Free Republic

The House Oversight Committee under Darrell Issa is slated to hear testimony today on another Obama administration cover-up. ... A unit run by President Barack Obama's political staff inside the Environmental Protection Agency operates illegally as a "rogue law enforcement agency" that has blocked independent investigations by the EPA's inspector general for years, a top investigator told Congress. The assistant EPA inspector general for investigations, Patrick Sullivan, was expected to testify Wednesday before a House oversight committee ... The office of about 10 employees is overseen by EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy's office, and the inspector general's office is accusing it...

HELENA (AP) – Former Lt. Gov. Karl Ohs, who dedicated years to public service and was widely known for his role in negotiating an end to the Freemen standoff near Jordan, died Sunday at his home in Helena. He was 61.

A council set up to advise California's governor on preparing for emergencies has not met since 2002, despite the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Hurricane Katrina and a state law that requires the governor to convene the panel at least once a year. "I just think it's a reflection of neglect," said Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara, the vice chair of a Senate-Assembly committee on emergency services. Last week, after Nava and other legislators pushed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to jump-start the dormant California Emergency Council, he agreed. The Republican governor informed Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, that he...

California's efforts to bolster its homeland security are uncoordinated and piecemeal, and the agencies in charge are falling behind in using hundreds of millions of dollars in federal anti-terrorism grants, according to an assessment by the Legislative Analyst's Office released Thursday. The analysis found that the state Office of Homeland Security and Department of Health Services have spent only 31 percent of the $869.3 million in federal funds given to the state over the past five years to defend against potential terrorist attacks. The assessment raises uncomfortable questions about the state's vulnerability to attack. "The implication is that we have...

<p>June 19, 2002 -- WASHINGTON - Top U.S. intelligence officials gave detailed, closed-door testimony yesterday about the Sept. 11 plot, and a senior lawmaker who attended said it was probably hatched after the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.</p>

Total Information Awareness (TIA) Introduction | News | ResourcesLatest News Total Cost of TIA: $245 Million in FY 2001-2003. Contrary to a statement of a Defense Department spokesperson that the TIA budget is $10 million, DARPA documents show that it is $245 million for fiscal years 2001-2003. The TIA system, in fact, consists of several related programs unaccounted for by the official. The budget states that: "The primary goal of TIA is the assured transition of a system-level prototype that integrates technology and components developed in other DARPA programs including Genoa, Genoa-II, TIDES, Genisys, EELD, WAE, HID, and Bio-Surveillance."...

Information Awareness Office Makes Us a Nation of Suspects by Charles V. Peña November 22, 2002Charles V. Peña is senior defense policy analyst at the Cato Institute. Embedded in the nearly 500 pages of the current House version of the Homeland Security Act is language that could give the federal government sweeping powers to secretly monitor e-mails, bank accounts, credit card transactions, telephone calling cards, medical records, and travel documents – all without a search warrant – and keep that data in a centralized database. The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is already pursuing the creation of such...

November 15, 2002 Media Contact: (202) 842-0200 ext. 800Cato Scholar Condemns Homeland Security Centralized Database ProposalInformation collection office would allow government to spy on everyday activities of Americans WASHINGTON, D.C.--Unless Congress amends the Homeland Security Act before passage, its provisions on creating a centralized information database will affect the everyday activities of all Americans, says Cato Institute Senior Defense Analyst, Charles Peña. The legislation to create a new Department of Homeland Security includes widening the ability of the federal government to secretly monitor e-mails, bank accounts, credit card transactions and medical records, and place the data into a centralized...

<p>Nov. 24, 2002 Orange County Register Column: John Poindexter may be right for the job of collecting data on U.S. citizens. But is the job - and other post-9/11 government actions - right for a free society?</p> <p>Senior fellow in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C.</p>