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Valerie Plame: Was She, or Wasn’t She? Newly released documents don’t quite answer the question. They are some of the most basic questions of the CIA leak investigation: Was Valerie Plame a covert agent when her identity was revealed in a column by Robert Novak on July 14, 2003? Had she been involved in covert work at any time in the previous five years, which could make revealing her status a crime under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act? Was the CIA taking affirmative measures to conceal her identity? There's a new report today that suggests we finally have some answers....

The U.S. Army in Iraq has at least twice seized and jailed the wives of suspected insurgents in hopes of "leveraging" their husbands into surrender, U.S. military documents show. In one case, a secretive task force locked up the young mother of a nursing baby, a U.S. intelligence officer reported. In the case of a second detainee, one American colonel suggested to another that they catch her husband by tacking a note to the family's door telling him "to come get his wife." The issue of female detentions in Iraq has taken on a higher profile since kidnappers seized American...

When I heard the walrus' rambling argument with Specter about a document that he had supposedly sent, I immediately had the vision of Milton from Office Space. You know, the way he went on about the swingline stapler.What do you all think?

WASHINGTON - Almost 300 additional documents from Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito's time in the Justice Department were released Wednesday, two weeks before his confirmation hearings begin. Many of the latest documents released by the National Archives simply indicate that Alito was copied in on internal Justice Department memos, or are photocopies of decisions that were made by federal judges while Alito was working for the department during the Reagan administration. The Archives said it found the documents in the files of former Justice Department officials while processing Freedom of Information Act requests. Alito's confirmation hearing in the Senate Judiciary...

Blanco's office scrambled to spin Katrina Iblamefema Gov. Kathleen Blanco, forced by Congress, let more light shine on her administration’s mismanagement of the Hurricane Katrina situation, and at the same time gave public view to her attempts to deflect criticism of it. It’s not surprising that the documents were released late Friday – this is a standard trick by officials to minimize the damage that troubling revelations about them can create by sending them out at the least attentive point in the new cycle. And these materials paint an unflattering picture of the Blanco Administration’s response to the disaster. The...

As part of its ongoing investigation into the nation’s response to Hurricane Katrina, a Senate investigatory committee has delivered a massive records request to the Orleans Levee Board that covers everything from transcripts of meetings dating back to 1989 to all e-mails and written communications sent in the days before and after the storm struck on Aug. 29. The committee included a request to see all agreements between the Levee Board and the Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency that oversees levee design and construction in the New Orleans area. The Corps is under heavy criticism for its design...

WASHINGTON - Even after Richard Nixon's secret war in Cambodia became known, the president persisted in deception. "Publicly, we say one thing," he told aides. "Actually, we do another." Newly declassified documents from the Nixon years shed light on the Vietnam War, the struggle with the Soviet Union for global influence and a president who tried not to let public and congressional opinion get in his way. They also show an administration determined to win re-election in 1972, with Nixon aides seeking ways to use Jimmy Hoffa to tap into the labor movement. The former Teamsters president had been pardoned...

Not A Good Thing Ibd Wed Nov 2, 7:00 PM ET Politics: If stealing and destroying secret documents, stuffing them into your pants and then lying about it isn't a crime worthy of jail time, why is having a different recollection of events than Tim Russert? If the charges swirling around Scooter Libby -- that he deceived those investigating a crime for which he was not charged -- seem familiar, they should. Not long ago Martha Stewart was indicted and convicted, not of insider trading in a suspiciously timed stock sale, but of deceiving investigators into a crime for which...

Gov. Kathleen Blanco has asked for more time to deliver documents to congressional committees concerning her office's role in Hurricane Katrina preparations and emergency response to the storm. The delay would mean it could be December before internal documents reflecting what was going on behind the scenes during key days are be made public. "They have asked for the kitchen sink, which is OK," said Blanco executive counsel Terry Ryder. "But given the fact that we are dealing with Katrina and Rita right now, we have asked for 90 days more." Hurricane Katrina brought widespread devastation to the New Orleans...

Dan Rather still doesn't get it. Rather spoke Monday at Fordham University School of Law in Manhatten and, with lips-a-quivering and eyes-a-watering, said that "there is a climate of fear running through newsrooms stronger than he has ever seen in his more than four-decade career." Spare us the phony tears, Dan. The fear in the newsroom is that you guys no longer have a stranglehold on what gets out to the American people. Remember those forged documents, Dan? I played an early role of proving that your unimpeachable source, Bill Burkett, was as loony as Cindy Sheehan after 3 fingers...

