Cursor's Media Patrol - June 27, 2005

After 9/11, the U.S. Justice Department used the material witness law to "thrust scores of Muslim men ... into a Kafkaesque world of indefinite detention without charge," according to a new report from Human Rights Watch and the ACLU.

La Dolce Vita! The mission said to have been undertaken by suspected CIA operatives wanted in Italy on kidnapping charges, is described as "equal parts James Bond and taxpayer-financed Italian holiday."

Wyoming environmentalists express their concern over a U.S. plan to resume production of plutonium 238 for the first time since the cold war, for "secret missions" and "national security." Earlier: 'From Potatoes to Plutonium.'

A San Jose Mercury News report on a new California National Guard "special intelligence unit," reveals that Guard officials "have already been involved in tracking at least one recent Mother's Day anti-war rally organized by families of slain American soldiers."

Think Progress reveals the evolution of Rumsfeld's thinking about a "Credibility Gap," and Gadflyer's Paul Waldman finds him parsing the meaning of "throe," explaining that "last throes could be a violent last throe, just as well as a placid or calm last throe."

In an interview with a 20 year-old "battle-hardened insurgent," Time gets 'Inside the Mind of an Iraqi Suicide Bomber,' said to be "the first to tell his story before carrying out such a mission."