US President George W. Bush attached a signing statement to the 2007 spending bill for the Homeland Security Department Thursday, giving himself the authority to make changes to the agency's annual Privacy Office reports. Congress stated that only the Department's Privacy Officer could edit the reports, designed to ensure that the Department obeys privacy rules. [...]
The Federal Trade Commission announced Thursday that it has reached an agreement for the settlement of pretexting charges against Virginia-based Integrity Security & Investigation Services . Current federal law allows the government to only collect $2,700 in damages, the entire sum of profit that the company made from selling confidential phone records and credit card [...]
Israel's High Court Thursday gave the state five days to explain why it appointed government officials to investigate its handling of the recent Hezbollah conflict rather than establish an independent inquiry committee. The Movement for Quality Government in Israel last week called on the High Court to intervene as part of its campaign for a [...]
A UN Human Rights Council envoy on Thursday called for an investigation by the International Criminal Court into whether Israel committed war crimes during the 34-day Middle East conflict . In a report, UN special rapporteur on food rights Jean Ziegler wrote that Israel's bombing campaign against Lebanon blocked access to food and water by [...]
The European Court of Human Rights on Thursday ruled that Germany violated the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights by allowing a lawsuit to continue for 30 years. Jurgen Grasser filed a lawsuit against the city of Saarbrucken in 1974 after the city refused to grant him a building permit for a shopping center [...]
Britain's High Court Thursday quashed the four-week suspension of London Mayor Ken Livingstone , originally handed down by the Adjudication Panel for England in February. The suspension was ordered after Livingstone made controversial comments to a Jewish journalist. A High Court judge overturned the suspension, but did not make an immediate decision on whether the [...]
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issued an emergency proclamation Wednesday to relieve prison overcrowding by allowing inmates to be transferred to other states. Citing severe overcrowding as a threat to the health and safety in 29 of the state's 33 prisons, Schwarzenegger said: "Our prisons are now beyond maximum capacity, and we must act immediately and [...]
Another Turkish author went on trial Thursday on charges that he "insulted the Turkish identity" in violation of Article 301 of the country's penal code. Ipek Calislar wrote that the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, once left his palace disguised as a woman to evade an assassination attempt. Calislar faces 4.5 years in [...]
A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit sharply questioned federal officials Wednesday during oral arguments in the case of a Pakistani man who says he was detained because of his race, religion or national origin soon after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and tortured while in custody. Javaid Iqbal, [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Kermit Roosevelt of the University of Pennsylvania Law School says that the question of whether the US government can seize aliens and put them beyond the reach of law goes to the heart of who we are and what we want to become… Today, October 5, law schools, colleges and seminaries around [...]
