The US Justice Department Offices of Inspector General and Professional Responsibility concluded in a report issued Monday that department aides illegally made hiring decisions based on consideration of applicants' political and ideological beliefs. In early 2007, officials began investigating allegations that former DOJ aide Monica Goodling and two other aides considered the political affiliations of [...]
Lawyers representing Binyam Mohamed , the last British resident still detained at Guantanamo Bay , argued at a Monday High Court hearing in London that the UK Foreign Office should be compelled to turn over evidence necessary to his defense before a US military commission. The evidence sought allegedly shows that Mohamed was the victim [...]
An eyewitness' ability to recall specific details of an incident decreases dramatically in high-stress situations, according to a new study that could have long-ranging impact on law enforcement and legal procedures. The study, conducted by Tin Valentine and Jan Mesout of Goldsmiths , part of the University of London, measured participants' ability to recall details [...]
Daniel N. Arshack : "The FISA Amendments Act passed by the House (H.R. 6304) allows the mass acquisition of U.S. citizens' and residents' international communications. Although the Act prohibits the government from intentionally "targeting" people inside the U.S., it places virtually no restrictions on the government's targeting of people outside the U.S., even if those [...]
The Constitutional Court of Turkey began proceedings on Monday to determine whether to ban the country's ruling Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP) , which has allegedly failed to respect secular principles of the country's constitution . In March, Chief Prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya petitioned the court to disband the AKP and bar Prime Minister Recep [...]
A report released Monday by Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq indicates that officials for Palestinian security and military agencies frequently detain, torture and mistreat citizens from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The report, released the same day as a similar report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) , states that most of the arrests [...]
Iranian officials on Sunday hanged 29 people in the capital Tehran as part of what the government says was a push to enforce Islamic moral codes. Government sources and local media presented conflicting reports regarding what crimes those executed had committed, but offenses ranging from adultery to murder qualify for the punishment under the country's [...]
A lawyer for Bosnian Serb leader and former fugitive Radovan Karadzic says he has filed an appeal with a Serbian court to block the transfer of his client to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) , where Karadzic faces war crimes charges . The lawyer said he had intentionally delayed the delivery of [...]
The armed forces of the United Kingdom may have used officially-banned tactics to interrogate detainees in Iraq, according to a report released Sunday by Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights . In previous testimony before the committee, top defense officials had denied the use of "wall standing, hooding, subjection to noise, sleep deprivation and deprivation [...]
Newspapers in Tennessee, California, Georgia, and Ohio and several other states carried editorials Monday in support of US Senate passage of a proposed federal reporter shield law , of the law, citing the occasional necessity of source anonymity. The Free Flow of Information Act of 2007 would allow reporters to refuse to reveal their sources [...]
