[Image courtesy of NYPL DIGITAL LIBRARY] WASHINGTON POST: The CIA no longer operates any secret overseas prisons, Director Leon Panetta said yesterday, and has not detained anyone since he became chief in February. Panetta’s statement, contained in a message to the CIA workforce, also said the agency will no longer use contractors to conduct interrogations or to provide security for remaining detention sites. Referring to “black sites,” as the secret prisons were known, Panetta said the agency has a plan “to decommission the remaining sites,” an apparent reference to facilities still in existence but no longer operational. He said that […]

THE HILL’S CONGRESS BLOG: American’s support for marijuana law reform is fast approaching a tipping point — a scenario made all that more remarkable when one considers that the federal government has spent nearly seven decades propagandizing against it.  Mainstream America is coming to terms with marijuana, and growing more and more dissatisfied with our nation’s failing pot policies. […] In the past days, leading commentators like David Sirota, Kathleen Parker, Paul Jacob,  Hendrik Hertzberg, Andrew Sullivan, Glenn Greenwald , Debra Saunders (San Francisco Chronicle), Leonard Pitts (Miami Herald),  John Richardson (Esquire), and Margery Eagan (Boston Herald), have all opined […]

WALL STREET JOURNAL: Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, according to current and former national-security officials. The spies came from China, Russia and other countries, these officials said, and were believed to be on a mission to navigate the U.S. electrical system and its controls. The intruders haven’t sought to damage the power grid or other key infrastructure, but officials warned they could try during a crisis or war. The espionage appeared pervasive across the U.S. and doesn’t target a particular company or region, said a […]