The Los Angeles Times published a remarkable story over the weekend about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas that deserves active follow up by bar authorities and the mainstream media, not simply legal reform organizations. We'll be pursuing this at the Justice Integrity Project. But first, we provide the basics with a link to the original story.

Los Angeles Times, Clarence Thomas failed to report wife's income, watchdog says, Kim Geiger, Jan. 22, 2011. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, left, failed to report his wife's income from a conservative think tank on financial disclosure forms for at least five years, the watchdog group Common Cause said Friday. 

Between 2003 and 2007, Virginia Thomas, a longtime conservative activist, earned $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation, according to a Common Cause review of the foundation's IRS records. Thomas failed to note the income in his Supreme Court financial disclosure forms for those years, instead checking a box labeled "none" where "spousal noninvestment income" would be disclosed.

Washington Post, Eyes in the Sky: Privacy issues hover over police drone use, Peter Finn, Jan. 23, 2011. The drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan is entering the national airspace: Unmanned aircraft are patrolling the border with Mexico, searching for missing persons over difficult terrain, flying into hurricanes to collect weather data, photographing traffic accident scenes and tracking the spread of forest fires. But the operation outside Austin presaged what could prove to be one of the most far-reaching and potentially controversial uses of drones: as a new and relatively cheap surveillance tool in domestic law enforcement.

Huffington Post, Twitter Diplomacy: U.S. Diplomacy Embracing Twitter Amid Global Crises, Matthew Lee, Jan. 23, 2011. The State Department is tightening its embrace of Twitter and other social media as crises grip the Middle East and Haiti, with officials finding new voice, cheek and influence in the era of digital diplomacy. Even as it struggles to contain damage caused by WikiLeaks' release of classified internal documents, the department is reaching out across the Internet. It's bypassing traditional news outlets to connect directly and in real time with overseas audiences in the throes of unrest and upheaval.

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OpEd News, Justice Department Leakers of Classified Info. Get a Pass, Jesselyn Radack, Jan. 20, 2011. It is indisputable that the Obama, via the Holder Justice Department, has brought more "leak" prosecutions than any presidential Administration, ever. To add hypocrisy to the injury of selective and malicious prosecutions of Shamai Liebowitz, Thomas Drake, Stephen Kim, and Jeffrey Sterling -- the Justice Department's own attorneys are immune from the "war on leaks." U.S. District Court Judge Maxine Chesney ruled last week that the Justice Department does not have to disclose the identities of two lawyers who were found by the Office of Professional Responsibility to have intentionally disclosed classified information to the media in 1996.

1) Here are our major recent investigative reports and opinion columns on the topics of free press, national security and personal privacy: 

• Partner at Law Firm Counseling Assange's Accusers Helped the CIA In 2001 Rendition for Torture
• Whistleblower Says: Obama's DoJ Declares War on Whistleblowers
• Rove Suspected of Role In Swedish WikiLeaks Probe
• Obama's Airport Assault On Our Freedoms

2) Here are our recent radio or TV interviews on the topic (available globally by archive):

• Prime Minister’s Biographer Sees Rove Influence in Swedish Politics
• News Hour Q& A: What Does WikiLeaks Mean For You?
• Swedish Pundit Assails WikiLeaks, Downplays Rove Ties 

3) Our archive of such reports arranged by date is in our website section labelled News Reports accessible at the top of our home page, with most of the reports also published as notes to a blog here, typically within a day or two of original publication.

By Andrew Kreig / Director's Blog

of the former general's powerful remarks warning the public to become vigilent against the threat to democracy posed by what he called a new "military-industrial complex" unprecedented in United States history. His granddaughter, Susan Eisenhower, amplifies that message in a new essay excerpted below.

The date is also the national holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was assassinated at age 39 after helping lead the struggle culminating in the major civil rights laws in the 1960s. In 1955, he led the non-violent bus boycott in his hometown of Montgomery, Alabama after Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of a bus as required under segregation. He is portrayed at right in a 1966 photo via Wikipedia with Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas. Johnson, elected to the Senate in 1948, had won from fellow segregationists virtually unprecedented influence early in his career because they believed his acumen could help segregation endure. Instead, Johnson as president shocked his former Southern mentors by pushing through rights legislation. The final push came because of violence in the South and continuing discrimination throughout the nation, including the murder of civil rights workers in Mississippi, the bombing of a black Alabama church and the brutal suppression of Alabama civil rights marchers in Alabama. However, Johnson warned King, according to biographers, that signing civil rights legislation under Democratic leadership in Washington would lead to the demise of the party in the Deep South for generations.

The nearly decade-long, Republican-led effort to pursue former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman on corruption charges, thereby removing the state's last Democrat of potential statewide electability, suggests one way that Johnson's prediction unfolded, as amplified below.

Click on the links to see the full columns on these and other topics excerpted as follows:

Washington Post, 50 years after the 'military-industrial complex,' what Eisenhower really meant, Susan Eisenhower, Jan. 14, 2011. I've always found it rather haunting to watch old footage of my grandfather, Dwight Eisenhower, giving his televised farewell address to the nation on Jan. 17, 1961.The 50-year-old film all but crackles with age as the president makes his earnest, uncoached speech. I was 9 years old at the time, and it wasn't until years later that I understood the importance of his words or the lasting impact of his message.

Tickle the Wire, Happy MLK Day, Allan Lengel, Jan. 17, 2011. A salute to a man who did some extraordinary things during an extraordinary era. He died at the young age of 39.The man left behind so many great quotes, including this one: "In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."

OpEd News, My Upcoming Appeal Hearing on January 19th, Don Siegelman, Jan. 17, 2011. I believe that the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the earlier ruling of the 11th Circuit and sent my case back because the U.S.S.C. [U.S. Supreme Court] wants a different result...That is good news for me. If I do not win ....every governor, every U.S. Member of Congress and Presidents Bush and Obama will be subject to prosecution....Also keep in mind we have a motion for a new trial pending which lays open the government's misconduct starting with [Karl] Rove and ending with Bill Canary [Rove's friend and longtime Republican ally, and husband of the U.S. attorney whose office prosecuted Siegelman -- and who has been retained so far by the Obama administration].