A privacy advocacy group has swayed Congress to hold a hearing next week into the Department of Homeland Security’s practice of monitoring social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, as well as media reports and organizations, including The Drudge Report.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) recently obtained close to 300 pages of documents, as a result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, detailing the federal agency’s “intelligence gathering” practices on the web.

Among the documents were guidelines from DHS instructing outside contractors to monitor the web for media reports and comments that “reflect adversely” on the agency or the federal government.

As Reuters reported last month, in early 2010 contractors were asked to spend 24 hours monitoring news media coverage on popular websites, including Facebook, Twitter, Hulu, WikiLeaks, as well as news sites including the Huffington Post and The Drudge Report.

The contractors were required to provide the DHS with feedback on any potential “threats and hazards”, as well as “any media reports that reflect adversely on the U.S. Government and the Department of Homeland Security (D.H.S.) ability to prevent, protect and respond, to recovery efforts or activities related to any crisis or events which impact National Planning Scenarios.”

Read More at infowars.com By Steve Watson, infowars.com

The Romney campaign is better at dismantling than mantling. They’re better at taking opponents apart than building a compelling candidate of their own. They do not seem capable of deepening his meaning, making his stands and statements more textured and interesting. He comes across like a businessman who studied the data and came up with the formula that will make the deal.

A particular problem is that he betrays little indignation at any of our problems and their causes. He’s always sunny, pleasant, untouched by anger. This leaves people thinking, “Excuse me, but we are in crisis. Financially and culturally we fear our country is going down the drain. This guy doesn’t seem to be feeling it. So why’s he running? Maybe he thinks it’s his personal destiny to be president. But if the animating passion of his candidacy is about him, not us, who needs him?”

Mitt Romney’s aides are making the classic mistake of thinking the voters want maturity, serenity and a jolly spirit. What they want is a man who knows what time it is, who has a passion to reform our country, and who yet holds these qualities within a temperament that is mature, serene and jolly. Newt Gingrich has half the package: He has a passion to reform, but it exists inside a crazy suit. Mitt has no particular passion within an obviously sane suit.

Which leads to Rick Santorum. Nobody in the conservative base hates Rick. Newt is hated by many and Mitt by some. Mr. Santorum is liked. He has real indignation about what’s happened to America, and he brings passion to his ideas about reform. He’s got little money, little organization—there’s no broad assumption he can pull it off. And by the time the Romney campaign is done dismantling him, he may have some people who hate him. But this will only underscore the Romney campaign’s reputation for destroying, not creating. And nobody loves a Death Star.

Newt’s not done and could rise again. I keep thinking of what a sage old pol, a veteran former GOP governor, said two weeks ago. He turned to me in conversation and said, “By the way, don’t call it a brokered convention. That’s what the media and the Democrats will call it because it implies there are brokers. Call it a contested convention because that’s what it will be, contested.” Could it really come to that? The odds, he said, are still way against it. “But they’re probably the best in my lifetime.”

Read More at The Wall Street Journal By Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal

Right-leaning radio host Mark Levin launched a scathing attack on Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney today, labeling the former Massachusetts governor “sleazy” and “poisonous.”

On his Facebook page today, Levin tells Romney, “Conservatives have had enough of your sleazy campaign tactics.”

Levin pointed to a CNN report, which noted that in the wake of Rick Santorum’s three-state sweep yesterday in presidential primaries and caucuses, Romney would be taking a tougher approach with the former Pennsylvania senator, looking to paint him as a Washington insider.

Read More at WND By Joe Kovacs, WorldNetDaily

(CNSNews.com) – Following his clean sweep in Tuesday’s nominating contests in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri on Tuesday, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum sent his supporters a letter, making the case that he is the true conservative in the race.
“Before I try and get some sleep, I had to sit down and write you this letter,” Santorum wrote. The letter, which included a request for donations, was emailed around 2:30 a.m.

Santorum mentioned Ronald Reagan, who lost eight primaries in the 1976 presidential bid but made it all the way to the nominating convention. It took Reagan a few more years to become the Republican presidential nominee, but Santorum is hoping for a different outcome.

“I can beat Mitt Romney and then President Obama with the kind of conservative ideas that you support,” Santorum said.

“Conservatives face a choice now,” Santorum wrote. “It’s a ‘time for choosing’ for us. Will we choose another Gerald Ford, Bob Dole, or John McCain? Or will we choose a Conservative standard bearer to inspire our party and America along with it?”

Read More at cnsnews.com By Penny Starr, CNSNews

Obama and his team are hypocrites. They claim to want clean elections and that Super PAC’s are the spawn of the rich evil elites that want to rule America. That must be why they are starting one. Obama has only one goal, the accumulation of power. He truly practices the ends justify the means.