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US president Bill Clinton's administration knew Rwanda was being engulfed by genocide in April 1994 but buried the information to justify its inaction, classified documents made available for the first time reveal.Senior officials privately used the word genocide within 16 days of the start of the killings, but chose not to do so publicly because the president had already decided not to intervene.Intelligence reports obtained using the US Freedom of Information Act show the cabinet and almost certainly the president knew of a planned "final solution to eliminate all Tutsis" before the slaughter reached its peak.It took Hutu death squads...

 The Louisiana Purchase Treaty of 1803. When Thomas Jefferson negotiated the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the deal did not simply add 828,000 square miles to the United States for four cents an acre. It doubled the amount of U.S. property where slavery was allowed. By 1830, one quarter of a million slaves had been moved to Louisiana.The Civil War was not just about slavery, but about the expansion of slavery, which depended on Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas. In that context, the parched paper treaty becomes an important milestone in American. history, said Warren Goldstein, chairman of the history department...

Washington (AP) - A few weeks after the Soviets launched the first manmade satellite in 1957, shattering America's sense of security, CBS President Frank Stanton was summoned to the White House to see President Eisenhower. Stanton knew his friend was agonizing over how to respond to Sputnik and the terrorizing thought that permeated America: Had the Soviets gained a huge first-strike advantage in the nuclear arms race? But Stanton learned Eisenhower also was wrestling with how best to ensure the U.S. government could function if a Soviet attack wiped out many American leaders. Stanton, who had no experience or ambitions...

The late Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun is most closely identified with the sweeping abortion decision Roe vs. Wade. Five years after his death, release of his personal papers illustrates his personal devotion to Roe—and the political nature of today's judiciary. He was famously modest, favored cozy cardigans, took noon strolls around the building at One First Street, and drove an old Volkswagen bug to his office in Washington. As the author of Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion, Harry A. Blackmun was also one of the most controversial Supreme Court justices in history. On March 4,...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The papers of former Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, author of the infamous Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion, have been opened to the public. The New York Times, which was given first access to the materials, reports that the Roe decision almost fell until Justice Kennedy changed his mind and approached Blackmun with the idea to uphold parts of a pro-life law while keeping Roe's framework intact. According to the Times, Blackmun feared the Roe decision would fall when the Court prepared to heard the case of Casey v. Planned Parenthood, which saw the...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The public gets a behind-the-scenes view into the private Supreme Court this week with release of the personal files of the late Harry A. Blackmun, the justice who authored the 1973 decision that legalized abortion. Blackmun's paper legacy, filling more than 1,500 boxes, will be unsealed Thursday on the fifth anniversary of his death. It's been more than a decade since intimate details of the court's inner workings were revealed in Justice Thurgood Marshall's papers, which elicited bitter criticism within the court because the papers include secret memos and unpublished draft opinions in controversial cases. Most current...

BOSTON (AP) - The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library is making available papers pertaining to Henry Kissinger's work as a consultant to the National Security Council during the Kennedy administration. Kissinger, who later served in the Nixon and Ford administrations as secretary of state and assistant for national security affairs, was appointed a part-time consultant to Kennedy in 1961, a job he performed while continuing to work as a professor at Harvard. The files have been declassified and are now available to scholars, journalists and members of the public. The Kennedy Library said the papers include handwritten notes on White...

WASHINGTON -- The government will order airlines to provide background information on passengers for a new security system that aims to keep dangerous people off planes, Homeland Security Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson said Monday. Hutchinson said he wants to begin testing the system this spring. It could be fully operational by summer, according to spokesman Dennis Murphy. Hutchinson said building the system is a Homeland Security Department priority. "The information that is given by a passenger to the airlines is important for us to have -- in terms of name, address, date of birth -- so we can properly assure the...

Last January, as his presidential campaign was stirring to life, Howard Dean was asked why he had decided to keep nearly half of his records as governor of Vermont under seal until 2013. "Well, there are future political considerations," Dr. Dean told statehouse reporters. "We didn't want anything embarrassing appearing in the papers at a critical time in any future endeavor." Dr. Dean now says he was joking about why he invoked executive privilege to keep 145 boxes of his official records — about 47 percent of them — under a 10-year seal. But there is ample evidence in the...

