The Department of Homeland security is requiring that its 180,000 or so employees amd contractors sign a three page secrecy pledge. The pledge covers sensitive but unclassified information.

Congressional critics and government watchdog organizations such as the Federation of American Scientists call the policy a potentially precedent-setting expansion of official secrecy whose provisions are overly broad and unworkable, if not unconstitutional.

This, just after the 9/11 commission report criticized the government for over-classifying information? [hat tip Crooks and Liars.}

The man who set himself on fire at the White House Monday was an FBI terrorism informant--he had been interviewed by the Washington Post and sent letters to both the Post and the FBI outlining his plans. The Post has copies of both letters online.

Two more top level CIA resignations today--in the clandestine unit. Rebellion over Porter Goss taking the reins?

Stephen Kappes, deputy director for operations, and his deputy Michael Sulick submitted their resignations after confrontations with Goss's chief of staff, intelligence sources said. Critics say while Goss as the new spy chief has every right to make changes, he is not communicating his intentions clearly and directly. Instead, he has delegated too much power to his senior advisers who came with him from Capitol Hill.

One of them, Patrick Murray, who is chief of staff to Goss, has faced criticism in the agency for what is seen as an abrasive style and lack of respect for senior officers.

A feud between the Director of Operations and the Director of Intelligence within the agency does not bode well. Why is Bush not able to control this? John McCain, by the way, is backing Goss.

Bump and Update: Via Cursor, Christian Parenti in the Nation charges that Bush has made a deal with the Afghan warlords in exchange for their support of Hamid Karzai that allows them to continue trafficking.

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U.S. troops in Afghanistan are about to get new marching orders: Assist law enforcement in fighting heroin trafficking by providing intelligence information and airlift support and increasing border security.

The cost? $700 million, to be taken from other programs. The amount spent in 2004 by the Pentagon and State Department was $123 million.

We wonder, will the troops also be recruited as jail guards for the newly snagged Afghan drug offenders?

At least we're not sending the troops in as drug cops, which is what some members of Congress had pushed for:

Remember Oregon lawyer Brandon Mayfield was detained for two weeks when the FBI claimed his fingerprint was on a bag linked to the Madrid train bombings? Remember when the FBI said they had received information from Spanish officials that led them to conclude Mayfield's fingerprint was a match? And then when it turned out they were wrong, they tried to blame it on the quality of the image received from the Spanish authorities?

Not true. A new report by independent forensic experts who investigated the debacle finds that FBI agents made up the claim.

Chicago Tribune investigative reporters Maurice Possley and Flynn McRoberts write:

Top FBI fingerprint examiners gave in to peer pressure when they rushed to link an Oregon lawyer to a terrorist attack in Madrid this year, according to a panel of forensic experts convened to explain the highest-profile mistake in the history of modern fingerprint comparison. The finding contradicts the initial explanation given by the FBI, which had blamed the quality of a digital fingerprint image sent by Spanish police in the wake of the March 11 train bombings that killed 191 people.

Instead, the panel found that human error, defensiveness and a failure to follow some fundamental scientific practices, such as proper peer review, led to four of the nation's top fingerprint experts wrongly tying Brandon Mayfield, a Portland-area lawyer and a Muslim, to the bombings. Spanish national police later matched the print to an Algerian man.

....Despite earlier FBI attempts to blame the quality of the fingerprint image--a digital representation e-mailed to the U.S. by Spanish authorities--the report states that "all of the committee members agree that the quality of the images that were used to make the erroneous identification was not a factor."

The report was undertaken at the request of the FBI. An isolated instance? Probably not.

Bump and Update: If you see 60 Minutes, let us know what you thought of CIA Agent Michael Scheuer's allegations about Osama.

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On 60 Minutes Sunday evening: C.I.A. Agent Michael Scheuer, author of "Imperial Hubris," written under the pseudonym Anonymous,who resigned this week to get around an agency imposed gag order.

Scherer was the head of the CIA unit assigned to track Osama bin Laden. Now he's talking. He says Osama received permission from a sheik to use a nuclear weapon against the U.S.

"[Bin Laden] secured from a Saudi sheik...a rather long treatise on the possibility of using nuclear weapons against the Americans," says Scheuer. "[The treatise] found that he was perfectly within his rights to use them. Muslims argue that the United States is responsible for millions of dead Muslims around the world, so reciprocity would mean you could kill millions of Americans."

Scheuer says bin Laden was criticized by some Muslims for the Sept. 11 attack because he killed so many people without enough warning and before offering to help convert them to Islam. But now, bin Laden has addressed the American people and given fair warning.

