Free Republic

The UN Copenhagen climate talks are in disarray today after developing countries reacted furiously to leaked documents that show world leaders will next week be asked to sign an agreement that hands more power to rich countries and sidelines the UN's role in all future climate change negotiations.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Dozens of lawmakers have drawn scrutiny from their ethics monitor this year for everything from financial dealings to travel and campaign donations, according to a leaked account showing an active House panel secretly at work.

Bob Woodward’s Monday-morning exclusive on a 66-page report from Gen. Stanley McChrystal to President Barack Obama about Afghanistan policy was a rite of passage for the new administration: the first major national security leak and a sure sign that the celebrated Washington Post reporter has penetrated yet another administration. White House officials greeted the leak with a grimace, but none suggested they’d begin a witch hunt for the leaker. Woodward is famous for his access to the principals themselves — he recently traveled to Afghanistan with National Security Adviser James Jones — and leak hunters couldn’t expect with confidence that...

The Associated Press story about the leaked report on the legal defense fund complaint is a clear example of media malpractice. Rachel D’Oro erroneously reported that Gov. Palin was found in violation of the Ethics Act. That is completely false. The leaked document was a preliminary report -- the first part of a long process. Gov. Palin’s own attorney stated: “The resolution of the Trust Fund is not final. I have been working with the investigator regarding supplemental information. The matter is still pending. Whatever you have seen was released in violation of law. There has been no Board finding...

Republicans ignited a firestorm of controversy on Thursday by revealing some of what they had been told at a closed-door Intelligence Committee hearing on the interrogation of terrorism suspects. Democrats immediately blasted the GOP lawmakers for publicly discussing classified information, while Republicans said Democrats are trying to hide the truth that enhanced interrogation of detainees is effective. GOP members on the Intelligence Committee on Thursday told The Hill in on-the-record interviews that they were informed that the controversial methods have led to information that prevented terrorist attacks.

The federal government mistakenly made public a 266-page report, its pages marked “highly confidential,” that gives detailed information about hundreds of the nation’s civilian nuclear sites and programs, including maps showing the precise locations of stockpiles of fuel for nuclear weapons. The publication of the document was revealed Monday in an on-line newsletter devoted to issues of federal secrecy. That publicity set off a debate among nuclear experts about what dangers, if any, the disclosures posed. It also prompted a flurry of investigations in Washington into why the document was made public. On Tuesday evening, after inquiries from The New...

5/14/2009 - KADENA AIR BASE, Japan (AFNS) -- Most of us hear stories of Airmen saving lives in combat, but an Airman who saves the lives of more than 300 passengers is definitely a story worth hearing. A fuel leak on a civilian aircraft caught the attention of Staff Sgt. Bartek Bachleda, 909th Air Refueling Squadron boom operator, during a flight from Chicago to Narita airport, Japan. After alerting the pilots and aircrew, the ranking pilot made the decision to divert the flight to San Francisco. "I noticed the leak on the left side of the aircraft right behind the...

Mr Obama fears a backlash against U.S. troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Further images purportedly from the 2,000 include one of a naked man covered in excrement with a guard standing in front of him. Others yet to be released are alleged to show guards threatening to sexually assault a detainee with a broomstick and hooded prisoners in transport planes with copies of Playboy magazine showing naked women open on their laps. The president had previously committed to allowing them to be seen but changed his mind after senior generals said it could place U.S. troops serving in Iraq...

Report: Jane Harman recorded vowing take action for AIPAC on wiretap @ 9:33 am by Jeremy P. Jacobs Congresswoman Jane Harman was recorded on a NSA wiretapped conversation agreeing to work to downgrade espionage charges against two officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in return for help securing the chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee, according to Jeff Stein's anonymously sourced column in Congressional Quarterly. Harman, a California Democrat, was allegedly recorded in a conversation with a suspected Israeli agent. The conversation reportedly took place before the 2006 election, when Democrats seized control of the chamber and, therefore,...

[image of letter] A mysterious Hollywood blog announced this week that it was in possession of a leaked letter that prematurely announced the winners of tonight’s Oscars. To see the letter and the list of winners click the image above, or click here. The blog has suddenly been taken down, which makes some insiders believe the leak may be true. “The document,” Academy spokesperson Leslie Unger said, “is a complete fraud.” It’s only appropriate that an industry that blurs the line between reality and fantasy should have a controversy like this. We’ll all know in a few hours who’s telling...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, announced that U.S. drone aircraft are flying from bases within Pakistan. This revelation embarrasses the Pakistani government and endangers the lives of U.S. and Pakistani personnel.

