Government Corruption News Articles

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Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on dozens of engaging topics. And read excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.

Anthony J. Russo, a Rand researcher in the late 1960s who encouraged Daniel Ellsberg to leak the Pentagon Papers and stood trial with him in the Vietnam War-era case that triggered debates over freedom of the press and hastened the fall of a president, has died. In 1971, Russo helped Ellsberg copy a classified government history of the Vietnam War that Ellsberg later supplied to the New York Times, ... dubbed the Pentagon Papers. The secret study provided evidence of lying by government officials, including several presidents, about the scope and purposes of the war. "I explained [to Ellsberg] how the so-called enemy, the Viet Cong, and the North Vietnamese, were actually the legitimate parties and how the U.S. presence was illegal, immoral and unwise. I supplied him with reams of documentation," Russo later wrote. He was fired from Rand a short time later. Russo said that when he heard about the fabrication of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, he urged Ellsberg to "turn that over to the newspapers." Publication of the first installments in June [1971] sparked an FBI manhunt for Ellsberg. Russo was harassed by police and placed under surveillance. When he was subpoenaed by a grand jury, he refused to testify against Ellsberg and was jailed for 45 days. A few days before Christmas 1971, both men were indicted on charges of conspiracy, theft and espionage. "I will be eternally grateful to Tony for his courage and partnership," Ellsberg said. "He set an example of willingness to risk everything for his country and for the Vietnam that he loved that very few, unfortunately, have emulated."

Note: For background information on "false-flag operations" like the Gulf of Tonkin incident, click here.

Intelligence centers run by states across the country have access to personal information about millions of Americans, including unlisted cellphone numbers, insurance claims, driver's license photographs and credit reports, according to a document obtained by The Washington Post. One center also has access to top-secret data systems at the CIA, the document shows, though it's not clear what information those systems contain. Dozens of the organizations known as fusion centers were created after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The centers use law enforcement analysts and sophisticated computer systems to compile, or fuse, disparate tips and clues and pass along the refined information to other agencies. Though officials have publicly discussed the fusion centers' importance to national security, they have generally declined to elaborate on the centers' activities. But a document that lists resources used by the fusion centers shows how a dozen of the organizations in the northeastern United States rely far more on access to commercial and government databases than had previously been disclosed. The list of information resources was part of a survey conducted last year, officials familiar with the effort said. It shows that, like most police agencies, the fusion centers have subscriptions to private information-broker services that keep records about Americans' locations, financial holdings, associates, relatives, firearms licenses and the like. "Fusion centers have grown, really, off the radar screen of public accountability," said Jim Dempsey, vice president for public policy at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonpartisan watchdog group in the District. "Congress and the state legislatures need to get a handle over what is going on at all these fusion centers."

Note: For further disturbing reports on threats to privacy, click here.

Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, who are running for president as economic populists, are benefiting handsomely from Wall Street donations, easily surpassing Republican John McCain in campaign contributions from the troubled financial services sector. It is part of a broader fundraising shift toward Democrats, compared to past campaigns when Republicans were the favorites of Wall Street. The flow of campaign cash is a measure of how open-fisted banks and other financial institutions have been to politicians of both parties. Concern is rising that "no matter who the Democratic nominee is and who wins in November, Wall Street will have a friend in the White House," said Massie Ritsch of the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign donations. "The door will be open to these big banks." Sen. Clinton of New York is leading the way, bringing in at least $6.29 million from the securities and investment industry, compared with $6.03 million for Sen. Obama of Illinois and $2.59 million for McCain. Those figures include donations from the investment companies' employees and political action committees. The candidates' receipts reflect a broader trend that demonstrates how money follows power in Washington. It suggests that the nation's money managers are betting heavily that either Clinton or Obama will capture the White House and that Democrats will retain control of Congress. "What that Wall Street money means is that few people in Washington, including the leading presidential candidates, say a thing when the government moves to bail out Wall Street before it helps homeowners," said David Sirota, a liberal activist and former congressional aide.

Note: For more insight into the relationship between big finance and big government, click here.

