The US federal government acted within the Constitution when it compelled a telecommunications company to assist in warrantless surveillance of certain customers, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review (FISC) said in a ruling released Thursday. The redacted decision, dated August 22, 2008, was a response to the unnamed firm's challenge to government demands made [...]
The US has not formally asked the European Union (EU) to accept detainees from Guantanamo Bay following US President-elect Barack Obama's planned closing of the facility, according to a Thursday statement from European Commission vice president Jacques Barrot during the Informal Meeting of Ministers for Justice and Home Affairs in Prague. Closing the facility will [...]
US Attorney General nominee Eric Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee in confirmation hearings Thursday that he believes waterboarding constitutes torture and that it could take a long time to close the Guantanamo Bay prison despite the incoming Obama administration's pledge to do so. In his opening statement to committee members he nonetheless pledged to [...]
UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs David Miliband said Thursday in a Guardian editorial that the "war of terror" embraced by the US and UK governments in recent years was a "misleading and mistaken" term and that terrorism should be fought by championing the rule of law, not subordinating it, for it [...]
Sudanese authorities on Wednesday detained prominent political opposition figure and Islamist leader Hassan al-Turabi in response to al-Turabi's calls for President Omar al-Bashir to turn himself over to the International Criminal Court (ICC) . Turabi, the leader of the Popular Congress Party (PCP), was expecting to be detained after telling reporters Monday that Bashir is [...]
Asim Qureshi : "One of the key components of the Bush administration's understanding of torture is the extreme technicality with which they approach the topic. When the teenager Mohammed Jawad was captured in Afghanistan in 2002, his abuse at the hands of his captors was by Afghans and not US personnel. It is this fact [...]
The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on Wednesday upheld a Georgia law that requires voters to present government-issued photo identification in order to vote. The suit was filed by two elderly voters in Georgia, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) , and other civil rights groups that argued [...]
The Venezuelan National Assembly on Wednesday approved a constitutional amendment eliminating presidential term limits. The amendment must now be approved by voters in a referendum likely to be held on February 15. The amendment, which would allow President Hugo Chavez to seek re-election in 2012, was passed by an Assembly made up of a majority [...]
The Kazakhstan Parliament on Thursday approved legislation designed to ensure that there is representation from at least two political parties in the lawmaking body. The election law reform measure is seen as a way to enhance democracy in Kazakhstan before it takes over as chair of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) [...]
International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo on Wednesday said that the ICC has no jurisdiction to investigate possible war crimes committed by Israel in Gaza. Moreno-Ocampo's statement came after calls by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) for the UN Security Council to refer Israel to the ICC for an investigation. Moreno-Ocampo said [...]
