The Daily Muck

Consumer Product Safety Commissioner Nancy Nord has taken dozens of trips where airfare, accommodations and meals were financed by trade industries and manufacturers under the purview of her agency. The big winner was an $11,000 trip to China, with all costs covered by a fireworks company. (Washington Post)

CBS 60 Minutes has discovered the identity of “Curve Ball,” the Iraqi defector and secret CIA source who fabricated stories of Iraqi biological weapons that served as the pretext for the US invasion of Iraq. In addition to being a liar, Rafid Ahmed Alwan was a thief and poor student, not a chemical engineer as he claimed. (CBS 60 Minutes)

A New York City Councilman wants to know why former Mayor Rudy Giuliani thought it was appropriate to offer a no-bid contract to Motorola that resulted in faulty radios for firefighters during 9/11. The chair of the city’s oversight and investigations committee says he intends to get to the bottom of the matter. (Huffington Post)

University and public librarians are alarmed that Draft House and Senate surveillance bills “allow the government to compel any ‘communications service provider’ to provide access to e-mails and other electronic information within the United States as part of federal surveillance of non-U.S. citizens outside the country.” Privacy and academic freedom are at risk because universities that run private Internet networks can be classified as Internet service providers, thus opening up entire campuses to surveillance. (Washington Post)

A former federal prosecutor was acquitted yesterday of charges that he had withheld evidence from defense lawyers in a high-profile 2003 terror trial. (Washington Post)

The Senate’s campaign spending filing system is once again facing an obstacle to modernization. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) wants to have filing done electronically, but his legislation was stalled by an anonymous hold this summer. Now, the bill is being challenged by an amendment that would require those who file ethics complaints to make their financiers public. Critics worry such disclosure would discourage ethics complaints, and think this a backdoor ploy to kill Feingold’s amendment. (Washington Post)

Cheney’s lawyer is leaving! Calm down, it’s not David Addington. Shannen Coffin is on the way out the door, made famous for his time at the Justice Department when he publicly defended the Vice President’s right to keep secret information about his Energy Task Force. (US News)

Hillary can’t get out of Chinatown. An AP article yesterday about Hillary’s fundraising acumen mentioned that the Justice Department was interested in the donations she brought in from local dishwashers. No word yet which side of the law (if either) is acting inappropriately. Ties used to go to the Justice Department on these sorts of things, but lately… (AP)

Defense Secretary Robert Gates remains silent on whether waterboarding is torture. Both Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen insist that American troops shouldn’t have anything to do with waterboarding and Gates notes that the army field manual specifically bans the interrogation method. (ABC, WLOS)

It’s a shame that a few bad apples had to ruin a good time for everyone. The Blackwater scandal continues to shame the private contracting industry, as Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) is preparing legislation that would gradually remove all private contractors from Iraq. So far the Stop Outsourcing Security (SOS) Act has a handful of cosponsors, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is considering offering similar legislation in the Senate. (Huffington Post)