The Brazilian Supreme Court on Thursday overturned a law restricting the press as unconstitutional. The court ruled 7-4 that the Press Law , which was enacted in 1967 and allowed for censorship of news media, books, and other forms of communication, is incompatible with the Brazilian Constitution . The law was enacted while the country [...]
A bill that would have aided homeowners in foreclosure was rejected 45-51 Thursday by the US Senate . The financial industry had lobbied heavily against the proposed legislation that had come to be known as the "cramdown bill" for a provision that would have allowed bankruptcy judges to modify mortgages from lenders that had not [...]
Al Qaeda operative Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri pleaded guilty Thursday to charges of conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization after reaching a plea agreement with federal prosecutors that may send him to jail for 15 years. Prosecutors said that al-Marri, a "sleeper operative" for al Qaeda who arrived in the country [...]
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addressed questions about the specific plans for closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility before the US Senate Committee on Appropriations on Thursday. Gates and Clinton presented the FY 2009 Supplemental Request, which included requests for $50 million for the Department of Defense (DOD) and [...]
Chairman of the US Senate Judiciary Committee Patrick Leahy (D-VT) on Wednesday invited former head of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) and federal judge Jay Bybee , who signed off on memos detailing the legal rationale for enhanced interrogation techniques, to testify before the committee. Leahy wants Bybee to explain apparently contradictory statements in [...]
The Mexican military is failing to hold its members accountable for human rights abuses, according to a report released Wednesday by Human Rights Watch (HRW) . According to the report, the use of the military by President Felipe Calderon to combat drug cartels has resulted in human rights violations by soldiers, including killings, torture, rapes, [...]
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Officials from the US Department of Justice (DOJ) said Wednesday that Congress should eliminate the sentencing disparities between crimes committed involving crack and powder cocaine. The statements came during a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs . Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division Lanny Breuer testified that the disparity in [...]
US President Barack Obama reaffirmed Wednesday his position that the controversial interrogation technique known as waterboarding amounts to torture and defended his decision to ban use of the technique . Speaking at a press conference marking his first 100 days in office, Obama again said that the US has "rejected the false choice between our [...]
The US House of Representatives on Wednesday approved a bill that would expand protection from hate crimes by broadening the category of violations defined in the current law. The bill, which was approved by a vote of 249-175 , would expand the definition of hate crimes to include attacks based on gender, sexual orientation, gender [...]
