WASHINGTON -- Connor Stevens was sentenced to eight years in prison in mid-November for taking part in a plot to blow up an Ohio bridge. The 20-year-o...

-- Study: Gun sales in Virginia up 73 percent since 2006. Gun violence is down 24 percent over the same period. -- Intrade cuts off U.S. customers af...

The tainting of character, the undermining of basic trust, the disruption of democratic politics -- these are the great achievements of state surveillance.

Informers have by now become our first line of defense in our battles with the evildoers, the go-to guys in the never-ending domestic war on terror. This duplicitous landscape of "success" has been illuminated yet again.

While the conduct of a couple of loose-cannon informants can be a headache for the FBI and the butt of jokes, behind the scenes authorities are increasingly concerned about evolving threats from across the ideological spectrum.