A sheaf of documents that a federal court forced the Treasury Department to release indicate there have been repeated complaints from American consumers who have been falsely linked to terrorism or drug trafficking during routine credit checks, the organization that sought the documents in a lawsuit said Tuesday. The more than 100 pages of documents released Monday to the organization, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights in San Francisco, include a variety of complaints about the list maintained by the Office of Foreign Asset Control in the Treasury Department, said Philip Hwang, a lawyer for the group. The released documents include e-mail messages and letters from consumers who have been denied cars or home loans or faced difficulties with other financial transactions because their names allegedly appear on the list. Financial institutions are supposed to check clients’ names against the list, which is known officially as the Specially Designated Nationals List. A Federal District Court judge in San Francisco last month ordered the Treasury Department to release all the complaints after a Freedom of Information Act request, Mr. Hwang said. He said his organization believed that what they received was only a small fraction of the complaints filed. Among other indications, he said, was that Henry Paulson Jr., the Treasury secretary, said in Congressional testimony last year that his department fielded up to 90,000 telephone complaints about the list over one year. Mr. Hwang said most consumers discovered the problem only when they asked for a credit report and were shocked to find a notation on it associating them with terrorists or drug traffickers.

Note: For many disturbing reports of increasing threats to civil liberties, click here.

Several thousand law enforcement agencies are creating the foundation of a domestic intelligence system through computer networks that analyze vast amounts of police information. As federal authorities struggled to meet information-sharing mandates after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, police agencies from Alaska and California to the Washington region poured millions of ... records into shared digital repositories called data warehouses, giving investigators and analysts new power to discern links among people, patterns of behavior and other hidden clues. Those network efforts will begin expanding further this month, as some local and state agencies connect to a fledgling Justice Department system called the National Data Exchange, or N-DEx. The expanding police systems illustrate the prominent roles that private companies play in homeland security and counterterrorism efforts. They also underscore how the use of new data -- and data surveillance -- is evolving faster than the public's understanding or the laws intended to check government power and protect civil liberties. Three decades ago, Congress imposed limits on domestic intelligence activity after revelations that the FBI, Army, local police and others had misused their authority for years to build troves of personal dossiers and monitor political activists and other law-abiding Americans. Since those reforms, police and federal authorities have observed a wall between law enforcement information-gathering, relating to crimes and prosecutions, and more open-ended intelligence that relates to national security and [politics]. That wall is fast eroding following the passage of laws expanding surveillance authorities, the push for information-sharing networks, and the expectation that local and state police will play larger roles.

Note: For many revealing reports from reliable sources of serious threats to civil liberties, click here.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Asian Law Caucus, two civil liberties groups in San Francisco, [have filed] a lawsuit to force the government to disclose its policies on border searches, including which rules govern the seizing and copying of the contents of electronic devices. They also want to know the boundaries for asking travelers about their political views, religious practices and other activities potentially protected by the First Amendment. The lawsuit was inspired by two dozen cases, 15 of which involved searches of cellphones, laptops, MP3 players and other electronics. Almost all involved travelers of Muslim, Middle Eastern or South Asian background. "It's one thing to say it's reasonable for government agents to open your luggage," said David D. Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University. "It's another thing to say it's reasonable for them to read your mind and everything you have thought over the last year. What a laptop records is as personal as a diary but much more extensive. It records every Web site you have searched. Every e-mail you have sent. It's as if you're crossing the border with your home in your suitcase." Mark Rasch, a technology security expert with FTI Consulting and a former federal prosecutor, [said] "Your kid can be arrested because they can't prove the songs they downloaded to their iPod were legally downloaded," he said. "Lawyers run the risk of exposing sensitive information about their client. Trade secrets can be exposed to customs agents with no limit on what they can do with it. Journalists can expose sources, all because they have the audacity to cross an invisible line."

Note: For many recent stories on threats to our civil liberties, click here.

