Transcript of Day 4 of confirmation hearings for Judge Samuel Alito, Jr., nominated to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, US Senate Judiciary Committee, January 12, 2006. Read the full text transcript as provided to AP by CQ Transcriptions, LLC .

Legal authorities regarding warrantless surveillance of US persons, memo from Jeffrey H. Smith, former General Counsel of the CIA and a former General Counsel of the US Senate Armed Services Committee, to the Members of the US House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, January 3, 2006 . Read the full text of the memo .

In the second day of pre-trial hearings for Canadian teenager Omar Khadr before a Guantanamo Bay military commission Thursday, presiding officer Col. Robert Chester said that Khadr's civilian lawyers could begin "making preliminary inquiries" about the possibility of a Canadian lawyer joining the defense team. Khadr is also waiting for a new military lawyer to [...]

JURIST Special Guest Columnist Richard Davis of Brigham Young University says that at the end of four days of Senate confirmation hearings, Judge Samuel Alito appears to have succeeded in his political task of securing enough swing votes to avoid a filibuster and assure his appointment to the US Supreme Court … The fourth day [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Mark Graber of the University of Maryland School of Law says that the Alito hearings have demonstrated yet again that political polarization has impoverished the judicial confirmation process… The fourth day of the Alito hearings highlighted the ongoing and complex role political polarization plays in the contemporary judicial confirmation process. There are [...]

Seven federal appellate judges who have worked with US Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito testified before the US Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday on the fourth day of his confirmation hearings, saying that Alito would be an independent and ethical justice. Democrats on the Judiciary Committee opposed the testimony of the jurists, citing the judicial code [...]

Croatia plans to ask the government of Australia to extradite former Serb commander “Captain Dragan” Vasiljkovic , charged with war crimes committed during Croatia’s 1991-1995 independence war. Croatia accuses Vasiljkovic of torturing and killing Croat soldiers, civilians and prisoners of war and of involvement in the forced expulsion of entire villages in Serb-held territories in [...]

The US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Thursday dismissed a free speech suit by Yahoo! Inc. challenging a $15 million fine imposed on the company five years ago by a French court for running an auction site displaying Nazi memorabilia, which is banned in France. Yahoo! sought legal protection for US Internet portals displaying content [...]

The US Justice Department filed a motion with the US Supreme Court Thursday to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction a case brought by Salim Ahmed Hamdan challenging President Bush's authority to establish military commissions to try Guantanamo Bay detainees for war crimes. The Court agreed to hear Hamdan's case last November. The DOJ's argument centers [...]

Leading Thursday's environmental law news, the Alaska Bureau of Land Management has issued a Record of Decision Wednesday that will open approximately 500,000 acres of land in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska to oil and gas drilling. The RoD contains amendments to the Final Environmental Impact Statement including setting aside roadless areas within the [...]