'DOCS IN SOCKS' BERGER RAPPED By DEBORAH ORIN September 7, 2005 WASHINGTON — The feds yesterday recommended that former Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Berger get at least a year's probation and do community service — but no jail time — for stealing top-secret memos and lying about it. Berger pleaded guilty last April to taking the documents — and reportedly hiding them in his pants and socks — from the National Archives while vetting them to refresh his memory before testifying before the 9/11 commission. He's to be sentenced tomorrow. The memos were versions of a report that Berger...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 31, 2005 — Is there a future Steven Spielberg hidden among the Army's ranks in Iraq? Walk into 1st Lt. John Prettyman's room and you might start to think so. You won't find the normal pictures or calendars hanging on the walls. Instead, Prettyman, with the 70th Engineer Battalion, has news articles that have captured his interest neatly taped to the white fiberboard wall. Piled on a cot, there's a computer, editing decks and perhaps the latest issue of Moviemaker magazine. You'll also find a camera, which can fit in the palm of a hand. This is...

The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey said Thursday it now believes that no files sought by investigators were stolen during a break-in. ``After a thorough investigation of reports about missing documents following the break-in that occurred during the last weekend in July, we have concluded with a high degree of confidence, that no documents requested of UMDNJ by any outstanding subpoena are missing due to the break-in. Documents responsive to the subpoenas had been removed to a secure location before the time of the break-in,'' the school said in a statement. The statement came a week after...

. . . it seems odd that Kerry would be leading the call for the release of all documents, when his own record on the matter is so spotty. We couldn't help but note the irony when John Kerry took the lead in calling on the White House to release all documents and memos related to Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, covering his work for two past Republican administrations. "We cannot do our duty if either Judge Roberts or the Bush administration hides elements of his professional record," Kerry said, as reported by USA Today. The Bush administration has agreed...

WASHINGTON (July 23) - Democratic Sen. John Kerry urged the White House on Friday to release "in their entirety" all documents and memos from Supreme Court nominee John Roberts' tenure in two Republican administrations. "We cannot do our duty if either Judge Roberts or the Bush administration hides elements of his professional record," said the Massachusetts senator who was his party's presidential candidate last year. Opening what is expected to be a broader attempt by Democrats to pry loose documents, Kerry issued his statement as Roberts made the latest in a series of courtesy calls on senators in advance of...

Ken Paulson took over as editor at USA Today in the wake of the Jack Kelley scandal. Kelley had embarrassed the paper by writing a series of stories filled with lies. Paulson said that would never happen again. Then, he presided over USA Today's own version of the CBS Memogate scandal. Like CBS, USA Today used those bogus documents to discredit President Bush's National Guard service. But Paulson managed to exercise a form of damage control because CBS used the documents first and put them on TV. Paulson acted as if the scandal was confined to CBS. Many in the...

A worker sends an office colleague an e-mail with a corporate document attached, but the seeming routine message turns out to harbor a malicious passenger, because the attachment contains hidden pornographic images that were inserted by a hacker during it's transmission over the Internet. When the document is opened by a female employee, she files a lawsuit for sexual harassment. This particular case is hypothetical, but the situation is real, experts told UPI's Networking. By Gene Koprowski

WASHINGTON, July 17, 2005 – Two American soldiers in Iraq were killed by improvised explosive devices July 16. Another two soldiers were wounded. In the first incident, a soldier assigned to the 155th Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), died July 16 of wounds received July 15 from a car-bomb attack. The incident reportedly occurred during combat operations near Iskandariyah. Also on July 16, at about 4:00 p.m. in the Kirkuk province, an IED killed one Task Force Liberty soldier and wounded two other soldiers. The two wounded soldiers were taken to a coalition forces medical treatment facility....

Opinions vary on the topic, between those with religion and those without. They vary between the politically motivated--those who believe in morality based self-governance versus those who seek man’s dominion over men through man-made, man-interpreted and man-enforced laws. They even vary among believers, some of whom believe in an unwritten separation of church and state versus others who believe only in that which was actually written into our Constitution by the founders. If you are looking for a debate, few topics will so readily attract opposition. Is it a question of faith or historical fact? It’s hard to get folks...

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Sixteen foreign-born construction workers with phony immigration documents were able to enter a nuclear weapons plant in eastern Tennessee because of lax security controls, a federal report said Monday. Controls at the Y-12 weapons plant have since been tightened and there was no evidence the workers had access to any sensitive documents, said the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees nuclear weapons facilities for the Department of Energy. However, the DOE inspector general's office said in the report issued Monday that its field agents found "official use only" documents "lying unprotected in a construction trailer which...