When should newspapers publish a secret?

In an Opinion editorial, Los Angeles Times and New York Times editors Dean Baquet and Bill Keller try to decide when journalism is guilty of too much information.

In recent years our papers have brought you a great deal of information the White House never intended for you to know — classified secrets about the questionable intelligence that led the country to war in Iraq, about the abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, about the transfer of suspects to countries that are not squeamish about using torture, about eavesdropping without warrants.

US government says it can't be sued for secret stuff

The US government invoked the "state secrets privilege" in an attempt to have the EFF's spy program case against the NSA quashed.

Though the existence of a secretive NSA spy program with direct links into the domestic US voice and data grids has now been well documented, it has so far proved impossible to turn up any hard evidence about what the spooks are doing with all their data, or even what data is being collected. All private attempts at learning if US citizens are being illegally spied upon have been stonewalled by the government, and the same fate looks likely to befall the EFF tomorrow in court.

ArsTechnica has details.

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Eco-activism taken to the next level

In a novel approach to eco-activism, Tommy and Leona get it on in the middle of a clear-cut former forest. The duo hopes the video, published to their members-only web site, will help save the planet. In 2005, this unlikely project already raised nearly $100,000 for rain forest protection through the sale of paid memberships.

"Sex-positive erotic expression and environmentalism naturally go hand-in-hand," says Bay Area writer and cybersex pundit Annalee Newitz. "Both are efforts to show what is beautiful and valuable about the natural world."

The Amazon's a big place. They better get busy.

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Parents Television Council fabricates complaints against CBS

ArsTechnica covers CBS's USD 3.3 million fine from the FCC for manufactured indecency complaints. Oddly enough, the Parents Television Council hosts a video clip of the offending scene on their site, just to make sure you're able to see what you're complaining about. Not that 70,000 PTC and AFA members bothered to check before submitting the pre-written letters of complaint...

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Virus makes file-sharing program share files

AP reports that there is a new computer virus that finds files on Winny users' PCs and makes them available to others by sharing them:

The malware, called Antinny, finds random files on Winny users' PCs and makes them available on the file-sharing network. So far, the data leaked have been varied and plentiful: passwords for restricted areas at airports, police investigations, customer information, sales reports, staff lists.

The constantly updated virus seems to have spared no one — airlines, local police forces, mobile phone companies, the National Defense Agency. Even an antivirus software manufacturer has suffered.

Who in their right mind would put file-sharing software on the same machine that has secret investigation documents?