Free Republic

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...