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Pentagon Aide, a Cuban Spy, Is Described as Unapologetic. A high-ranking Pentagon intelligence analyst who spied for Cuba "in no measure apologizes for her betrayal of the United States." By Tim Golden. [New York Times: International]

U.S. Urges All Its Citizens to Leave Ivory Coast. United States is urging the 3,000 American citizens in the Ivory Coast to leave the country, fearing a deterioration in the situation. By Agence France-presse. [New York Times: International]

Here's a how-to explaining how to blind a surveillance camera a laser-pointer.[Boing Boing Blog]

On Wednesday the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a suit seeking to overturn the 1998 law that extended the copyright term from 75 to 95 years. Plaintiffs argue it's a First Amendment issue. By Michael Grebb.

Plaintiffs have challenged the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 (CTEA), which extended current and future copyrights by 20 years. The law passed as a result of heavy influence from Hollywood studios such as the Walt Disney Company, whose earliest copyrights on film depictions of characters such as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck were about to expire under the old limit of 75 years.

[Wired News] [The All Electric Media Weblog]

Protesting the Big Brother Lens, Little Brother Turns an Eye Blind. A national debate over the ethics of surveillance continues to grow as video cameras proliferate. By John Markoff. [New York Times: Arts]

What price justice? Let's say you have a debt-collection matter in which the "deadbeat" owes, in round numbers, about 18 cents. So you bring the action and you seek attorneys' fees and other charges.  That figure comes out to $311.26. The court doesn't like this and awards sanctions against you.  But now the defendant's lawyer claims to have put in about $7,600 defending the case. [via Overlawyered] [Ernie the Attorney]

McGreevey Could Fire Poet Under Proposed Legislation. Legislators said on Monday that they would introduce measures that would give the governor the power to strip Amiri Baraka of his position as New Jersey's poet laureate. By Laura Mansnerus. [New York Times: Arts]

Paris Mayor Recovering After Being Stabbed During Festival. The mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, was out of danger after being stabbed in the abdomen in City Hall early on Sunday. By Alan Riding. [New York Times: International]

Brazil Presidential Election Is Set for October Runoff. Leftist leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva held a commanding lead in Brazil's presidential race, but will face José Serra in a second-round runoff on Oct. 27. By Larry Rohter. [New York Times: International]

NY Times: The online magazine Salon has removed an article charging Thomas E. White, secretary of the Army, with participating in accounting practices that led to the collapse of Enron while he was vice chairman of Enron Energy Services. [JD's New Media Musings]

Richelieu, Politician as Connoisseur. "Richelieu: Art and Power," an exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal, is both original and provocative, panoramic and full of surprises. By John Russell. [New York Times: Arts]

Zimbabwe's Writers Explore Despair and Violence Under Black Rule. Once a silenced subject in Zimbabwe, recent novels confront the killings by black soldiers in the years after white rule ended in 1980. By Rachel L. Swarns. [New York Times: Arts]

Connect the Dots for a Disturbing Picture. The people in power represent an economic clique whose interests are only superficially tied to the well-being of the country as a whole. In collusion with their delighted big-money supporters, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and their Cabinet-level entourage spent years lining their pockets with sweetheart loans, option deals and golden parachutes from oil companies and other related industries.

[Source: [caught In between]]

• Aristocracy: government by the best
• Democracy: government by the people
• Kakistocracy: government by the worst
• Kleptocracy: government by thieves
• Oligarchy: government by class

Aristocrats have always been a prominent element of American government and politics. Scions of rich families achieved respectibility by essaying disinterested government. They have often done very great service to their country: President Teddy Roosevelt's Sherman Anti-Trust Act; his cousin, President Franklin Roosevelt's Social Security; Senators Jay Rockefeller, and Teddy Kennedy, these men have politicked, not to improve the prospects of their own cohort, but to serve the interests of ordinary Americans. Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson were democrats, politicians from the middle class.

Despite his lineage, George W. Bush has proved to be, not an aristocrat, but an oligarch. He uses his office to benefit other members of his class, at the expense of the middle- and working-class Americans. In this respect his regime resembles that of Ronald Regan, who left America's middle-class in a much-less secure state than when he became President.

Sun Microsystems co-founder and libertarian activist John Gilmore is suing the federal government for its secret rule requiring airlines to check the IDs of domestic passengers.

On July 4, Southwest Airlines staff prevented Gilmore from boarding a pre-paid flight from Oakland to Washington, D.C, where he intended to petition the government to alter the ID check. He then went to San Francisco International Airport and tried to purchase a similar ticket on United Airlines. Both airlines, though unable to identify any actual regulation requiring him to identify himself, prevented him from flying. United stated that they were following an unwritten regulation that had only been communicated to them orally, and which changes frequently.

[Boing Boing Blog]

Here's a page about John Poindexter, the guy who runs the Information Awareness Office (the place with the logo of the eye in the pyramid glaring at the planet).

Who's John Poindexter?

A retired Navy Admiral, John Poindexter lost his job as National Security Adviser under Ronald Reagan, and was convicted of conspiracy, lying to Congress, defrauding the government, and destroying evidence in the Iran Contra scandal.

[Boing Boing Blog]

In a lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco, John Gilmore, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that requiring ID from travelers who are not suspected of being a threat to airport security violates several amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The lawsuit names as defendants U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and Tom Ridge, Homeland Security chief; as well as the heads of the FBI, the Transportation Department, the Federal Aviation Administration, the TSA; and United and Southwest airlines. [Ernie the Attorney]

Keep your nose clean, citizen.. Article in the Sydney, Australia Morning Herald by Ritt Goldstein, a Connecticut man seeking asylum in Sweden because of physical attacks on him and threats to his life from members of law enforcement because of his involvement in an organization calling for civilian oversight of police. Goldstein says that the Bush administration's TIPS program—part of Bush's volunteer effort, Citizen Corps, "means the U.S. will have a higher percentage of citizen informants than the former East Germany through the infamous Stasi secret police. The program would use a minimum of 4 per cent of Americans to report 'suspicious activity'." ¶The informants—identified by stickers put in the windows of their vehicles with a toll-free number on them— would be initially drawn from people whose jobs give them a high level of access to others' personal lives—postal workers, meter readers, etc, and is a project of John Ashcroft's Department of Justice. ¶No word on whether the "suspicious activity" to be reported will include anti-American activities like negative comments about the administration while watching the evening news. [Sean Gallagher: the dot.communist]