It was 7 a.m., and it was time to get some updates from Egypt. To change things up this time, I called my contact, Mohammed, in El-Mansoura. He agreed to allow me to use his first name. "How are you, Jamal?" he asked, catching his breath. "Sorry if I sound tired. I have a cold, and I've been on patrol all night and doing my part," he said. "We are taking matters into our own hands to make sure everyone feels safe." According to Mohammed, what is happening in Egypt will go down in the history books. Egyptians—Muslims, Christians and followers of other faiths—are all uniting under one banner to…

Editor's note: This is the latest installment in a series of updates from our San Clemente journalist's contacts in Egypt. At 12:25 p.m. California time, the phones came online in Egypt. I got through to my contact. "How are you?" I asked. "Not so good," he said. "Everything here is in total chaos. Egypt isn't a country anymore, it's a war." According to my source, the more than 1.4 million police officers in the country have abandoned their posts. Citizens are looting businesses and homes throughout El-Mansoura and other major cities across the country. "In my complex, we have armed guards…

Editor's note: This is the third dispatch from a San Clemente journalist who is helping to disseminate information from the protests in Egypt. He had been helping smuggle protest video out of the country through Russian computer servers before the government cut all Internet access. As protestors gain momentum in overthrowing Hosni Mubarak's regime, the Eqyptian president has deployed one giant resource: his army. At this time last week, El-Mansoura was a bustling city. Cars, along with donkeys and horses, crossed the streets of the city. It's a city that's highly regarded among Egyptians and…

Two decades ago, Sharm El-Sheikh was a sleepy fishing town. Today, it's a booming resort town, peopled by international bigwigs and European tourists. The bright white stucco buildings and wide clean streets make Sharm El-Sheikh, President Hosni Mubarak’s Camp David, look like a desert paradise compared with the rest of Egypt, which has struggled for decades under intense poverty and autocratic rule. The city is perched on the tip of the Sinai Peninsula overlooking the Red Sea. The city is hours from the violent urban centers in Cairo and El Mansoura, and what Egyptians fear will become …