9/11

Opinion: U.S. should release report on torture after 9/11

The people should know how torture or “enhanced interrogation” became the policy of the United States in the fight against terrorism and its effectiveness, argues a Los Angeles Times editorial. Former government officials and U.S. lawmakers differ in opinion about the effectiveness of the policy, and the people should have the information needed to determine how they stand on the issue. -db From an editorial in the Los Angeles Times, April 27, 2012. Full editorial

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National Archives sitting on 9/11 Commission records

Although the 9/11 Commission ordered that their investigative records of al Qaeda’s attack on the United States should be opened to the public in 2009, the National Archives has not yet released the vast majority of the information. John Berger, an author who maintains a website with 9/11-related documents, said to withhold the information is not in the public interest since scholars and journalists are kept from analyzing the information.”You can point to things produced

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New book: Secret security bureaucracy burgeons after 9/11

Since 9/11, “Top Secret America” has grown to gargantuan proportions according to a new book by Dana Priest and William M. Arkin, writes Steven Aftergood in a review of the book for Secrecy News. Office buildings devoted to secret intelligence have grown to the equivalence of almost three Pentagons with more than 250,000 contractors working on secret projects. The authors are skeptical about the effectiveness of the devoting so many resources on secret enterprises without

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ACLU calls for limits to government secrecy practices

In a report released on July 28, the American Civil Liberties Union says that since 9/11, the government has created secret agencies, committees, court and laws to keep their activities from public scrutiny. Michael German, ACLU national security policy counsel and former FBI agent warns of the damage too much secrecy can do, “By undermining our constitutional system of checks and balances, secrecy harms our democracy and makes our government less effective. Not only that,

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Justice Department lawyers fail to get names of experts in National Security Agency leak case

A federal judge denied a request by government prosecutors in a case against an accused leaker at the National Security Agency. The prosecutors were attempting to obtain the identities of two expert witnesses who could be called by the defense. -db The Washington Post November 29, 2010 By Ellen Nakashima Prosecutors failed Monday to persuade a federal judge in Baltimore to order the disclosure of the names of two expert witnesses who might be called

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