A little-remarked feature of pending legislation on domestic surveillance has provoked alarm among university and public librarians who say it could allow federal intelligence-gathering on library patrons without sufficient court oversight. Draft House and Senate bills would allow the government to compel any "communications service provider" to provide access to e-mails and other electronic information within the United States. The Justice Department has previously said that "providers" may include libraries, causing three major university and library groups to worry that the government's ability to monitor people targeted for surveillance without a warrant would chill students' and faculty members' online research activities. "It is fundamental that when a user enters the library, physically or electronically," said Jim Neal, the head librarian at Columbia University, "their use of the collections, print or electronic, their communications on library servers and computers, is not going to be subjected to surveillance unless the courts have authorized it." The librarians said their concern about such monitoring is rooted in recent history. In the summer of 2005, FBI agents handed an administrative subpoena called a national security letter (NSL) to a Connecticut librarian, and demanded subscriber, billing and other information on patrons who used a specific computer at a branch library. NSLs can be approved by certain FBI agents without court approval. The agents ordered the librarian to keep the demand secret. But he refused to produce the records, and his employer filed suit, challenging the gag order. A federal judge in September 2005 declared the gag order unconstitutional. The Association of Research Libraries, ... the American Library Association ... and the Association of American Universities ... each say they seek to amend the draft bills to make clear that the term "communications provider" does not include libraries.

Note: For more eye-opening reports from major media sources on the erosion of civil liberties, click here.

The U.S. government is collecting electronic records on the travel habits of millions of Americans who fly, drive or take cruises abroad, retaining data on the persons with whom they travel or plan to stay, the personal items they carry during their journeys, and even the books that travelers have carried, according to documents obtained by a group of civil liberties advocates and statements by government officials. The personal travel records are meant to be stored for as long as 15 years, [by] the Department of Homeland Security's ... Automated Targeting System. But new details about the information being retained suggest that the government is monitoring the personal habits of travelers more closely than it has previously acknowledged. The details were learned when a group of activists requested copies of official records on their own travel. Those records included a description of a book on marijuana that one of them carried and small flashlights bearing the symbol of a marijuana leaf. Civil liberties advocates have alleged that the type of information preserved by the department raises alarms about the government's ability to intrude into the lives of ordinary people. The millions of travelers whose records are kept by the government are generally unaware of what their records say, and the government has not created an effective mechanism for reviewing the data and correcting any errors, activists said. The activists alleged that the data collection effort, as carried out now, violates the Privacy Act, which bars the gathering of data related to Americans' exercise of their First Amendment rights, such as their choice of reading material or persons with whom to associate. They also expressed concern that such personal data could one day be used to impede their right to travel.

William E. Colby faced an uneasy decision in late 1973 when he took over the Central Intelligence Agency: whether to make public the agency’s internal accounting, then being compiled, of its domestic spying, assassination plots and other misdeeds since its founding nearly three decades earlier. Mr. Colby decided to keep the so-called family jewels a secret, and wrote in his memoir in 1978 that he believed the agency’s already sullied reputation ... could not have withstood a public airing of all its dirty laundry. So why, at a time when the agency has again been besieged by criticism, this time for its program of secret detentions and interrogations since the Sept. 11 attacks, would the current director, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, decide to declassify the same documents that Mr. Colby chose to keep secret? General Hayden said it was essential for the C.I.A. ... to be as open as possible in order to build public trust and dispel myths surrounding its operations. The more that the agency can tell the public, he said, the less chance that misinformation among the public will “fill the vacuum.” It was this outlook that General Hayden, whose public relations skills are well known in Washington, brought to an earlier job. There, as director of the National Security Agency, he tried to overhaul the N.S.A.’s public image — that of the shadowy, menacing organization portrayed in the movie “Enemy of the State” — by inviting reporters to briefings and authorizing its officials to speak to the author James Bamford for his book on the agency, “Body of Secrets.”

Note: For a brief summary of and links to further information about James Bamford's important book on the NSA, Body of Secrets, click here.

