The truth about Prince may be orders of magnitude stranger than fiction.

For the past six years, he appears to have led an astonishing double life. Publicly, he has served as Blackwater’s C.E.O. and chairman. Privately, and secretly, he has been helping [the C.I.A.] to craft, fund, and execute operations ranging from inserting personnel into “denied areas”—places U.S. intelligence has trouble penetrating—to assembling hit teams targeting al-Qaeda members. Read the full story

(CBS) According to Rep. Pete Hoekstra, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, the government has been “too slow” in providing information to members of Congress in the investigation into Maj. Nadil Malik Hasan and the Ft. Hood massacre.

On CBS’ “Face The Nation,” host Bob Schieffer asked Hoekstra if he was satisfied with the administration’s transparency with members of Congress.

“There hasn’t been enough transparency for members of Congress, for the press, or for the American people. You know, I think that we need to move very, very aggressively and do a full-scale investigation as to who knew what and where,” Hoekstra responded. Read the full story

SAO PAULO, Brazil — A massive 2007 electrical blackout in Brazil has been newly blamed on computer hackers, but was actually the result of a utility company’s negligent maintenance of high voltage insulators on two transmission lines. That’s according to reports from government regulators and others who investigated the incident for more than a year.

In a broadcast Sunday night, the CBS newsmagazine “60 minutes” cited unnamed sources in making the extraordinary claim that a two-day outage in the Atlantic state of Espirito Santo was triggered by hackers targeting a utility company’s control systems. The blackout affected 3 million people. Hackers also caused another, smaller blackout north of Rio de Janeiro in January 2005, the network claimed.

Brazilian government officials disputed the report over the weekend, and Raphael Mandarino Jr., director of the Homeland Security Information and Communication Directorate, told the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo that he’s investigated the claims and found no evidence of hacker attacks, adding that Brazil’s electric control systems are not directly connected to the internet. Read the full story

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The power of lies, deceptions and disinformation as Americans pay the price of collective stupidity.

“You know very well, and the stupid Americans know equally well, that we control their government, irrespective of who sits in the White House. You see, I know it and you know it that no American president can be in a position to challenge us even if we do the unthinkable. What can they (Americans) do to us? We control congress, we control the media, we control show biz, and we control everything in America. In America you can criticize God, but you can’t criticize Israel…” Israeli spokeswoman, Tzipora Menache Read the full story

NEW YORK — “Early show” host Harry Smith has taken a sick day from work, telling viewers he thinks he has swine flu.

In an interview live from his New York City apartment Monday, Smith told CBS viewers he started feeling achy and feverish over the weekend after a 25-mile bike ride in the rain and dancing all night at a birthday party.

“Early Show” medical correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton says Smith could be right because his symptoms are associated with swine flu. She praised him for staying home and out of circulation.

Ashton says most swine flu cases are mild. She predicted Smith will be back on the “Early Show” couch in a couple of days.

Symptoms of swine flu can include fever, cough, congestion, aches, chills, diarrhea and vomiting.

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NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Police are hunting for the killer who stuffed a body believed to be that of a Yale University graduate student behind a wall in the high-security laboratory building where she worked. Police found the body around 5 p.m. Sunday, on what was to have been 24-year-old Annie Le’s wedding day. An autopsy was underway on Monday to verify the identity of the body, found in a cable duct in the Yale medical school building. Police would not say Monday if they have a suspect, but said that nobody is in custody. Read the full story

Have you been craving a way to make music on your iPhone/iPod Touch? I sure have, and I think I have the perfect application for you to use!

GrooveMaker is a revolutionary application that allows you to create electronic, hip-hop, and dance tracks in real time like a professional DJ. I was able to put my own DJ skills to work with this fun app and never realized how exciting it could be to create tracks on a device smaller than the 24 inch screen I have at home. Read the full story

CBS Report:

Report: Torture Program Architects Made Millions

Two military retirees and psychologists with “no relevant scholarship” made millions of dollars as the driving force behind the CIA’s controversial interrogation program ultimately terminated under the Obama administration, according to a New York Times report Wednesday.

Beginning in 2002, the CIA contracted Dr. Jim Mitchell and Dr. Bruce Jessen to devise an interrogation strategy for suspected al Qaeda operatives that included waterboarding, a technique later characterized as torture.

The ripple effects of the program are still being felt months after it was cancelled by the White House, as Attorney General Eric J. Holder Jr. weighs the pursuit a criminal investigation. He’s expected to make a decision in the coming weeks. The CIA is also set to release a 2004 report on the program by the agency’s inspector general, according to the Times.

Mitchell and Jessen, who both served as Air Force psychologists training service members in interrogation resistance, pursued completely different research while obtaining their degrees, according to the report.

After serving in the Air Force as an explosives expert, Mitchell completed his doctorate at the University of South Florida in 1986. His research compared diet and exercise in controlling hypertension.

Jessen studied “family sculpting” – where patients construct models of family members to define their emotional relationships – on his way to earning a doctorate from Utah State University.

Both men worked in the Air Force’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape, or SERE, training program, which was created to prepare service members for the harsh Chinese-style interrogations undergone by Americans during the Korean War. Jessen served as the program’s top psychologist during the 1980s before moving on to head a “graduate” training program. Mitchell replaced Jessen after the move.

Around the time of the 9/11 attacks, the now retired Mitchell created training company Knowledge Works. Using his extensive military contacts, Mitchell began circulating his theories on demoralizing al Qaeda suspects into cooperation, according to the report. His ideas were well received within the CIA and, with Jessen, he wrote a proposal that based American interrogation strategy on enemy practices – slaps, stress positions, sleep deprivation, wall-slamming and waterboarding.

In 2002, Abu Zubaydah, reportedly al Qaeda’s third in command, was being interrogated at a CIA prison in Thailand. FBI investigators had originally used conventional techniques like rapport-building to obtain intelligence. Mitchell arrived later and directed a more coercive treatment for Zubaydah including sleep deprivation and 83 waterboarding sessions over several months. During the interrogation, FBI and even some CIA officials reportedly expressed reservations about the use of torture techniques.

Jessen joined his partner in July before both men determined that the suspect had no more information to yield.

With Justice Department authorization of the enhanced interrogation techniques, business was booming for the pair. The each made between $1,000 and $2,000 a day. What started out as a home-based operation became a 60-employee business with offices in Spokane and Virginia by 2007.

But it just as quickly dried up. Beginning in 2006, elements within the Bush administration, notably Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, started questioning the legitimacy of the program. Public opinion began to steadily deteriorate until the Obama administration took office and terminated the program.

Now in danger of becoming ensnared in a criminal probe, Mitchell and Jessen have retained well known defense lawyer, Henry F. Scheulke III, according to the Times.