Sign the petition at Demand Progress.

The bill has already passed 97-3. President Obama has the power to veto it, but 2/3rd’s of the Senate can still override the president’s veto. Since 97-3 is more than 2/3rd’s, even if the President vetoes this bill, it it is likely to be overridden. Either way, it seems as though the bill will become a law, but President Obama must stand up to his word and veto this bill. Then, we need to get rid of anyone who voted for this bill come election time.

It’s a shame that the directors of the FBI, CIA, and National Intelligence, along with the Secretary of Defense and human rights and civil libertarians have grave concerns about this bill. It needs to be vetoed as soon as possible. The general public in the United States do not want this legislation. It will destroy the Constitution and we can no longer say we are a nation of laws.

Seth Meyers

In the video below, FOX News’ Fox and Friends removed the audio of laughs and adds the sounds of crickets. Fox and Friends then makes fun of President Obama, claiming that it sounded kind of quiet.

You can watch the original parts where President Obama speaks about high speed rail here and the part about salmon here.

While it’s not surprising that FOX actually attempts to do such childish things, it is important to remember that censorship, of any kind, on a news program should never be allowed.

President Obama has signed into law a $600 million bill to deploy some 1,500 new Border Patrol agents and law enforcement officials along the border, as well as two aerial surveillance drones. The bill was quickly passed by Congress in a rare display of bipartisanship. We speak to Arnoldo García of the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.

Transcript at Democracy Now!

“As we mark the end of America’s combat mission in Iraq,” President Barack Obama said this week, “a grateful America must pay tribute to all who served there.” He should have added “unless you’re gay,” because, despite his rhetoric, weeks earlier the commander-in-chief fired one of those Iraq vets: Lt. Dan Choi. Choi is a West Point graduate, an Arabic linguist and an Iraq war veteran. He was fired under the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. We talk to him about his life, his coming out and his military service.

Wikileaks editor Julian Assange, in an exclusive interview with Channel 4 News said he believes this is “the most comprehensive history of a war ever to be published – during the course of the war”.

The Afghan War Diary an extraordinary secret compendium of over 91,000 reports covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010. The reports describe the majority of lethal military actions involving the United States military. They include the number of persons internally stated to be killed, wounded, or detained during each action, together with the precise geographical location of each event, and the military units involved and major weapon systems used.

The White House is condemning the release. No surprise there.

Reaction in Washington political circles is already beginning. The Times posted a White House memo to reporters sent Sunday evening, without naming which Obama aide wrote it, seeking to downplay the disclosure as not surprising, and saying that “Wikileaks is not an objective news outlet but rather an organization that opposes U.S. policy in Afghanistan.” And Sen. John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who heads the Foreign Relations Committee, said the release demonstrates that “calibrations” to the U.S. policy toward Afghanistan were necessary.

The time line and spin from the White House at the New York Times.
The Guardian has an interactive map detailing events related to the leak.  They have some of the best coverage detailing the events and the leak.
Channel 4 has several stories and the video below about the unseen Afghan war.

CNN has an article. If CNN does what it usually does, there will be pentagon officials speaking on the news about how bad the leak is and not discussing what’s actually in the leak.
Boing Boing has a story with several links to other places to read and digest the information.
Spiegel also has a story and some photos.
Glenn Greenwald wrote a piece last week about the motives behind the whistle-blower prosecutions. It’s highly relevant to this story.
Reddit also has a very lively discussion on the matter.

WikiLeaks is down at the moment, unable to sustain the weight of the hits it’s receiving over this current leak. The documents in question can be found here and a dedicated website for the information can be found here. In the meantime, you can also grab a torrent of the files and download it. This will help decrease the load on the WikiLeaks page.

One of the more interesting aspects to this entire story is the recurrent question of why does WikiLeaks now do the investigative journalism that the newspapers should be doing? Yes, they are reporting on the story, but it is WikiLeaks that is gathering information and it is Julian Assange that is putting his ass on the line. Granted, he had some major help from places, such as the Guardian, in figuring out what it was that he had, but regular journalists used to perform this task. WikiLeaks essentially become the middleman as the newspapers are afraid to take a stand. Still, credit needs to be given to the Guardian for taking a small stand and sifting through and categorizing the information and helping Assange.

Anyone with even a passing interest in the quagmire that is Afghanistan should be reading this. Then, consider donating to WikiLeaks so they can continue their work.