BARBOURSVILLE, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- A lot of people hit the Huntington Mall to find shelter from the storm. Power outages at home forcing them to flee in search of warmth and something to eat, but the mall is battling its own problems. Water damage has forced many businesses to shut down. The Mall’s Management would not allow WSAZ on the property with our camera so I went in as a customer. What I found was a mess. A leaking roof has affected roughly 50 stores inside, forcing some to close. Mall Management said the building is 28 years old, and...

Conventional wisdom holds that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald ordered the FBI to arrest Rod Blagojevich before sunrise Tuesday in order to stop a crime from being committed. That would have been the sale of the Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama. But the opposite is true: Members of Fitzgerald’s team are livid the scheme didn’t advance, at least for a little longer, according to some people close to Fitzgerald’s office. Why? Because had the plot unfolded, they might have had an opportunity most feds can only dream of: A chance to catch the sale of a Senate seat on...

Remember when Democrats lamented the growing budget deficit and spoke of the burden our children and grandchildren would face if we didn't put our fiscal house in order? That was when Republicans ran the federal government and Democrats opposed tax cuts. Now that Democrats are about to be in charge, concern about the deficit has disappeared and spending plans proliferate, even though the national debt passed $10 trillion in September and we added another $500 billion last month. The latest, but by no means the last supplicant at the public trough, is the auto industry, which wants a bailout to...

OTTAWA–Faced with a darkening economic outlook, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the premiers are pledging to speed up infrastructure spending, look at easing rules for retirement savings and consider ways to boost Ontario's hard-hit automotive sector. With an eye on the massive rescue package offered by the U.S. government for General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, Harper yesterday dangled the possibility of a government bailout package to help the auto industry, but fell short of promising concrete action. And in a major development for Toronto and other urban centres, Harper and the premiers emerged from a meeting about the economy agreeing...

Reports leaking out of the meeting suggested that Bush indicated he would support Obama's hopes for another round of stimulus checks for U.S. taxpayers if Congress would also approve a long-stalled, free-trade pact with Colombia. Leaks also said that Obama urged Bush to use part of the $700 billion in bailout funds to help the country's automobile makers immediately, to which Bush remained noncommital. Obama's camp was mum today, but White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters before the ceremony aboard the USS Intrepid that the president did not try to cut a deal with Obama on his stimulus request....

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she will push legislation next week to help the ailing auto industry. "I am confident Congress can consider emergency assistance legislation next week during a lame-duck session, and I hope the Bush Administration would support it," the California Democrat said in a statement. Rep. Pelosi said she tapped House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D., Mass.) to craft legislation that would give the industry "limited" assistance under the recently enacted Troubled Asset Relief Program. "In order to prevent the failure of one or more of the major American automobile manufacturers, which would have...

The Democratic leaders in Congress, the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, have declined to call a lame-duck session for next week, as they had hoped, without assurance that Bush would support a stimulus package.

By now, most people have heard about The Associated Press report that Sen. Barack Obama has a distant aunt –- his deceased father’s half-sister -– living in Boston who is an undocumented alien. They may also know that Zeituni Onyango, from Kenya, was denied political asylum by an immigration judge four years ago. As Josh Micah Marshall at Talking Points Memo reported Saturday, Rep John Conyers (D-Mich), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee wrote an angry letter to Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Dept. of Homeland Security, saying the disclosure, by at least one “federal law enforcement official,” according to...

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd should launch an investigation into the leaking of details of a sensitive phone call he had with US President George W Bush, former foreign minister Alexander Downer says. Details of the call to discuss the global financial crisis were reported last week in The Weekend Australian. During the call, Mr Bush reportedly responded to Mr Rudd's suggestion of a G20 summit to deal with the crisis by saying: "What's the G20?''. US officials and Mr Rudd's office have since denied Mr Bush made any such remark.

WASHINGTON – The government is investigating whether any laws were broken involving details about the disclosure that Barack Obama's aunt was living in the country illegally. The Associated Press learned late Friday learned that Obama's half aunt, who is from Kenya, was ordered to leave the United States years ago after an immigration judge denied her request for asylum. The woman, Zeituni Onyango (zay-TUHN on-YANG-oh), is living in public housing in Boston and is the half-sister of Obama's late father. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement asked its inspector general and the Office of Professional Responsibility on Saturday to investigate whether...

