military cyber defense and attack, the agency’s reach has already expanded to include monitoring of government civilian networks.
Given the NSA’s involvement in the Bush administration’s warrantless eavesdropping program, critics are concerned that the monitoring of government traffic on private-sector telecommunication networks that are used by the general public would allow the agency to once again spy on large swaths of non-government traffic without a warrant.
Cybersecurity Plan to Involve NSA, Telecoms
The Obama administration will proceed with a Bush-era plan to use National Security Agency assistance in screening government computer traffic on private-sector networks, with AT&T as the likely test site, according to three current and former government officials.
President Obama said in May that government efforts to protect computer systems from attack would not involve "monitoring private-sector networks or Internet traffic," and Department of Homeland Security officials say the new program will scrutinize only data going to or from government systems.
But the program has provoked debate within DHS, the officials said, because of uncertainty about whether private data can be shielded from unauthorized scrutiny, how much of a role NSA should play and whether the agency's involvement in warrantless wiretapping during George W. Bush's presidency would draw controversy.
TVNL Comment: Still waiting for that change we were promised.
New Evidence Cheney Swayed Reaction to Leak
A document filed in federal court this week by the Justice Department offers new evidence that former vice president Richard B. Cheney helped steer the Bush administration's public response to the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson's employment by the CIA and that he was at the center of many related administration deliberations.
The administration's discussion of Wilson's link to the CIA was meant to undermine criticism by her husband of administration allegations that Iraq attempted to acquire uranium, a matter that her husband had probed for the CIA, according to testimony presented in a 2007 trial.
It’s Now Legal to Catch a Raindrop in Colorado
Precipitation, every last drop or flake, was assigned ownership from the moment it fell in many Western states, making scofflaws of people who scooped rainfall from their own gutters. In some instances, the rights to that water were assigned a century or more ago.
Now two new laws in Colorado will allow many people to collect rainwater legally.
TVNL Comment: How is that for a free nation; your rain is owned by the government!
Supreme Court: Strip search of 13-year-old unconstitutional
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the strip search of a 13-year-old student violated the constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
The court ruled 8-1 that Arizona school officials violated Savana Redding's Fourth Amendment rights when they searched her down to her bra and underpants. Officials were looking for pain relievers, which they didn't find.
US supreme court refuses to hear appeal by former CIA operative
A lawsuit by former CIA operative Valerie Plame against former Bush administration officials will not be revived by the US supreme court.
Last year a lower court tossed out the lawsuit filed by Plame and her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, which accused Dick Cheney and former top Bush officials of leaking Plame's identity to the media in 2003. Wilson and Plame argued the move violated their constitutional rights.
The US court of appeals said the lawsuit didn't meet legal standards for constitutional claims because part of the suit is based on alleged violations of the Privacy Act, a law that does not cover the president or the vice-president's offices.
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