[New York Times]
In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court places limits on Americans' 1st Amendment right to free speech.

[Wired Blogs]
A California appeals court has smacked down Apple's legal assault on bloggers and their sources, finding that the company's efforts to subpoena e-mail runs contrary to federal law, California's reporter's shield law, and the state Constitution. The Sixth District Court of Appeals on Friday roundly rejected Apple's argument that the bloggers weren't acting as journalists when they posted internal document about future Apple products: We decline the implicit invitation to embroil ourselves in questions of what constitutes 'legitimate journalis(m).'

[MSNBC]
Bush has bestowed on his intelligence czar, John Negroponte, broad authority, in the name of national security, to excuse publicly traded companies from their usual accounting and securities-disclosure obligations.

[BBC News]
The Senate has confirmed the appointment of General Michael Hayden as the head of the CIA, 78-15.

[Yahoo! News]
A key U.N. panel has joined European and United Nations leaders in urging the Bush administration to close its prison in Guantanamo Bay, saying the indefinite detention of terror suspects there violates the world's ban on torture.

[Inside Bay Area]
Another major security hole found in Diebold voting machines.

[USA Today]
The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth. The agency's goal is to create a database of every call ever made within the nation's borders.

[Yahoo! News]
Bush nominates active Air Force Gen. Michael Haydenn, vocal supporter of illegal domestic surveillance programs, to replace fired (and soon to be disgraced?) Porter Goss as head of the CIA. Republican and Democratic Congressmen concerned about handing the CIA over to military control. If Hayden were confirmed, military officers would run all the major spy agencies, from the ultra-secret National Security Agency to the Defense Intelligence Agency.

[Washington Post]
Bush commands government officials to spread his "war in Iraq is going well" meme.

[Reuters]
Bush finally tells the truth about something: I would say the best moment of all [of his time as President] was when I caught a 7.5 pound perch in my lake.

[Breitbart.com]
Bush says fight against terror is "World War III."

[wikithepresidency.org]
Wiki established by People for the American Way as a single place for the public to both acquire and share information about Executive Branch wrongdoings.

[CNN]
Torture and inhumane treatment are "widespread" in U.S.-run detention centers in Afghanistan, Iraq, Cuba and elsewhere despite Washington's denials, Amnesty International reports. The U.S. government is not only failing to take steps to eradicate torture, it is actually creating a climate in which torture and other ill-treatment can flourish, said Amnesty International USA Senior Deputy Director-General Curt Goering.

[Washington Monthly]
Who would have thought that, at the peak of the conservative movement's political success, its founding fathers would recoil from the Frankenstein's monster they created and end up as troubled heretics?

[Christian Science Monitor]
If the US electorate is split almost evenly between "red" and "blue" voters, the European political picture might be drawn from a more muted palette. But pink or mauve, European voters are also riven into nearly matching camps, recent elections suggest. You could speak of a crisis of the democratic model. People are disillusioned with politics, disappointed in whichever government they've got, and generally disenchanted with democracy.

[Cato.org]
The Cato Institute reports on Bush's Constitutional record: Bush's constitutional vision is, in short, sharply at odds with the text, history, and structure of our Constitution, which authorizes a government of limited powers.

[Financial Times]
The federal government keeps two sets of books, but the Bush administration only wants you to see one of them. There is the highly publicised “President’s Budget” issued by the Office of Management and Budget, and the almost-secret “Financial Report of the United States” issued by the Department of Treasury. The budget says that the 2005 US fiscal deficit was $319 billion, but the Financial Report claims it is $760 billion.

[Bloomberg.com]
Terrorists killed more than 14,500 people in 11,000 attacks across the globe last year, the U.S. State Department said in its annual report on terrorism. Fifty-six of those killed were Americans.

So why are we the only ones who are terrified?