Blogger Breaks Waterboarding Torture Story

If anyone has any lingering suspicion that blogs are taking over the world of journalism, consider this.

It was a blogger who uncovered this week's top story that the CIA used waterboarding more than 266 times on two Al-Queda suspects.

Marcy Wheeler from emptywheel.com discovered that atrocious figure had not been redacted from the memos released by the U.S. Justice Department late last week.

The new information on the number of waterboarding episodes came out over the weekend when a number of bloggers, including Marcy Wheeler of the blog emptywheel, discovered it in the May 30, 2005, memo.

The sentences in the memo containing that information appear to have been redacted from some copies but are visible in others. Initial news reports about the memos in The New York Times and other publications did not include the numbers.

MacArthur Justice Center Attorney Joe Margulies is working to secure the release of Abu Zubaida who endured waterboarding 83 times based on suspicions the government has tacitly conceded were misinformed.