It's not quite Soviet-style airbrushing, but the Bush administration has been using cyberspace to make some of its own cosmetic touch-ups to history.

Since 9/11, administration Web sites have been scrubbed ... "This smells like an attempt to revise the record, not just to withhold information but to alter the historical record in a self-interested way."

She said: "There was going to be a cost. That's why they're not there."

To empower citizens by providing a single, comprehensive, easy-to-use repository of information on individuals, organizations, and corporations related to the government of the United States of America.

A piece of information is like a piece of a puzzle. Oftentimes, only when a piece of information is combined with many other pieces of information does the big picture emerge. ... Information must lead to action.

... Prior to 9/11, our ability to "connect the dots" ... was substantially inhibited by the lack of communication and collaboration ... [Since then,] we have made great progress ...

Restrictions imposed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court severely hampered value information sharing ... and were thankfully overturned.

While I wholeheartedly endorse renewing all sunsetted PATRIOT Act provisions, it would be difficult for me to overemphasize the importance of making section 218 permanent. Without it, our ability ... could be seriously compromised.

My experiences, both before and after September 11th, have led me to a simple yet critical conclusion: Integration works.

By amending FISA to authorize investigations of unaffiliated foreign individuals ... we will improve our ability to gather intelligence about both apparent and real lone-wolf terrorists.

This is a nation of confounding murkiness, where every kind of deception, collusion and outright sham are recurring motifs in the political theater.

It seems that most Pakistanis, including a great many of the college-educated, continue to believe that the World Trade Center was attacked as part of a Jewish conspiracy. When I responded with incredulity, I was pitied as a naif.

Even in largely Pashtun Peshawar, the masses are being tugged in multiple directions, including toward modernity and the West. Internet cafes, which the Taliban would never have tolerated, are opening one after the other. Training in English is a chief selling point of private academies. Music and movies are sold openly. Pinups of Indian actresses are marketed side by side with those glorifying Osama bin Laden. More than 200 cable-TV operators are collecting a $4 monthly fee from tens of thousands of subscribers; even more people are stealing the service.

I and a number of other wealthy Americans are contributing millions of dollars to grass-roots organizations engaged in the 2004 presidential election.

A chief architect of the USA Patriot Act is voicing concern about aspects of the administration's anti-terrorism policy.

At issue is the government's power to designate and detain "enemy combatants." After thinking about Jose Padilla, he came to the conclusion that the administration's case was "unsustainable."

Another former top official said, "We need to debate a long-term and sustainable architecture."

The bloodless "revolution of roses" that toppled Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze on Sunday might have transpired in the streets of Tbilisi, but in a way it was inspired in the streets of Belgrade.

California will become the first state requiring all electronic voting machines produce a voter-verifiable paper receipt.

In his admirable ... speech last week, President Bush ... announced a new policy of encouraging democracy rather than dictatorship in the Muslim world.

What Mr. Bush neglected to mention was that many Muslims, if freed to make their own democratic choices, will choose Islam over secularism. A case in point is the newly released draft of the Afghan constitution, which enshrines Islamic values even as it guarantees basic liberties.

George Soros, one of the world's richest men, has given away nearly $5 billion to promote democracy in the former Soviet bloc, Africa and Asia. Now he has a new project: defeating President Bush.