By Joshua Holland and Nomi Prins, AlterNet. Posted October 30, 2009.

A former managing director at Goldman Sachs and now a razor-sharp financial muckraker (and regular AlterNet contributor), Nomi Prins understands the labyrinthine world of Wall Street finance, with all its warts, as well as anyone.

Full Story: http://www.alternet.org/story/143573/former_wall_street_player_reveals_the_inside_world_behind_shady_bailouts_to_bankers

Kudos to the New York Times, and to reporters Dexter Filkins, Mark Mazzetti and James Risen, for their lead article today reporting that Ahmed Wali Karzai, brother of Afghanistan's stunningly corrupt President Hamid Karzai, a leading drug lord in the world's major opium-producing nation, has for eight years been on the CIA payroll.

Full Story can be read here from the smirking chimp http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/24646

The New York Times

EDITORIAL

Published: October 25, 2009

The Obama administration has clung for so long to the Bush administration’s expansive claims of national security and executive power that it is in danger of turning President George W. Bush’s cover-up of abuses committed in the name of fighting terrorism into President Barack Obama’s cover-up.

Full Editorial http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/opinion/26mon1.html?_r=2

The New York Times reports that Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials.

Full Story http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/24618

By Muriel Kane, Raw Story. Posted October 28, 2009.

Human rights lawyer John Sifton says the CIA tried to prevent detainees from dying, "which might sound humanitarian, but was kind of sickening."

According to human rights lawyer John Sifton, the CIA tortured detainees so severely that it had to take measures to keep them alive so they could continue being tortured.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/143570/lawyer%3A_cia_kept_prisoners_alive_to_keep_torturing_them/

CONTACT: ACLU
Mandy Simon, (202) 675-2312; media@dcaclu.org 

WASHINGTON - October 28 - Members of Congress have begun an investigation into allegations that the CIA intentionally violated the National Security Act of 1947 by misleading them about its intelligence activities and programs on several occasions, including the agency’s use of torture and the destruction of interrogation videotapes.

By Mark Lerner
Published 09/26/09

        Printer-friendly version

The Big Question - should government control the people or should the people control government?

Orwell's prediction of a future big brother government came true. Whether acknowledged or not, Americans now live in a surveillance society.

Fusion Centers Will Have Access to Classified Military Intelligence

Speaking at San Francisco's Commonwealth Club September 15, Director of National Intelligence Admiral Dennis C. Blair, disclosed that the current annual budget for the 16 agency U.S. "Intelligence Community" (IC) clocks-in at $75 billion and employs some 200,000 operatives world-wide, including private contractors.

By Rick Rozoff

Global Research, September 24, 2009

Over the past week U.S. newspapers and television networks have been abuzz with reports that Washington and its NATO allies are planning an unprecedented increase of troops for the war in Afghanistan, even in addition to the 17,000 new American and several thousand NATO forces that have been committed to the war so far this year.