When China submitted its bid to host the 2008 Summer Olympics, it promised that journalists would have "complete freedom to report" from the country. However, "sites such as Amnesty International or any search for a site with Tibet in the address could not be opened at the Main Press Center [in Beijing], which will house about 5,000 print journalists when the games open Aug. 8," reports the Associated Press. Now, it turns out that International Olympic Committee (IOC) officials "negotiated with the Chinese that some sensitive sites would be blocked on the basis they were not considered Games related," reports Reuters. A spokesperson for the Beijing Olympics organizing committee said, "We are going to do our best to facilitate the foreign media to do their reporting work through the Internet." Access to websites about groups like the banned Falun Gong will remain blocked, he said, because "Falun Gong is an evil, fake religion." The Chinese government is also requiring hotels to "install and run the Security Management System," reports the Los Angeles Times. U.S. Senator Sam Brownback says the system will actually be used for "invasive intelligence gathering" during the Olympics, according to hotel documents.

It's an "open secret of lobbying," writes Jeffrey Birnbaum. "Public relations firms regularly solicit authors of opinion-page articles, draft the pieces for them and place the articles in publications where they will have the most impact -- all for a fee." Recently, an op-ed criticizing a bill that would reduce credit card fees appeared in Southern newspapers, attributed to Charles Steele Jr., the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The column -- which neither Steele nor his office authorized -- complains that the bill "would boost the profits of Wal-Mart," an SCLC sponsor. Steele's attorney blamed "the K Street public relations shop LMG" for the mix-up. LMG admitted that it had "reached out through its contractors" to send "advocacy materials" to the SCLC and "urged the group to go public with opposition to the bill." Among LMG's clients is the Electronic Payments Coalition, a group of credit card and financial companies that opposes the legislation. The SCLC investigated and concluded that "the wrong draft of the op-ed" had been sent to papers. "The correct draft should not have referenced Wal-Mart or Home Depot," another SCLC sponsor.

Ed Morales takes the 110th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Puerto Rico as an opportunity to talk about its status. "The United States invaded the island on July 25, 1898, and claimed it as booty after the Spanish-American War. Long since obsolete as a strategic outpost in the Cold War, the Caribbean island is America's best-kept secret: an unfree state within the land of the free." The island has never seriously been considered for statehood, often for racist reasons. A portion of Puerto Rico's Vieques Island was routinely used as a bombing range by the U.S. Navy. The island of nearly four million inhabitants "is an 'unincorporated territory,' which means that the island is subject to the authority of the U.S. Congress, which can overturn any action by the island's legislature." Puerto Ricans are not able to vote in U.S. presidential elections, nor do they having voting representatives in Congress. While there is often a misperception that Puerto Ricans receive certain rights without paying taxes (which is mainly false), Morales has this take: "Puerto Rico's commonwealth status was a dry run for the free trade practices of the last 15 years, where profit -- and the potential for local investment -- is extracted from a weaker economy by rampaging multinational corporations. Today, Puerto Rico is suffering from a failing economy with high unemployment rates, a fall-off in tourism due to the gas crisis, overdependence on government entitlements like food stamps and a failing public education system."