ACLU, et al. v. Department of Defense, et al., United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, February 2, 2005 . Excerpt: I hold that defendant CIA has failed to satisfy the statutory prerequisites for invoking the operational files exemption, and hence may not avoid the requirements imposed [...]

Little more than two weeks after telling the Washington Post that he would not press the Senate to pass a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, President Bush has publicly reversed course in tonight's State of the Union Address:Because marriage is a sacred institution and the foundation of society, it should not be re-defined by [...]

The plaintiffs in a major lawsuit against former directors of WorldCom announced Wednesday that a proposed settlement under which the directors would have personally repaid company investors $18 million of a $54 million total has broken down. The collapse resulted from US District Judge Denise Cote's ruling earlier in the day that conflicted with a [...]

The US House of Representatives passed a resolution Wednesday urging the federal government to appeal a recent 3rd Circuit opinion that struck down a law that prohibited colleges and universities to limit on-campus military recruiting because of its discrimination against homosexuals. The law, commonly known as the Solomon Act , permits the government to deny [...]

Senator John McCain announced Wednesday that he was launching a new initiative to tighten campaign finance laws to curb big interest-group donations to congressional and presidential campaigns. McCain appears to have gained an ally in Senator Trent Lott , chairman of the Senate Rules Committee. Lott voted against campaign finance reform in 2002, but changed [...]

Malaysian officials extended Malaysia's amnesty for illegal immigrants indefinitely Wednesday based on a request from Indonesia, according to Home Minister Azmi Khalid. Indonesia, whose citizens make up a majority of illegal immigrants in Malaysia, asked that the amnesty be extended in light of the recent tsunami disaster . AFP has more However, Deputy Prime Minister [...]

Members of the Idaho Senate voted against a proposal to ban same-sex marriages Wednesday for the second consecutive year. The defeated measure would have amended the Idaho Constitution to read: SECTION 28. MARRIAGE. Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state. This state [...]

US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled Wednesday that the Central Intelligence Agency should comply with Freedom of Information Act requests made by the American Civil Liberties Union and turn over its records concerning the treatment of prisoners in Iraq. The CIA had argued that it should not have to comply with the ACLU's FOIA requests [...]

Leading Wednesday's corporations and securities law news, Putnam Investments , the eighth-largest US mutual fund company, may have to increase the restitution it had agreed to pay investors as part of the massive securities fraud at the company. As part of an agreement with the SEC and Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin , [...]

A bill seeking to impose stricter standards on federal courts before they can issue subpoenas to reporters was introduced in the US House Wednesday. According to Congressman Mike Pence , the Free Flow of Information Act seeks to make mandatory Justice Department guidelines for issuing subpoenas to members of the media and provides protection against [...]