AlterNet: Outsourcing Intelligence: How Bush Gets His National Intelligence from Private Companies

AlterNet: Outsourcing Intelligence: How Bush Gets His National Intelligence from Private Companies: "Over the past six years, a quiet revolution has occurred in the intelligence community toward wide-scale outsourcing to corporations and away from the long-established practice of keeping operations in US government hands, with only select outsourcing of certain jobs to independently contracted experts. Key functions of intelligence agencies are now run by private corporations. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) revealed in May that 70 percent of the intelligence budget goes to contractors."

So, not only are private corporations fighting the war in Iraq and profiting from it, but the world intelligence they provide to the president may well have influenced our decision to go to war, and will surely influence our future war decisions. The article describes how easy it would be to direct government action against a country that is not playing nice with American corporations.

As many people already know, wars are no longer waged to protect our freedom. They are waged to pump up the profits of corporations. A citizen's vote no longer matters, the only votes that matter are those of the big brother corporations that run our world...

The Raw Story | Bush acknowledges administration official leaked Plame's name

The Raw Story | Bush acknowledges administration official leaked Plame's name: "At a White House press conference Thursday, President Bush acknowledged that someone in his administration leaked the name of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame but avoided addressing the question of whether saw it as a moral issue or was at all disappointed in his senior advisers."

With the release of CIA documents, the FBI acknowledging the kind of information they are keeping on all of us, this admission, and other recent events, it is obvious that the administration no longer cares about the rule of law, and even flaunts the fact that it is breaking the law. They are simply prepping us for a trip to the "happy camps," for which Guantanamo Bay is the prototype.

Agency Is Target in Cheney Fight on Secrecy Data - New York Times

Agency Is Target in Cheney Fight on Secrecy Data - New York Times: "For four years, Vice President Dick Cheney has resisted routine oversight of his office’s handling of classified information, and when the National Archives unit that monitors classification in the executive branch objected, the vice president’s office suggested abolishing the oversight unit, according to documents released yesterday by a Democratic congressman."

This just keeps getting better. First he claims that he is not part of the executive branch, then he suggests dismantling the agency that was criticizing him. More evidence that Cheney is truly a madman.