Asylum seekers with no papers face prison By Andrew Sparrow, Political Correspondent (Filed: 28/10/2003)Measures including a two-year prison sentence for refugees who destroy their travel documents were announced by David Blunkett yesterday. The Home Secretary described his proposals as the "remaining" phase of the Government's reforms to speed up the asylum application process. Mr Blunkett claimed that asylum applications had halved over the past year as a result of the "tough" policies already introduced. His new proposals would create a "swifter and fairer" appeals system and penalise people like "dubious legal advisers" who abused the system. Last week Mr Blunkett...

<p>SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP)—The Web sites of Knight Ridder's 31 daily newspapers slowed to a crawl or were made inaccessible by a denial-of-service attack that lasted for several hours earlier this week.</p> <p>The sites, which include the Internet homes of The Miami Herald, The Philadelphia Inquirer and San Jose Mercury News, came under attack Tuesday morning and technicians had restored the services by 2:45 p.m. EDT, said Amy Dalton, spokeswoman for Knight Ridder Digital.</p>

MLK papers are for sale; value put at $30 million By Bartholomew Sullivan sullivan@gomemphis.com August 27, 2003 A New York auction house put the private papers of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on display Tuesday and announced they'll be sold later this year. But when sold they should be carefully preserved and made available to the public, several civil rights advocates said. The material, owned by the King estate, has never been made public. Reacting to news the papers are to be sold by the Sotheby's auction house this fall, some expressed dismay but all said they are a national...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Former President Bill Clinton donated his gubernatorial papers to the state's historical archives, saying the public collection will be a critical resource for historians.   The Clinton papers, along with those of four other former governors, will go into a new Gubernatorial Studies Institute, planned for a building adjacent to the city library. The downtown location is four blocks from the Clinton Presidential Library, scheduled to open next year. Clinton said Wednesday he hopes the documents provide information about his policy decisions and also enable researchers to develop a deeper understanding of state history. "When...

Al-Jazeera TV sacks chief after row over spy papers By Kim Sengupta 28 May 2003 The satellite television company al-Jazeera announced yesterday that it had sacked its chief executive, who was named in documents procured by a British newspaper in Baghdad and which appeared to link him with Saddam Hussein's intelligence services. The papers appeared to carry the letterhead of the intelligence services and alleged contacts between agents and three members of al-Jazeera staff. Another document, headed "Presidency of the Republic, Mukhabarat Service", purport-ed to show contact between the Iraqis and Mohammed Jassem al-Ali. However, there was no evidence that...

Texas to Get Reporters' Watergate Papers By KELLEY SHANNON, Associated Press WriterAUSTIN, Texas - The Watergate papers of Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein will be housed and made available for study at the University of Texas at Austin in a $5 million deal announced Monday.   The school said it is paying Woodward and Bernstein to archive the documents, enough to fill about 75 file boxes, at its Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. The center will preserve the papers, including notebooks, assorted pieces of paper and photographs. The vast majority will be available to the public...

Back in the last century, in high school American government class, we actually had to be able to recite and discuss each of the first ten amendments to our Constitution. I still remember reciting the Fourth Amendment in class. "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated and no Warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." The important words, we learned, were that...

Vital documents needed by United Nations weapons inspectors searching military and industrial sites in Iraq have been removed and hidden, according to intelligence reports and dissident Iraqis. An Iraqi informant in contact with opposition groups in Britain has reported that the Baghdad headquarters of the Military Industrialization Commission was emptied of incriminating material days before UN inspectors, led by Hans Blix, arrived. The informant, believed to be a junior government official, said that up to 50 trucks pulled up outside the commission's building opposite the al-Rasheed Hotel, where visiting dignitaries often are housed. The trucks were filled with documents relating...

The Bush administration turned over thousands of documents Monday related to Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force, including some showing industry's attempt to influence the direction of the administration's energy plan. But most of the papers, released in response to court orders, were blanked out and provided little substantive information. This prompted critics to accuse the administration of continuing to hold back vital information surrounding development of President Bush's energy plan a year ago. Among the papers, however, were documents from the Environmental Protection Agency revealing an oil industry push to ease state regulation of so-called "boutique" gasoline blends...