Scott Walker and the Wisconsin Republicans are declaring war on quality craft beer, and that is why I am supporting Russ Feingold in a recall election against Walker, and you should too.

Ellen Nakashima reports on a partnership between the NSA, defense contractors, and their Internet service providers to find hackers before they hack. The National Security Agency is working with Internet service providers to deploy a new generation of tools to scan e-mail and other digital traffic with the goal of thwarting cyberattacks against defense firms [...]

Please join me, Firedoglake, Netroots Nation, and the progressive enterprise as Marcy Wheeler welcomes one of us: Senator Russell Feingold.

No matter how you look at this attempt to suppress and ignore the WikiLeaks material, it is bizarre and somewhat comical. The WikiLeaks Gitmo Detainee files genie is out of the bottle; it would behoove the US government to join the battle and arguments on the merits and facts instead of trying to cram the genie back in and play hide the bottle.

James Risen reports that Glen Carle, a former CIA officer, says the Bush Administration was looking for dirt on Juan Cole in 2005. In one incident, Carle’s supervisor asked whether the CIA had anything on Cole. Mr. Carle said that sometime that year, he was approached by his supervisor, David Low, about Professor Cole. Mr. [...]

Adam Goldman significantly fleshes out the story of what happened to Hassan Ghul after he was picked up in Iraq in 2004. It appears that Ghul may have been freed by the Pakistanis sometime after January 2007 because of his ties to Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has close ties to the ISI. The whole article is worthwhile [...]

Jon Tester is, to the best of my knowledge, the first member of Congress to complain about FBI’s new investigative guidelines allowing agents to–among other thing–search potential informants’ trash. As a strong believer in government accountability and person privacy rights, I find it unacceptable that you would lower the threshold further for engaging in surveillance [...]

This exchange last Thursday between Senator Al Franken and FBI Director Robert Mueller was frustrating enough–Senator Franken’s questions were the only ones on civil liberties Mueller faced, and the Director seemed pretty miffed to be questioned on the subject in the first place. But I’m even more troubled by the exchange now that we’ve learned [...]

The Senate Armed Services Committee is trying to investigate how allegedly counterfeit parts get into the military supply chain. But China won’t give visas–or promise freedom of movement without minders–to its investigators. Two key US senators on Tuesday accused China of hampering a congressional probe into how counterfeit electronics end up in the US military [...]

The AP reports that, in addition to the grand jury investigation of Manadel al-Janabi’s death, the CIA Inspector General has reopened its investigation of Khalid el-Masri’s abduction. Forgive me for my cynicism, but this investigation–and its public announcement–seems like yet another attempt to stave off European pressure on this front. The EU Parliament just called [...]