Allies of the U.S. auto industry stepped up a campaign yesterday to soften strict vehicle fuel-efficiency mandates in proposed energy legislation before the Senate, even as momentum for the tougher measures continued to build. Auto lobbyists said they were encountering stiff resistance on Capitol Hill. They said they felt like the industry was being punished for what one called the "sins of the past" -- successfully beating back attempts to make major changes to the nation's vehicle mileage laws. Yesterday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) defended the current bill, arguing that it would provide flexibility for automakers. "There are all kinds of dire warnings," Feinstein said. "The fact of matter is that Detroit has done nothing about mileage efficiency for the past 20 years, and the time has come."

Note: It is also worth noting that Congress itself has done nothing to mandate higher fuel efficiency in cars over the last twenty years. For a highly revealing article showing that while other industries have had many major breakthroughs and huge technological advances over the decades, automobile makers for some strange reason have been unable to improve car mileage since the days of the Model T, click here.

The National Rifle Association is urging the Bush administration to withdraw its support of a bill that would prohibit suspected terrorists from buying firearms. Backed by the Justice Department, the measure would give the attorney general the discretion to block gun sales, licenses or permits to terror suspects. In a letter this week to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, NRA executive director Chris Cox said the bill, offered last week by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-New Jersey, "would allow arbitrary denial of Second Amendment rights based on mere 'suspicions' of a terrorist threat." A 2005 study by the Government Accountability Office found that 35 of 44 firearm purchase attempts over a five-month period made by known or suspected terrorists were approved by the federal law enforcement officials. "When I tell people that you can be on a terrorist watch list and still be allowed to buy as many guns as you want, they are shocked," said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which supports Lautenberg's bill.

Mankind's second race for the moon has taken on a distinctly Cold War feel, with the Russian space agency accusing its old rival NASA of rejecting a proposal for joint lunar exploration. The charge comes amid suspicion in Moscow that the US is seeking to deny Russia access to an isotope in abundance under the moon's surface that many believe could replace fossil fuels and even end the threat of global warming. A new era of international co-operation in space supposedly dawned after the US, Russia and other powers declared their intention to send humans to the moon for the first time since 1972. But while NASA has lobbied for support from Britain and the European Space Agency, Russia says its offers have been rebuffed. While the Americans have been either coy or dismissive on the subject, Russia openly says the main purpose of its lunar program is the industrial extraction of helium-3. Some scientists say helium-3 could be the answer to the world's energy woes. As helium-3 is non-polluting and effective in tiny quantities, many countries are taking it very seriously. Germany, India and China, which will launch a lunar probe to research extraction techniques in September, are all studying ways to mine the isotope. "Whoever conquers the moon first will be the first to benefit," said Ouyang Ziyuan, the chief scientist of China's lunar program. Many in Moscow's space program believe Washington's agenda is driven by a desire to monopolise helium-3 mining. The plot, says Erik Galimov, of the Russian Academy of Sciences, would "enable the US to establish its control of the energy market 20 years from now and put the rest of the world on its knees as hydrocarbons run out".

In laboratory experiments, a team at the University of Glasgow simulated what happens in the human stomach. They found vitamin C (ascorbic acid) mopped up potential cancer-causing compounds that are made when saliva and food mixes with stomach acid. But when they added fat to the mix, the ascorbic acid could no longer convert the hazardous compounds into safe ones. Antioxidants like ascorbic acid protect against the formation of (carcinogenic) nitrosocompounds by converting the nitrosating species into nitric oxide. However, when fat is present, it reacts with the nitric oxide to reform nitrosating species, the scientists found. Bridget Aisbitt, nutrition scientist for the British Nutrition Foundation, said: ... "This research is interesting." She said fat-compatible antioxidants in the body, such as beta-carotene, could also neutralise the nitrosocompounds. This is another reason to underline the importance of a healthy balanced diet where meals high in fat should not be frequent and five portions of fruit and vegetables - our main source of vitamin C - are eaten each day.

Note: Why isn't it being widely reported the Vitatmin C and beta-carotene are effective cancer fighters? For a possible answer by one of the top physicians in the U.S., click here.

