CIA Director Michael Hayden defended the CIA's interrogation tactics Tuesday in the wake of the refusal of US Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey to say whether waterboarding constitutes torture. In an address to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Hayden called the CIA's interrogation programs "as lawful as they are valuable." AP has more. Both [...]
AT&T and the US Department of Justice reached a consent decree Tuesday under which the telecommunications giant agreed to sell assets in seven rural US markets in exchange for DOJ approval of AT&T's acquisition of Dobson Communications Corp. and the withdrawal of the DOJ's lawsuit seeking to block the merger. The DOJ required the sale [...]
The US Supreme Court granted a stay of execution to a convicted murderer on Mississippi's death row Tuesday, pending the Court's decision on whether to grant certiorari in the case. Earl Wesley Berry was scheduled to die by lethal injection Tuesday night; his was the third stay granted by the justices since they agreed last [...]
US Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey wrote in a letter to Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday that he did not know if waterboarding was illegal, and that it would be "irresponsible" of him to provide a legal opinion on any specific interrogation technique without an in depth analysis of relevant laws and more [...]
The accumulated evidence against former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra may be insufficient to compel the United Kingdom to extradite the ousted prime minister on corruption charges, according to Chief Prosecutor for Foreign Litigation Sampan Sarathana as reported in the Bangkok Post Tuesday. Saranthana travelled to London earlier this month to discuss what evidence would be [...]
A Bangladesh special tribunal sentenced former state minister Lutfozzaman Babar to 10 years in jail Tuesday for illegal possession of firearms. Babar, who served as home minister until October 2006, was found guilty of illegally possessing two pistols, a revolver and ammunition. The court officially sentenced him to a total of 17 years, but he [...]
The military junta in Myanmar has released six more dissidents held in the wake of a late summer crackdown against protesters and political opponents, the pro-democracy National League for Democracy (NLD) said Tuesday. Three members of the NLD, headed by the long-detained Aung San Suu Kyi , were among those released. Five of the prisoners [...]
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in United States v. Williams , 06-694, to determine whether part of the federal anti-child abuse PROTECT Act of 2003 is unconstitutional for criminalizing speech protected by the First Amendment. Critics have challenged the law for creating criminal penalties for the advertisement or promotion of material that [...]
The US Department of State does not have the authority to "immunize an individual from federal criminal prosecution," State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack said at a daily press briefing Tuesday, correcting an AP report Monday citing anonymous sources as saying the State Department had granted "immunity" from prosecution to bodyguards working for private security firm [...]
Canadian government lawyers plan to ask a judge to take the reportedly unprecedented step of approving the installation of closed-circuit video cameras in the home of Mahmoud Jaballah, one of the so-called Secret Trial Five subject to security certificates allowing for their detention without charge and possible deportation. Jaballah spent nearly eight years in jail [...]
