[MSNBC]
The National Security Agency's website has been placing files on visitors' computers that can track their surfing activity in violation of strict federal rules.

[New York Times]
Unwilling to accept the Senate's limited 6-month Patriot Act extension, the House votes to extend it for only 5 weeks to keep it from expiring and give them time to pressure for a full 4-year extension.

[ZDNet]
Congress makes another move to tax internet commerce.

[Yahoo! News]
Senate blocks Alaska refuge drilling.

[The Boston Globe]
AT&T Inc. and BellSouth Corp. are lobbying Capitol Hill for the right to create a two-tiered Internet, where the telecom carriers' own Internet services would be transmitted faster and more efficiently than those of their competitors.

[MSNBC]
Bush was so desperate to kill The New York Times’ eavesdropping story, he summoned the paper’s editor and publisher to the Oval Office. But it wasn’t just out of concern about national security.

[PalmBeachPost.com]
Diebold voting machines easily hacked in official test.

[Yahoo! News]
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid calls the Republican-led Congress "the most corrupt in history."

[South Coast Today]
A student at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung's tome on Communism called "The Little Red Book" via inter-library loan.

[BBC News]
Bush admits signing a secret presidential order following the attacks on September 11, 2001, allowing the National Security Agency to track the international telephone calls and e-mails of hundreds of people without referral to the courts. American law usually requires a secret court, known as a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, to give permission before intelligence officers can conduct surveillance on U.S. soil.

[CNN.com]
Patriot Act renewal fails in Senate! Administration continues to plead that civil rights travesty is "essential" to fight terrorism, even as evidence of abuses are forthcoming.

[Yahoo! News]
The Supreme Court has agreed to review controversial redistricting that produced ballot box gains for Republicans but an ethics rebuke and criminal charges for GOP Rep. Tom DeLay.

[Reuters]
Pentagon backtracks on database of anti-war citizens: Oops, you caught us.

[Yahoo! News]
A $300 million Pentagon psychological warfare operation includes plans for placing pro-American messages in foreign media outlets without disclosing the U.S. government as the source.

[Newsday.com]
U.S. war costs poised to reach half a trillion dollars.

[latimes.com]
For nearly 140 years, any child born on U.S. soil has been given American citizenship. Now some conservatives in Congress are determined to change that.

[Newsday.com]
Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., has agreed to co-sponsor a measure by Republican Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah seeking to criminalize "desecration" of the United States flag. Well, there went the last snowball's chance in hell that I'll ever vote for Ms. Clinton.

[Yahoo! News]
Is George W. Bush the worst president ever?

[Duluth News Tribune]
The State Department has been using political litmus tests to screen private American citizens before they can be sent overseas to represent the United States, weeding out critics of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, according to department officials and internal e-mails.

[Yahoo! News]
More than four years after the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. intelligence agencies still are failing to share information, a panel that investigated the terrorist hijackings will conclude in a new report. Members of the former Sept. 11 commission said the government should receive a dismal grade for its lack of urgency in enacting strong security measures to prevent terror attacks.

[The Christian Science Monitor]
Almost every US lawmaker takes big money aimed at helping private interests win favorable government action.