Ars Technica has a fascinating account of the IT "planning" which lead to the loss of 5 million+ emails. Via /.
posted by butterstick on Apr 30, 2008 - 45 comments

State Secrets: A government misstep in a wiretapping case. A New Yorker article on the Kafkaesque case of Al Haramain v. Bush. [Via Threat Level.] [more inside]
posted by homunculus on Apr 26, 2008 - 20 comments

ACLU Watch List Counter: U.S. Terror List Now Exceeds 900,000 Names. That's an awful lot of terrorists. More Privacy and Surveillance Filter: Bruce Schneier on The Myth of the 'Transparent Society', Glenn Greenwald on The Banality of the Surveillance State, and Stephen Colbert on AT & Treason. [more inside]
posted by homunculus on Mar 8, 2008 - 46 comments

What's the Big Secret? Four surveillance experts try to figure out what the NSA's superclassified wiretapping program really is (hint: it may have something to do with the filters). They don't seem to realize that this kind of reckless public discussion means some Americans are going to die. [Via Threat Level.]
posted by homunculus on Aug 30, 2007 - 47 comments

How the US Federal Government spends our money. How the US Representatives spend their money.
posted by shoepal on Oct 10, 2006 - 18 comments

California holds a "No Hearing Hearing" on Diebold certification. "In June, over 200 people traveled to Sacramento to voice their concerns at a public hearing before a panel of advisors to the Secretary of State on voting systems. Since then, every scheduled meeting of the Voting Systems Panel has been cancelled, and now the Secretary has simply disbanded the VSP without notice, without hearings, without any type of due process." This isn't the only jurisdiction in which Diebold is attempting to circumvent legal requirements - in North Carolina they filed for and received a broad exemption from new disclosure rules recently passed into law. The EFF are now suing to force Diebold to comply with the law. As if that wasn't enough, an official Certification Test (PDF) for Diebold's Optical Scan voting machines confirms an earlier threat analysis test (PDF) that the memory cards on these machines run uncertified and arbitrary executable code, a charge that Diebold has vigorously denied.
posted by dinsdale on Nov 22, 2005 - 30 comments

“It is important to the future of our Nation to recognize that there is a problem of credibility today.” Government has an obligation to present information to the public promptly and accurately so that the public’s evaluation of Government activities is not distorted. “The administration should clarify its intent … People lack confidence in the credibility of our government. Even our allies are beginning to suspect what we say. It’s a difficult thing today to be informed about our government even without all the secrecy”
posted by growabrain on Jun 27, 2005 - 19 comments

Fundrace. Innovative rankings and maps about presidential candidates. The maps are especially cool.
posted by monju_bosatsu on Nov 10, 2003 - 14 comments

Big Brother dances with joy.
posted by Beholder on Oct 18, 2002 - 34 comments

Corruption Perceptions Index 2001 highlights worldwide corruption
"There is no end in sight to the misuse of power by those in public office - and corruption levels are perceived to be as high as ever in both the developed and developing worlds.
It does not reflect secret payments to finance political campaigns, the complicity of banks in money laundering or bribery by multinational companies. Corruption in the most prosperous countries in the world has many manifestations."
posted by riley370 on Jun 29, 2001 - 3 comments