One in three people are expected not to cooperate with identity card checks, Home Office papers from 2004 suggest. The working assumptions were revealed in the documents published by the Department for Work and Pensions under the Freedom of Information laws. They show that the assumption was that the cards, due to be introduced on a voluntary basis from 2008, would become compulsory to own - though not carry - in 2014. Lib Dem MP Mark Oaten had asked for the information to be made public when he was the party's home affairs spokesman in 2004. The department had resisted his request, which came under the Freedom of Information Act. But the department was ordered to release the data by the Information Commissioner - a decision which was subsequently backed by the Information Tribunal.

Note: Why do you think the government was so keen on keeping this information secret? For more, click here.

The Defense Department gave the Navy permission Tuesday to keep training with sonar for another two years, a move denounced by activists who say the sound waves can harm dolphins and other marine mammals. Navy officials had sought the two-year exemption from the Marine Mammal Protection Act, allowed under the 2004 National Defense Authorization Act. The ranges are off Hawaii, Southern California and the East Coast. "We cannot stop training for the next two years," said Don Schregardus, deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for the environment. "That would put our sailors in the Navy at considerable risk." Environmentalists cite incidents of whales, porpoises and dolphins that have become stranded en masse on beaches after being exposed to sonar. "The Navy has more than enough room in the oceans to train effectively without injuring or killing endangered whales and other marine species," said Joel Reynolds, senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, which is suing the Navy over its sonar use. Navy officials said they're claiming a two-year exemption because a federal judge in California ruled last year that the Navy needed to do more detailed analysis of the effect its sonar training would have on the environment. The Navy says the new exemption will allow sailors to go ahead with 40 separate exercises over the next two years.

Note: For major media news articles on the damaging effects of certain advanced types of sonar in question on whole schools of dolphins and whales, click here.

A former National Security Council official said Monday that the White House tried to silence his criticism of its Middle East policies by ordering the CIA to censor an op-ed column he wrote. Flynt Leverett, a former senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council, or NSC, and a former CIA analyst, said the White House told a CIA censor board to excise parts of a 1,000-word commentary on U.S. policy toward Iran that he had offered to the New York Times. He said the agency's action "was fabricated to silence an established critic of the administration's foreign policy incompetence at a moment when the White House is working hard to fend off political pressure to take a different approach." Leverett said there were two key paragraphs that the CIA board wanted to cut. The first was about U.S. cooperation with Iran concerning Afghanistan about the time of the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001. The second dealt with an offer by Iran to the United States in early 2003 to discuss the possibility of a "grand bargain" that would settle several disputes between the two countries. He said both episodes had been publicly discussed by former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and his former deputy, Richard L. Armitage. "There is no basis for claiming that these issues are classified and not already in the public domain," he said. Like other former CIA employees, he is required to submit manuscripts for articles, books and speeches to the agency for review.

Note: For a clip of Mr. Leverett talking about this on video, click here.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean people aren't out to get you ... something fun for Christmas. Conspiracy Culture, at 1696 Queen St. W., offers unique "niche" shopping. "Anything conspiratorial is what's hot. People are just kind of trying to get in touch with alternative opinions and theories," said co-owner Patrick Whyte. The hot ticket for Yuletide is Terrorstorm on DVD, ($17.99) "a history of government-sponsored terrorism" that focuses on Britain and the U.S., Whyte said, adding the film's director, Alex Jones, was stopped by Canada Customs when he came to investigate a Bilderberg meeting last June. The Bilderberg Group is a shadowy elite organization (and even the non-paranoid concede this much) that holds annual invitation-only meetings of business and political leaders. Prime Minister Stephen Harper was purportedly photographed leaving one event a few years ago and likely attended last June's Ottawa meeting, although nobody is saying anything — which makes Bilderberg so conspiracy-worthy.

Note: For lots more on the highly secretive, elite Bilderberg Group, click here. To watch the Terrorstorm video free online at Google Video, click here. The first hour of Terrorstorm is absolutely awesome! It's one of the best compilations we've seen. Sadly, after the first hour it goes fairly rapidly downhill, but don't miss the first hour of it!