MIDI - LIVING ON A PRAYER

Former vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby told the FBI that it was "possible" that Vice President Cheney instructed him to disseminate information about CIA agent Valerie Plame to the press, according to a redacted FBI report recently examined by Congressional investigators. In part as a result of that revelation, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today reiterated its request for more Plame investigation documents -- including reports on the interviews investigators conducted with Cheney and President Bush. In a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Committee Chairman Henry Waxman also writes that "[n]ew revelations by...

Israeli military intelligence officials have accused President George W Bush’s administration of undermining their attempts to infiltrate Al-Qaeda’s operations in Iraq by revealing the contents of a secret letter written by Osama Bin Laden’s second-in-command. Israel passed the letter — in which Ayman al-Zawahiri outlined his Middle East strategy to Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, the Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq — to Washington last October on condition of strict anonymity. Israeli officials were dismayed, however, when John Negroponte, the US director of national intelligence, made it available in both English and its original Arabic on his office web site. Israeli intelligence...

Bushed: A resident of San Francisco's Pacific Heights neighborhood whose regular exercise regimen includes walking the Lyon Street steps was startled the other night when a man popped out of the bushes right in front of the home owned by Sen. Dianne Feinstein and megabucks husband Richard Blum. It was a security guard who was keeping watch over the senator's home, which is also monitored by some eyes in the sky - cameras atop the house's roof. The guard promptly apologized, telling our walker, "I have to go off camera and go to the bathroom in the bushes." "That makes...

An explosion blew out the store fronts of three businesses in downtown Durango on Friday afternoon, injuring up to five firefighters. The fire was initially reported at 1:40 p.m. as smoke and flame visible from the roof of Seasons Restaurant. Later reports said the fire may have started at Le Rendezvous. At approximately 2:30 p.m. the fronts of Seasons, 764 Main Ave.; Le Rendezvous, 750 Main Ave.; and Half-Price Tees, 758 Main Ave.; blew out at about 2:30 p.m., showering the street with flying glass, bricks and other debris. Scanner reported fire fighters still had “active fire” at Seasons at...

Not Every Leak Is Fit to Print Why have federal prosecutors subpoenaed a New York Times reporter?by Gabriel Schoenfeld 02/18/2008, Volume 013, Issue 22 Investigations of national-security leaks in Washington are not all that rare. But until Judith Miller of the New York Times was sent to jail for 85 days by a special prosecutor digging into the Valerie Plame imbroglio, investigations of such leaks in which journalists are subpoenaed were about as common as unicorns wandering the National Mall. We now have another such unicorn. On January 24, a federal grand jury in Alexandria issued a subpoena to...

WASHINGTON - Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said Sunday he was foolish to have revealed Valerie Plame's CIA identity. Armitage's acknowledgment came in response to comments by Plame, who said the former Bush administration official had no right to talk to a reporter about where she worked. A year ago, Armitage publicly apologized to Plame and her husband. The former No. 2 State Department official remains the only principal in the leak to have done so. At least three one-time administration officials in addition to Armitage discussed Plame's CIA status with reporters. They are former White House political...

Israel obtained detailed photographs from inside an alleged Syrian nuclear facility prior to carrying out an air strike on September 6, ABC News reported over the weekend. An unnamed senior source in the US told the news network that the Mossad had discovered in the summer that Syria was constructing a nuclear facility and proceeded to either place a mole inside the plant or convince one of the workers to supply Israel with intelligence. Through the mole, the source said, Israel received pictures from the ground that showed a large cylindrical structure, trucks, and a pumping station - all of...

A majority of New York voters -- 53% -- now believe that Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D) knew what his aides were doing when they arranged for State Police records of Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno's (R) travels to be leaked to the media, according to a new Quinnipiac poll. Spitzer has denied knowing about the scheme. As a result, Spitzer's approval rating plunged to 48%, down from 60% last month. Another interesting finding: While 50% of voters agree that Spitzer is a "steamroller," only 18% say this tactic is working, while 53% say it contributes to legislative gridlock. A new...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - A week before Endeavour's planned liftoff, NASA was analyzing a cabin leak in the space shuttle Tuesday. The leak was detected over the weekend. NASA thought it fixed the problem by tightening a loose bolt, but testing Monday night confirmed air was still escaping from the crew cabin, said NASA spokeswoman Tracy Young. Engineers have yet to pinpoint the leak, which could require so much work that NASA might not be able to launch Endeavour on Aug. 7. NASA's planned launch of the Mars lander Phoenix later this week could also interfere with Endeavour's flight. The...

