Debate raged in the CIA about whether to destroy videotapes of interrogations of key terrorist suspect for several years, during the tenure of two CIA directors, according to an article by Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti in the New York Times.  Their investigation shows that many at the top of the CIA were unsure about the legality of waterboarding and other aggressive interrogation techniques.  The larger question cited by unnamed CIA officers was how they might be blamed for techniques that had been authorized by top Bush Administration officials.  One observer commented that "to a spectator, [the techniques] would look like torture."   Read Shane and Mazzetti here.

Social security numbers are easily available on line through a number of government agency web sites around the country, writes Bill Brubaker of the Washington Post.  A host of government sites, as well as easily-accessible public records, contain individuals’ social security numbers, a fact that may be sparking the more than 8 million cases of identity theft recorded in the U.S. each year.  Read Bill Brubaker here.

Andrew Tilghman writes in The Washington Monthly about a growing problem:  the departure of career officers from the U.S. Army.  As Tilghman writes, "an all-volunteer army has few tools at its disposal to staunch the loss of high-grade junior officers," a loss that is increasing as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan drag on.  Officers who could go on to lead the military establishment are departing, disillusioned by incompetence and the sometimes unrealistic demands of Army life at home.  Read Andrew Tilghman here.

In the 2006-2007 school year, the temperature in some of the District of Columbia’s public school buildings sometimes hovered just above freezing.  The cause?  Broken boilers.  These weren’t old, decrepit systems, but brand-new steel boilers in 55 schools that cost District taxpayers $80 million.  As David Fallis, V. Dion Hayes, and Dan Keating report in the Washington Post, by spending approximately $100,000 district-wide, the school system could have ensured the boilers’ trouble-free performance.  How?  (more…)