The Bush administration has told a federal judge that terrorism suspects held in secret CIA prisons should not be allowed to reveal details of the "alternative interrogation methods" that their captors used to get them to talk. The government says in new court filings that those interrogation methods are now among the nation's most sensitive national security secrets and that their release -- even to the detainees' own attorneys -- "could reasonably be expected to cause extremely grave damage." The battle over legal rights for terrorism suspects detained for years in CIA prisons centers on Majid Khan, a 26-year-old former Catonsville resident who was one of 14 high-value detainees transferred in September from the "black" sites to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The government, in trying to block lawyers' access to the 14 detainees, effectively asserts that the detainees' experiences are a secret that should never be shared with the public. An attorney for Khan's family, responded in a court document yesterday "the executive is attempting to misuse its classification authority...to conceal illegal or embarrassing executive conduct." Khan's family did not learn of his whereabouts until Bush announced his transfer in September, more than three years after he was seized. Joseph Margulies, a Northwestern University law professor who has represented several detainees at Guantanamo, said the prisoners "can't even say what our government did to these guys to elicit the statements that are the basis for them being held. This is 'Alice in Wonderland.'"

Note: Interesting that not only the government documents, but even this article avoids mentioning the word torture, when that is clearly what this is all about.

Federal health officials have decided to forgo gathering detailed data on whether children in 22 big cities are receiving recommended immunizations and instead will survey teenagers, who are the target of several new vaccines. The decision is drawing protests from local health officials, who say the soon-to-be-lost information is essential to their efforts to make sure that infants and toddlers, many from poor families, are protected against childhood infections. Each year, the CDC contracts a polling company to get data on vaccination rates in various age, demographic and income groups nationwide. "We need to know if the new vaccine has helped, or had no change, or hurt [coverage], and we cannot really make those judgments without the NIS data," [one health official] said. CDC officials said they are redirecting about $3 million to survey adolescents. The only way to pay for the 22-city sampling would be to use money now used to help states buy vaccine, they added. The decision comes at a time when the government is spending record amounts on public health. The CDC's budget has risen 42 percent since 2001 and is now $8.73 billion.

Note: This unusual decision makes sense if you consider that the powerful pharmaceutical industry doesn't want tracking on toddler vaccinations, as it may show what they have long denied -- that there is a link between autism and childhood vaccinations. The mercury-derivative Thimerosal was largely taken out of childhood vaccinations just a few years ago. The much-awaited data needed to prove or disprove a link will now be more difficult to obtain.

Edwin Wilson...was hurtling into history as one of this nation's most infamous traitors until three years ago when a federal judge concluded he'd been buried with the help of government lies. Now 78 and paroled, Wilson works in his Seattle office...to prove he didn't earn the spectacular fall from skilled CIA agent to despised federal prisoner. In books about his downfall, he is the villain: a ruthless renegade who left the CIA and made himself rich by selling arms and training terrorists for Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. Three years ago, a federal judge in Texas threw out a major conviction...and blasted the government for covering up the truth. Wilson had finally gotten documents [proving] that despite his 1971 retirement, the CIA was still secretly using him to gather intelligence. The government had denied it for years. The people Wilson is suing—former officials in the U.S. Attorney's Office, the Justice Department and the CIA, including two men who are now federal judges—contend they can't be held liable for doing their jobs, even if his rights were violated. Wilson spent 22 years in prison. U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes found that about two dozen government lawyers were involved in hiding information from Wilson's defense attorney. In his blistering opinion, Hughes noted that the CIA had more than 80 contacts with Wilson after he left the agency, which, among other things, had used him to "trade weapons or explosives for sophisticated Soviet military equipment—like MiG-25 fighters, tanks, missiles and ocean mines—with Libya." A CIA agent had even discussed with Wilson that "sending tons—yes, tons—of explosives to a hostile power could be authorized" if the U.S. got good enough information for it, the judge wrote.

Note: For another famous case of a major "traitor" who was framed by the U.S. government, click here.

Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.