Mohammed Warsame seen in an undated photograph. (The photograph's background has been obscured to protect the source. ABCNEWS independently confirmed that the photograph shows Warsame.) U.S. Attempt to Turn Al Qaeda Suspect Into U.S. Informant Soured by Press Leak By Pierre Thomas Feb. 13 — When a Somali-born computer student was arrested in Minneapolis last December on suspicion of helping al Qaeda, federal counterterrorism officials thought they might finally have found what they desperately need — a way of getting inside Osama bin Laden's shadowy network. The counterterrorism officials developed a plan to turn the man, Mohammed Warsame, into a...

Prosecutors in Italy have issued three more arrest warrants over the kidnapping of an Egyptian imam based in Milan by a team of CIA agents. Among those wanted in connection with the operation, which led to the man - Abu Omar - being tortured in Egypt, is a 38-year-old female CIA agent who was working as a diplomat at the US embassy in Rome and is said to have led the operation. Betnie Medero, who was second secretary at the embassy until a few months ago, is one of 22 CIA agents now wanted by Italian police over the kidnapping,...

Newly appointed NBC Universal Entertainment Co-chairman Ben Silverman has castigated L.A. Weekly columnist Nikki Finke, who broke the story on her website last week that top NBC executives were planning to replace Entertainment President Kevin Reilly with Silverman. On Monday, TV Week quoted Silverman as saying, "I hate the blog world. ... It ends up interfering with people's lives. It messes with the process." The trade publication said that Finke's report "sent the entire NBC dealmaking team into frantic overdrive through the Memorial Day weekend."

A civil servant and an MP's researcher have been found guilty of breaching the Official Secrets Act. They leaked an "extremely sensitive" memo about talks on Iraq between Tony Blair and President Bush. Cabinet Office communications officer David Keogh passed the four-page document to Leo O'Connor, a researcher for anti-war Labour MP Anthony Clarke. Keogh was found guilty on two charges and O'Connor on one. The jury heard Keogh, 50, believed the memo exposed President Bush as a "madman". He hoped it could be used to raise questions in the House of Commons. He also wanted it to be passed...

The debate over the verdict in the Lewis “Scooter” Libby obstruction of justice and perjury trial will go on for years. The fact that the catalyst for the investigation – whether Valerie Plame was classified as a covert agent at the time of the so-called “leak” – is but one of the contentious issues. But if we allow this adjudication to become politicized, if we allow revisionists like Harry Reid to rewrite the actualities of the case, we are not only doing a disservice to our country we would be complicit in its degradation. Harry Reid and the politically opportune...

China's Ex-Envoy to Korea Accused of Leaks Former Chinese ambassador to Korea Li Bin has been accused by China of disclosing state secrets related to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s visit to China last January, according to a report Wednesday in Hong Kong's Ming Pao Daily News. According to the article, the accusations against Li may be related to reports on Kim's plans to visit China that appeared in the South Korean and Japanese press. Typically, Kim's visits to China are not disclosed by the Chinese government until after he has left, and then only in passing. The Hong Kong...

WASHINGTON - Three prominent journalists testified Monday that Bush administration officials volunteered leaks about a CIA operative, as I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's attorneys sought to suggest he was not responsible for exposing her. The jury in Libby's perjury trial heard a 66-second snippet of one of the deep background interviews given to Washington Post editor Bob Woodward for use in one of his books. They also saw a parade of Pulitzer-prize winning journalists discuss who did and did not leak the information that set off a scandal and ultimately brought Libby to trial. Woodward, who never wrote about Plame, and...

The Marine Corps said Monday that it has ordered a probe into how a government report on the killings of Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha was leaked to the news media. Lt. Gen. James Mattis, the top general at Camp Pendleton, ordered the investigation after several defense attorneys complained that sensitive information about their clients had been leaked, Marine spokesman Lt. Col. Sean Gibson said. The Washington Post published photos and eyewitness accounts Jan 6 from the military's investigative file that had not been made public. One photo showed five Iraqis who had been shot dead near a...

Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff claimed yesterday that he was set up by the White House over the CIA leak scandal to protect Karl Rove, President Bush’s senior adviser.Opening his defence at his perjury trial, lawyers for Lewis “Scooter” Libby produced a memo written by Mr Cheney, the Vice-President, showing his chief of staff’s concerns that he was being sacrificed to save Mr Rove from criminal indictment. Mr Libby is accused of lying to FBI agents about conversations he had with journalists about Valerie Plame, a CIA agent. She is the wife of Joseph Wilson, a prominent critic of...

