JURIST Guest Columnist Amos Guiora of the University of Utah College of Law says that if the US had followed Israel's lead in taking an aggressive approach to judicial review of executive action, such controversial Bush Administration policies as torture, military commissions, and indefinite detention would have been subjected to the strict scrutiny they so [...]
Former vice-president Dick Cheney directly ordered the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to withhold from Congress information on a counterterrorism program kept secret for eight years until it was terminated by current CIA director Leon Panetta , according to a Saturday New York Times report . The secret counterterrorism program was initiated in the months following [...]
US Attorney General Eric Holder is still considering appointing a prosecutor to investigate allegations of torture during the Bush administration, Newsweek reported Saturday. Despite pressure from the White House to "look forward, not backwards" with regard to Bush-era interrogation tactics , Holder has reportedly requested a list of ten candidates, five from within the Department [...]
The Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program relied on a flawed legal analysis at its inception and produced results of questionable effectiveness, according to an unclassified version of a report released Friday by five government agencies. The report, prepared by inspector generals at the US Department of Justice (DOJ), the National Security Agency (NSA), the Central [...]
Pakistan has completed its probe into in last November's terror attacks in Mumbai and will likely begin trying next week five men arrested in connection with the attacks, Pakistan's Minister of the Interior Rehman Malik announced Saturday. Malik named Zaki-ur-Rahman Lahkvi , one of the men to stand trial, as the commander in the attacks. [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled Friday a neighborhood motorist checkpoint program unconstitutionally violated plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment rights. The court overturned a ruling by the US District Court for the District of Columbia , applying precedent from the Supreme Court's decision in City of Indianapolis v. Edmond . In Edmonds, the [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit announced Thursday that prosecutors cannot subpoena statements made by a former congressman to the US House of Representatives Ethics Committee , unsealing a June 23 opinion. In overturning the lower court's ruling, the court ruled that the Constitution's Speech and Debate Clause , which states that [...]
Unclassified Report on the President's Surveillance Program, The Office of the Inspectors' General of the US Department of Justice (DOJ), the National Security Agency (NSA), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Department of Defense (DOD), and the Office of National Intelligence (ONI), July 10, 2009 . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here. Latest commentary available [...]
The Kurdish Parliament announced Friday that it was postponing a public referendum on approval of the Constitution of Kurdistan . The vote had previously been scheduled to coincide with parliamentary elections later this month, but parliamentary president Adnan Mufti said that the election commission was unable to organize both votes on the same day for [...]
An African Union (AU) panel led by former South African president Thabo Mbeki recommended Friday that the AU cooperate with International Criminal Court (ICC) efforts to arrest Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity . The recommendation comes in stark contrast to a vote by the full AU last [...]
