Before he was hosting The Mole and crusading around New Orleans, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper was just a rich kid with a whitebread dream: to be a spy. Radar reports (correctly, we hope) that after his sophomore and junior years at Yale, Anderson Cooper eschewed paper-shuffling summer internships in lieu of some quality time in Langley, Virginia, at the CIA's headquarters, where he was part of a CIA summer program for student interested in intelligence work. (And, as an aside, doesn't the concept of a CIA summer program give you the chills? Like Space Camp meets WarGames meets Silence of the Lambs.)

• Congress seeks to stop companies like AOL from logging customer data. (The last government interaction with this data was when the FBI ordered a big pile of it from AOL.) [CNET]

Poor Rupert Murdoch and his social networking site can't get a break. MySpace is facing scads of issues today:

This weekend, Google launched a U.S. Government search (didn't we already have one?) aimed at government employees — probably building on its lesson, learned when helping out FEMA with Google Maps, that the U.S. government couldn't find its own ass with its hands glued to it.

Hide the porn and stop searching for "Bush is a loser" — the US government today asked Internet companies to keep records of e-mails and web searches. Not demanded — they'd need Congress's approval for that — but asked. Like, as a favor, in between the Chinese censorship and the Nazi collaboration. The Attorney General and FBI director made this request to AOL, Microsoft, Comcast, and Google (and Verizon, a known informant). Who will sell us out first? Let's guess!

In Silicon Valley, where busy parents need another place to send the kids all day, Proposition 82, the Preschool for All Act, is supported by VC John Doerr and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings.

Major props to tech outlet Wired News for posting loads of evidence of a secret AT&T spying room. And more props for doing so the same day that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said that the government can prosecute journalists for publishing classified info.

Microsoft and the Department of Defense? OMG trustworthy! The software company that everyone respects and trusts signed a contract last week to work with an equally loved and trusted government agency on Microsoft Virtual Earth (like Google Earth with extra suck).

• Apple buys land for more offices in Cupertino (having outgrown the ones pictured). I really really hope there's a giant cube involved. [Reuters]

After a gentle reminder that it's not the only bloated, power-hungry behemoth in the nation, Google decided that it's not above politics after all. (Hanging out with Gavin Newsom didn't count.) So the "we may be huge but we're quirky and indie" company sighed, rolled up its sleeves, and hired some Washington lobbyists (pictured).

Geeky investor Joi Ito says the new golf isn't extreme biking, it's World of Warcraft. [1up.com]
Pixar's taking over Toy Story 3, not shelving it. A power play against Lasseter, or can he wring more magic from the series? [Moviehole]
Google can keep a copy of your tax records, love letters, and porn folder, and they promise not to peek — as long as that's considered evil, anyway. [EFF]
Get in on the ground floor (or own a piece of doomed software history) — order a Flockstar tee. [Factory Joe]
Homeland Security saves the Internet from hackers and, um, bloggers in a simulation. They probably cheated and skipped the "Cory Doctorow of Mass Destruction" simulation. [Newsvine]