From the Washington Post:

An internal watchdog office at the Justice Department is investigating whether Bush administration lawyers violated professional standards by issuing legal opinions that authorized the CIA to use waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques, officials confirmed yesterday.

H. Marshall Jarrett, counsel for the Office of Professional Responsibility, wrote in a letter to Democratic lawmakers that his office is investigating the "circumstances surrounding" Justice opinions that established a legal basis for the CIA's interrogation program, including a now-infamous memo from August 2002 that narrowly defined torture and was later rescinded by the department.

By happenstance, there's a movie playing at the Royal Theatre this weekend called Taxi To The Dark Side, by Alex Gibney. It's up for best documentary feature at the Academy Awards this weekend.

Gibney's narrative thread is wrapped around the tragic story of Dilawal, a young Afghan cab driver who ended up in the U.S.-operated Bagram Prison and came out dead. His death certificate read "homicide."

His legs were "pulpified," according to a U.S. coroner. Had Dilawal lived, his legs would have required amputation because of the tissue damage he suffered.

Dilawal's case was investigated and prosecuted, but as with Abu Ghraib, the investigations looked down. Gibney's film looks up. W-a-a-a-a-y up.

Students from the UBC j-school worked with Mr. "What's the frequency, Kenneth?" on a doc about Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. They liked him.

Brit Martin Newland, the founding deputy editor of the National Post, is now helping start up a brand-new paper in the United Arab Emirates. Here's some of his thoughts on that process and on journalism in his former colony.