To read this "exclusive" report by a news service called GigaOM, one would expect news in the ongoing lawsuit brought by a former New York prosecutor against the major cell phone companies for gouging the FBI, federal and state law enforcement agencies for compliance with wiretap orders.

A former New York prosecutor, John Prather, claims AT&T, Verizon, Qwest and Sprint regularly charged law enforcement agencies 10 times what they should have for routine wiretaps. He’s now suing on behalf of the FBI and state and city police departments to recover many millions of dollars for overcharging that allegedly took place for almost 20 years.

The case provides a window on the evolving world of wiretaps during an era of increasing surveillance. But the case is complicated because Prather stands to get a big chunk of money if the case succeeds and, as the phone companies argue, he may not be a real whistle-blower in the first place.

First, the lawsuit is not new. It was filed almost a year ago. Second, it's a Qui Tam lawsuit which means the prosecutor is essentially a bounty hunter who collects a portion of any proceeds awarded (like a whistleblower), usually about 15 to 25%. [More...]

This takes "brass" as they say:

“If President Obama were participating in his intelligence briefings on a regular basis then perhaps he would understand why people are so offended at his efforts to take sole credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden,” Cheney told the Daily Caller on Monday night[.]

Oh really? This from a guy who ignored the intelligence briefings on the imminent 9/11 attacks?

The direct warnings to Mr. Bush about the possibility of a Qaeda attack began in the spring of 2001. [...] But some in the administration considered the warning to be just bluster. An intelligence official and a member of the Bush administration both told me in interviews that the neoconservative leaders [...] were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein[. ...] In response, the C.I.A. prepared an analysis that all but pleaded with the White House to accept that the danger from Bin Laden was real. [...] Yet, the White House failed to take significant action.

Dick Cheney, one of the most disgraceful and despicable men ever to hold government office.

I'll be sitting in for David Waldman this morning on Daily Kos Radio from 9 to 10 Eastern.

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Open Thread.

The Voice is back! The first singer from Scotland was really good. It's going head to head against the X-Factor premiere on Wednesday, and Simon Cowell is really upset.

Even if you've never watched Bachelor Pad, tonight's finale is worth watching -- just for the ending. It really is a first for the show and pretty controversial.

In other news, CU Prof Ward Churchill lost his battle to regain his job today. The Colorado Supreme Court opinion is here. Churchill will try again with the U.S. Supreme Court.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Your turn. All topics welcome.

Update: Al-Shihri says he's alive. So does a Yemen official:

The Saudi newspaper Asharq al-Awsat quoted an unnamed senior Yemeni defense ministry official as saying that DNA tests of the body have proved that the dead man was not al-Shihri.

Saeed Ali al-Shihri, the former Guantanamo inmate who after release, went to a Saudi rehabilitation camp and then returned to Yemen to form AQAP and become its second in command, has been killed in Yemen. The Yemen News Agency announcement is here.

This isn't the first time Yemen has announced al-Shihiri is dead. More on Al-Shehri (also spelled al Shihri) and the other top AQAP leaders here. You can read his father's statements disowning him here.

The United States officially handed over control of Bagram Prison in Afghanistan today.

Here is the May, 2011 Human Rights First Report: Detained and Denied in Afghanistan. And a December, 2011 CBS report: Bagram: The Other Guantanamo?

Via Reuters: The military has announced a Guantanamo detainee was found dead today:

"While conducting routine checks, Joint Task Force-Guantanamo guards found the detainee unconscious and unresponsive. The guards immediately performed first aid and summoned medical personnel to the scene," the Southern Command said in a news release Monday.

Medics tried to revive him and took him to the base hospital, where he was pronounced dead, the release said. His remains will be returned home after an autopsy, it said.

The Southern Command's press release is here.

The FBI's $1 billion Next Generation Identification (NGI) programme is proceeding on schedule and should be fully launched by 2014. It's already in use in several states as test pilots, including Michigan, Hawaii, Maryland, and possibly Oregon.

NGI expands the FBI’s IAFIS criminal and civil fingerprint database to include multimodal biometric identifiers such as iris scans, palm prints, face-recognition-ready photos, and voice data, and makes that data available to other agencies at the state and federal levels.

The FBI page for the program is here. Here is a handy powerpoint on it from the 2010 Biometrics Conference. Here are the uses the FBI envisions for it: [More...]

The former Seal who goes by the name Mark Owen was on 60 minutes tonight. He said the raid on the Osama bin Laden compound was not a kill mission.

He then describes how they were going up the stairs and had been told to expect one of bin Laden's sons to be there. They saw a figure disappear behind a door. They didn't know who it was. A Seal, on a hunch, whispers "Khalid." The figure peeks around the corner. The Seal shoots him dead. It was Khalid bin Laden.

Owen: “Curiosity killed the cat. I guess Khalid, too.”

But this was not a kill mission.

As Mark Kleiman notes, Republicans are waking up to the fact the Romney is losing. So it's time to try and understand why. Collective answer? It's the American People's fault.

John Hinderaker thinks it all those welfare queens in their Cadillacs:

I'm back in NY after the DNC. I apologize for the sparcity of my blogging from Charlotte - I was juggling a lot of balls, including some important work issues. Tomorrow I hope to provide a comprehensive post on the goings on and what I think they mean for this election. In the meantime, it's Saturday and that means college football. My picks on the flip.

Open Thread. Go Gators!