"Their intention is to end the war as soon as they can, and to ratchet up the pain for the Americans until we get out of their region," says Scheuer. "If they acquire the weapon, they will use it, whether it's chemical, biological or some sort of nuclear weapon."

On why we haven't caught bin Laden, Scheuer blames former CIA Director George Tenet:

Cat Stevens is the new recipient of a prestigious peace prize:

Yusuf Islam was awarded the "Man for Peace" prize in Rome at the opening of a meeting of Nobel Peace Prize laureates. He last made headlines in September, when he turned up on Washington's no-fly list for having suspected ties to terrorists - a claim he has strongly denied. The "Peace Train" singer, who largely gave up music after converting to Islam in the late 1970s, mused about the strangeness of being barred from one country while being honored in another.

A major American airline has been authorized by the TSA to arm air marshals with taser guns. The same taser guns that police use on criminal suspects. The same guns that are suspected of causing dozens of deaths.

Tasers are the stun guns that incapacitate their targets with 50,000-volt shocks, turning muscles into jelly. They've been used 45,000 times by police in the last five years. And although the weapons have been fingered in dozens of deaths, there's been no conclusive proof that the tasers were to blame.

In a press release Monday, stun gun maker Taser International announced that, for the first time, "the Transportation Security Administration of the United States Department of Homeland Security has approved a major international airline's application for the onboard use of TASER brand conducted energy weapons by specially trained personnel on flights to/from the United States."

.... Meanwhile, "Oakland police, facing lawsuits over tactics used last year against anti-war demonstrators, have agreed to stop using wooden or rubber bullets, Taser stun guns, pepper spray and motorcycles to break up crowds," says WTVU (via the Sunshine Project).

So if the terrorists don't get you, the Air Marshals may do the job instead. That's one airline I probably won't be flying on anytime soon. Here's the press release.

A new report by the Rand Institute for Social Justice says that victims of the 9/11 attacks received a total of $31.2 billion in compensation, averaging out to 3.1 million per victim.

Insurers paid 51 percent of the overall total, or about $19.6 billion. The government distributed $15.8 billion, or 42 percent, and charities paid $2.7 billion, or 7 percent.

"Victims" does not refer only to family members of those killed. It also covers businesses, emergency workers, first responders, and

displaced residents, workers who lost their jobs, and those who suffered emotional problems or were exposed to environmental dangers.

Businesses received 61% of the total amount.

by TChris

At least for now, a military commission will not be able to hear the trial of Osama bin Laden's driver.

"Unless and until a competent tribunal determines that petitioner is not entitled to protections afforded prisoners of war under Article 4 of the Geneva Convention ... of Aug. 12, 1949, he may not be tried by military commission for the offenses with which he is charged," U.S. District Judge James Robertson said in his ruling.

Newsweek analyzes the bin Laden tape in the context of the Administration's search for him. A few weeks ago, they thought he was in Pakistan. Since the tape was released, Newsweek says more agents have been put on the task of finding him.

In the wake of the bin Laden tape, Newsweek has learned, the FBI is expanding its operations to a second-tier list of several hundred more suspects, pulling in manpower from other agencies, including drug teams and U.S. marshals.

We won't be suprised if Osama turns up between now and Monday night. Particularly if he turns up dead. The tape is too strange. In addition to the physical and situational differences we pointed out here, the text of the tape reads like a campaign ad. His reference to Michael Moore's film is strange. His attacks relate more to George Bush I than the current President. Newsweek says,

In the tape, bin Laden did not seem like a hunted terrorist on the lam. After reviewing bin Laden's demeanor, health and the backdrop in the video, one intelligence official said bin Laden looked as if he were now living comfortably in an urban setting in Pakistan. "He is not tired, is not running, is not worried," one Taliban official tells Newsweek.

Maybe he was captured months ago and told he would be killed if he didn't make this tape. Maybe he will be killed after making the tape. Between Pakistan and Karl Rove, there's no telling what Hollywood ending may be in store for us.

Walter Cronkite on Larry King Live last night, discussing the newly released tape of Osama bin Laden:

In fact, I'm a little inclined to think that Karl Rove, the political manager at the White House, who is a very clever man, he probably set up bin Laden to this thing. The advantage to the Republican side is to get rid of, as a principal subject of the campaigns right now, get rid of the whole problem of the al Qaqaa explosive dump. Right now, that, the last couple of days, has, I think, upset the Republican campaign.

Cronkite also notes the variance in bin Laden's appearance and demeanor, saying it's almost like he's vying for a position as an international spokesman: