News Junkie - Live Wire

Prop 8 Struck Down

California judge strikes down Prop 8 (PDF)…

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Top Secret America

A fountain of information from the Washington Post… 854,000 with top-secret access.

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Drugs Inc. – Meth Episode

A look at the ins-and-outs of meth

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Billion Bug Highway

Fantastic animation/report from NPR to cleanse the palate today… It’s about billions of bugs in the sky.

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Aimee Sword Convicted

Sword gets 30 years for sex with son…

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USA V. Arizona (PDF)

The Justice Department has officially filed a lawsuit against the state of Arizona over still yet to be enacted SB1070. Read the filing here (PDF).

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NORTHWEST BOMBING UPDATE

Two al-Qaeda leaders who planned the ‘underwear bomber’ attack were released from GITMO in 2007.


Obama Administration Set To Release GITMO Inmates In U.S.

This should cause some trouble…

GITMO RELEASE — The Obama administration is on the cusp of releasing into the United States some of the Chinese Muslims detained at Guantanamo Bay, according to current and former U.S. officials.
The decision is controversial within the government. Officials from the Department of Homeland Security have raised concerns and are objecting about the potential release.

An U.S. official familiar with the discussions over the Uighurs release said as many as five to seven


Chavez Welcomes GITMO Detainees

Chavez makes another play for international attention:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has said he is prepared to receive detainees held by the US military at the Guantanamo Bay camp in Cuba.

US President Barack Obama has ordered the closure of the controversial camp, in which around 240 inmates are held, by next year.


GITMO Detainees Brag Of 9/11 Attacks

This document should be released later today… I’ll post it then:

The five detainees at Guantánamo Bay charged with planning the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have filed a document with the military commission at the United States naval base there expressing pride at their accomplishment and accepting full responsibility for the killing of nearly 3,000 people.

Quote: “To us [the attacks] are not accusations.. they are a badge of honor”


CIA Destroyed 92 Interrogation Tapes

The CIA destroyed 92 tapes of terror interrogations, according to new documents, far more than had previously been acknowledged.

The figure was revealed as part of an ongoing lawsuit in New York involving the American Civil Liberties Union. This is the first time a figure has been established in connection with the destroyed tapes, which showed enhanced interrogation techniques including water-boarding.

The acknowledgment of dozens of destroyed tapes came in a letter filed by government lawyers in New


GITMO Detainee Now Free In UK

gitmofree

LONDON – A Guantanamo prisoner who claims he was tortured at a covert CIA site in Morocco returned to Britain a free man Monday after nearly seven years in U.S. captivity — the first inmate from the U.S. prison camp freed since President Barack Obama took office.

Binyam Mohamed flew into a British military base and was expected to be out of custody within hours.

So just who is this man? Well, you’d never know it from the…


Fidel Castro: Give Back GITMO

The man who just won’t die lobs his first bomb at President Obama:

HAVANA — Fidel Castro on Thursday threw his first punch at President Obama after several weeks of praise for the new leader, demanding the U.S. return Guantanamo Bay military base to Cuba and criticizing the U.S. defense of Israel.

Castro’s latest essay, published on an official Web site, came one week after he called Obama “intelligent and noble” and said he would cut back on his


From GITMO To Al Qaeda Chief

This is precisely why the GITMO debate remains so heated:

CAIRO, Egypt – A Saudi man released from Guantanamo Bay after spending nearly six years inside the U.S. prison camp is now the No. 2 of Yemen’s al-Qaida branch, according to a purported Internet statement from the terror network.

The announcement, made this week on a Web site commonly used by militants, came as President Barack Obama ordered the detention facility closed within a year. Many of the remaining


Murtha Wants GITMO Prisoners

I’d imagine more than a few constituents would disagree:

Rep. Jack Murtha, D-Pa., says he’d be willing to house prisoners from Guantanamo Bay in his congressional district if President Obama makes good on a plan to close the U.S. prison there.

As one of his first acts in office, the president circulated a draft Wednesday that would shut down Guantanamo Bay within a year.

Murtha only has a minimum security prison in his district. But he says he’d have


Obama Moves To Close GITMO

President Obama makes a move to begin the long process of closing GITMO:

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba — Only hours after taking office, President Barack Obama late Tuesday ordered Pentagon prosecutors to seek a 120-day freeze in war crimes trials of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — his first action toward fulfilling a campaign pledge to close the controversial prison camp.

The motion, filed here by Pentagon prosecutor Clayton Trivett at 8:51 p.m., said the delay


Obama Planning To Close GITMO

WASHINGTON — President-elect Obama’s advisers are quietly crafting a proposal to ship dozens, if not hundreds, of imprisoned terrorism suspects to the United States to face criminal trials, a plan that would make good on his promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison but could require creation of a controversial new system of justice.

During his campaign, Obama described Guantanamo as a “sad chapter in American history” and has said generally that the U.S. legal system is equipped to


First GITMO Detainee Found Guilty

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE — A jury of six military officers at Guantanamo Bay reached a split verdict Wednesday in the war crimes trial of a former driver for Usama bin Laden, clearing him of some charges but convicting him of others that could send him to prison for life.

The Pentagon-selected jury deliberated for about eight hours over three days before convicting Salim Hamdan of supporting terrorism. He was cleared of the conspiracy charge.

Hamdan, who faces a


First GITMO Interrogation Video Leaks

The world got its first glimpse of a Guantanamo detainee this morning when lawyers for Omar Khadr released a video of the Toronto man’s 2003 interrogation by Canadian officials.

Khadr is 16 at the time and still recovering from the injuries he received from his capture seven months earlier by U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan. He is being interviewed by a senior spy from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and foreign affairs official Jim Gould, although the faces of