There is a bad chemical leak coming from the Nalco plant in Sugar Land, TX. Authorities are ordering people to stay indoors...

WASHINGTON - U.S. criminal investigators found no evidence to support the claim of Marines charged in the deaths of unarmed Iraqi civilians that five were shot after trying to flee the scene of a roadside bombing that killed one Marine, a senior defense official said Saturday. Investigators determined that all five Iraqis were shot within arm's length of each other and no more than 18 feet from the white taxi they were ordered to exit by members of a Marine squad in the western Iraqi town of Haditha, said the official, who is familiar with reports produced by the Naval...

WASHINGTON — An accident that occurred as a decades-old nuclear warhead was being dismantled at the government's Pantex facility near Amarillo, Texas, could have caused the device to detonate, a nonprofit organization charged Thursday. The Project on Government Oversight said the "near miss" event, which led the Energy Department to fine the plant's operator $110,000, was due partly to requirements that technicians at the plant work up to 72 hours per week. The Pantex plant, 17 miles northeast of Amarillo, is the country's only factory for assembly and disassembly of nuclear weapons. The organization said it was told by unidentified...

Bush presents firm front on Iraq By Jon Leyne BBC News, Amman It was billed as a crisis meeting at a crucial time in Iraq's history - although you would never have guessed, watching a disarmingly relaxed President Bush field questions afterwards. Mr Bush rubbished rumours of a loss of confidence in Mr Maliki There was certainly no hint that his project to spread democracy across the Middle East was in the tiniest bit of trouble. "There are reports from Washington that we are looking for a graceful exit," said Mr Bush. "But we will stay until the job...

WASHINGTON - Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby are asking a federal judge not to allow three years of politically charged backstory in the CIA leak case to seep into Libby's perjury trial in January. In new court documents, Fitzgerald argued that he shouldn't have to explain why Libby was charged while others, including the source of the leak, escaped prosecution. Libby said jurors shouldn't hear about New York Times reporter Judith Miller's 85-day jail term for refusing to discuss her conversations with him. The court documents, filed late Monday, are an effort...

Full article is in link. "An affidavit that Hanauer swore out Monday says that he had requested a copy of the estimate in response to a query from a Democratic member of the committee, and that the document had been posted on the committee's classified computer network two days later, making available it to any member or staffer. 'I affirm that I did not discuss or disclose, or cause to be discussed or disclosed, any information in the (estimate) with, or to, persons other than members and staff of the (committee), cleared individuals, and other members of Congress granted access...

Democrats say the Republican head of the House Intelligence Committee had no grounds to suspend a staff member who's come under scrutiny for the leak of a secret intelligence assessment. The unidentified staff member, a Democrat, was suspended this week by Chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., and is being denied access to classified information pending the outcome of a review, Hoekstra's spokesman, Jamal Ware, said Thursday. The Intelligence Committee's top Democrat, Jane Harman of California, wrote to Hoekstra that she was "appalled" by his action, which was "without basis." The leak to The New York Times of a National Intelligence Estimate...

THE sheriff's deputy who arrested actor Mel Gibson for drunken driving has had his home searched by fellow officers investigating how a police account of the actor's anti-Semitic tirade was made public, it was reported today. Acting on a search warrant obtained by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, investigators raided the home of Deputy James Mee on September 13 and seized his computer, telephone records and other documents, according to the celebrity web site TMZ.com. TMZ, citing unnamed department sources for its report, said the search warrant remains under seal and the outcome of the search has not been...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Justice Department has opened an investigation into leaks to the media about the National Security Agency's classified domestic surveillance program. The program authorizes the NSA to eavesdrop on Americans without first seeking permission from a court for a search warrant. It has caused a political uproar with both Democrats and Republicans questioning whether President Bush went beyond his powers under the U.S. Constitution in authorizing it. The New York Times was the first to report the story on December 16th and then officials confirmed its existence to CNN and other organizations. "The Justice Department has opened...

When it comes to CIA leaking, this passage from the November 10, 2005, American Prospect is interesting: “The fact that the agency was leaking isn’t denied by some. ‘Of course they were leaking,’ says Pat Lang. ‘They told me about it at the time. They thought it was funny. They’d say things like, ‘This last thing that came out, surely people will pay attention to that. They won’t re-elect this man.’” There are other smoking guns out there. Take NPR, more recently, on Iran. “The Pentagon has created a new desk to work on Iran policy. That worries some at...