Bloggers deserve kudos for their good work.

Much discomfort remains connected to the issue of what to do about Bush administration leftovers. Many progressives are still actively advocating for investigation, truth-telling, accountability and reform. Therefore, we rely on the hard news sources as well as the blogosphere to keep us well informed. I use a news aggregator. I have a section in my Bloglines aggregator called "Investigative faves." Let me show you why you, too should be reading them. The list is in reverse chronological order:

1. TPM Muckraker for "Report: Top Gossling Pushed to Declassify Info to 'Embarrass the Democrats'," by Zachary Roth (5/6/09). The story refers to former Rep. Peter Goss, who served for a time (not very well) at the CIA. Did any of the associated Goss underlings leak the story about Rep Jane Harman and AIPAC? Just below this story is one titled, "Zelikow: I Think Cheney Tried to Destroy My Torture Memo, " by Zachary Roth (5/6/09). The title is self-explanatory.


2. Firedoglake.com's emptywheel is mostly written by Marcy Wheeler, who writes today asking "The OPR Report Why No Sanctions for Bradbury?"This post cites the original WaPo story and asks a number of very important questions regarding what should happen to the torture memo lawyers. Yesterday's post was closely related: "Dougie Feith's Little Shop of Tortures?" For this she researched Doug Feith's 2003 testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, and made some fine deductions. Wheeler does perhaps the best investigation online. Blogger bmaz explains (5/5/09):
   
   

   We started this discussion in earnest a little over two weeks ago when Marcy Wheeler scooped the world by revealing that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Was Waterboarded 183 Times in One Month and Abu-Zubaydah 83 times. Marcy didn't get handed the information by a governmental press flack and she didn't print it as a result of a leak from some coddled and conflicted secret source with an agenda. Nope, she did it the old fashioned way, she earned it by doing the tedious grunt work of reading the memos and documents. The very work the traditional press shirked.



3. ACLU Blog of Rights posted a piece titled, "Guantanamo Bay, U.S.A.?" The (5/6/09) story concerns the possibility that the Obama administration will go back to the use of military commissions for some of its detainees. Another big story asks whether the "DOJ Ethics Report [is] coming soon? (5/5/09)


4. Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com wrote, "Someone needs to give Jane Harman an award for this," (5/4/09). Regarding Harman's appearance at the AIPAC conference, crusading against domestic surveillance. Another fine post is titled, "UAE 'torture' scandal and cover-up sparks outrage in the U.S.," (4/3/09). You may have seen this disturbing video on television recently.


5. Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood. He recently posted that the "Govt Seeks Dismissal of AIPAC Case," (5/1/09). This is another article connected to the Harman AIPAC episode. On April 29, Aftergood wrote, "Appeals Court Curbs Use of State Secrets Privilege." This regards the ACLU vs. Jeppesen DataPlan lawsuit.


6. Spy Talk at CQ Politics is written by Jeff Stein. On May 4 his headline read, "Rice: 'We were deaf, dumb and blind' on al Qaeda on Sept. 11, 2001." The /11.post discusses Rice's penchant for helping little kids understand what was going on with the grown-ups on 9/11. His question for the April 28 post asked,"What did top spook Blair really say about Harman and the NSA?." This refers to Adm. Dennis Blair, the Director of National Intelligence.


7. Wired: Threat Level by Kim Zetter: "DOJ Faulted for Failing to Follow Surveillance Reporting Requirements, " (4/30/09). To quote:
   
   

   Following the release of an annual report this week about wiretaps requested by state and federal law enforcement agencies comes a complaint from the Electronic Privacy Information Center that the government has been derelict in its duty to report other surveillance statistics having to do with “pen register” and “trap and trace” orders.
   
   In a letter (.pdf) sent Wednesday to Senator Patrick Leahy (D - Vermont), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, EPIC noted that the Justice Department had failed to report the use of such surveillance as required by federal law.



8. About.com-Civil Liberties is written by Tom Head. Here is an example of his work: "Sympathy for the Devil," (4/22/09). It begins, "According to memos released by the Obama administration last week, the CIA under the Bush administration tortured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times in March 2003 alone."

Those of us who are expecting that these questions and problems are not going to disappear soon, want to see the truth get out. We want justice done and the rule of law return full force to the current administration. We can settle for no less.


[Post date: 5/6/09]

See also Behind the Links, for further info on this subject.

Carol Gee - Online Universe is the all-in-one home page for all my websites.

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