The FBI is sending out over 30,000 national security letters per year, asking for financial, telephone and Internet records of ordinary Americans. That's a 100-fold increase over historic norms, says a Washington Post story.

Americans who like this practice can thank the Patriot Act.

In 1961, Daniel Schorr, then with CBS, and his cameraman got morning footage of East German troops laying barbed wire in Berlin on that night's 11 p.m. news. That was considered blazingly fast back then -- paradigm-shifting, even.

Consider how things have changed.

Cambodians were shocked to learn that their government had privatized Cheung Ek, the most notorious of the "killing fields" of the autogenocidal Khmer Rouge.

This NYT piece suggests they shouldn't have been -- that corruption and greed are driving a firesale of Cambodia's public assets.

The NYT reports that an important al Qaeda suspect captured in 2002 was identified as a probable liar by the Defence Information Agency when it came to his claims that Iraq had taught al Qaeda operatives how to use biological and chemical weapons.

The report is based on newly declassified documents.