By Dave Lindorff

Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton and other big city cops
are calling for a new system of “citizen watch” programs, allegedly to
help them spot hidden terrorists. I view this new call for a nation of
private spies with a deep suspicion born of experience with the LAPD
and its historic penchant for spying on law-abiding residents of that
city.

By Dave Lindorff

President Barack Obama, referring to the violent attacks on
protesters against the controversial election results in Iran’s
just-completed presidential election, this week lectured Iran’s
government, saying, “Peaceful dissent should never be subject to
violence.”

Referring to the tens and hundreds of thousands of frustrated and
angry Iranians who have taken to the streets accusing Iranian
authorities of rigging the election in favor of incumbent President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Obama said that “the Iranian people and their
voices should be heard and respected."

But there is a certain hypocrisy going on here.

By Dave Lindorff

If a new article just published Saturday in the Times of London based upon information provided by US government whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the FBI, is correct, we have not only solid evidence of prior knowledge of 9-11 by high up US government officials, but evidence of treasonous activity by many of those same officials involving efforts to provide US nuclear secrets to America’s enemies, even including Al Qaeda.

The story also casts a chilling light on the so-called “accidental” flight of six nuclear-armed cruise missiles aboard an errant B-52 that flew last Aug. 30 from Minot AFB in North Dakota to Barksdale AFB in Shreveport, Louisiana.

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science."
- Albert Einstein

Under the Microscope
by Glynn Wilson

My favorite answer to just about any political, social or technological question these days is: "It's a mystery."

When it concerns the workings of computers and the Internet, it's "a dang old dot dot dot mystery."

Life is full of mysteries. Love them or hate them, you can't avoid them.

There are things we can know; things we can't.

For a journalist or a scientist, even a social scientist, this can be infuriating.

But you learn to live with it.

Update: 10/16/06 - FBI Agents Raid Home of Rep. Curt Weldon's Daughter The Repubs continue to self destruct (yeeee-hawwww!) with two new revelations. One of corruption and one of possible perversion. Retiring Rep. Kolbe (Openly Gay Republican-AZ) is under investigation of a camping trip he took with two minor-aged Pages. And Rep. Weldon(R-PA) is under investigation for influence peddling in connection to lobbying and consulting contracts secured by his daughter.

Feds Probe Trip That Kolbe Made With Pages Federal prosecutors in Arizona have opened a preliminary investigation of a camping trip Congressman Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., took 10 years ago that included two teenage congressional pages, a DoJ spokesman told NBC News... A spokesman for the Justice Department in DC said that the US attorney in Arizona has started a "preliminary assessment" of the trip, after an unidentified source made allegations about the congressman's behavior on the expedition.

More on Weldon below the fold...

As FoleyGate continues to swirl out of control perhaps a timeline is in order to help keep things straight. You can look at one here, here, here, or here.
Longtime Republican was source of e-mails The source who in July gave news media Rep. Mark Foley’s (R-Fla.) suspect e-mails to a former House page says the documents came to him from a House GOP aide. That aide has been a registered Republican since becoming eligible to vote, said the source, who showed The Hill public records supporting his claim...

Reynolds' Gay Chief of Staff Kirk Fordham resigns, newswires characterizes it as "Aide Says He Reported Foley 3 Years Ago" (AP)...the congressional aide who last week counseled Foley to quit said in an AP interview he first warned Hastert's aides more than three years ago about Foley's worrisome conduct toward pages. That was long before GOP leaders acknowledged hearing of it...

ABC's Brian Ross gets it right - "Top GOP Staffer Forced Out for Role in Page Scandal" The chief of staff for Rep. Tom Reynolds, Kirk Fordham, resigned after questions were raised about his role in the handling of the congressional page scandal... sources said Fordham, a former chief of staff for Mark Foley, had urged Repub leaders last spring not to raise questionable Foley e-mails with the full Congressional Page Board, (massive update below the fold)...

As guest blogger DK said over at TPM, "for those of you who have been away this weekend (and in a cave)".... here's a compilation of reports on FoleyGate. Hat tips to TPM, AmericaBlog, and the crew over at Kos, whose coverage has bordered on obsession.

FBI to Examine Foley's E-Mails
The FBI announced last night that it is looking into whether former representative Mark Foley (R-Fla.) broke federal law by sending inappropriate e-mails and instant messages to teenage House pages. The announcement came hours after House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert asked for a Justice Department investigation into not only Foley's actions but also Congress's handling of the matter once it learned of the contacts...

GOP Staff Warned Pages About Foley in 2001
Republican staff member warned Congressional pages five years ago to watch out for Congressman Mark Foley, according to a former page. Matthew Loraditch, a page in the 2001-2002 class, told ABC News he and other pages were warned about Foley by a supervisor. Loraditch, the president of the Page Alumni Association, said the pages were told "don't get too wrapped up in him being too nice to you and all that kind of stuff."... See video of Sun. eve ABC report(hat tip to AmericaBlog). Much more below the fold...

Here's another FBI shocker, courtesy of Portland (OR) Mayor Tom Potter:

On Thursday, May 11, 2006, a Special Agent of the Portland Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation stopped a City employee and showed her a badge and ID. He asked if she knew any City Council members. He asked if she would be willing to pass information to him relating to people who work for the City of Portland. He said that while he had duties in other areas, the agency was always interested in information relating to white collar crime and other things.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI on Tuesday asked the U.S. Congress for sweeping new powers to seize business or private records, ranging from medical information to book purchases, to investigate terrorism without first securing approval from a judge.

Valerie Caproni, FBI general counsel, told the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee her agency needed the power to issue what are known as administrative subpoenas to get information quickly about terrorist plots and the activities of foreign agents.

And we're supposed to trust these bumblers with our national security AND our private information? Bush gave them the USA Patriot Act and a host of intrusive measures to collect info on any of us...and they can't even keep that secure from outsiders?

(Newsweek) The FBI's computer woes got even worse last week when bureau officials were forced to shut down a commercial e-mail network used by supervisors, agents and others to communicate with the public. The reason, sources tell NEWSWEEK, was an apparent "cyberintrusion" by an outside hacker who officials fear had been tapping into supposedly secure e-mail messages since late last year.

[...]

But privately, officials were highly concerned—and recently notified the White House. One top FBI official says he regularly used his shut-down fbi.gov e-mail account to send messages to state and local police chiefs. Another source tells news-week that more than 3,000 old and current e-mail accounts were shut down. Others say the same apparently compromised server also provided accounts to other government agencies. Justice Department officials, who launched their own cybercrime investigation into the apparent intrusion, noted that there was no telling the potential damage at this point, given the common tendency for everybody to say too much—including making references to law-enforcement "sensitive" cases—even in theoretically routine e-mails. "This is an eye-opener for all of us," says one FBI official.