Law
Using Law to Justify Torture
The Bush White House might be on shaky ground in relying on memos written by administration lawyers to justify "enhanced interrogation" policies.
Lively Cast of Characters Want Last-Minute Pardons From Bush
The New York Times' Charlie Savage reported this weekend that the Justice Dept. has received about 2,300 petitions from felons seeking a pardon in the Bush administration's final months. The petitioners include former California Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham who's spending eight years in prison for accepting a combined $2.4 million in bribes. Marion Jones, the gold-medal winning sprinter who admitted she used to steroids to win her gold medals, has petitioned the White House to end her six-month prison sentence. And 80's enthusiasts will appreciate that junk bond financier Michael Milken, who served jail for securities fraud, is also asking for clemency.
Spying Law Challenged
FISA opponents claim the recently updated law is a violation of the Constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.
SCOTUS Reins in President
COMMENTARY
The U.S. Supreme Court doesn't like to be powerless. In the case of a Guantanamo detainee, justices have capped presidential power.
Captain Kangaroo's Wacky Guantanamo War-Crimes Trials
Speaking of kangaroo courts, Josh White had a great piece in the Washington Post yesterday about the military tribunals, known as military commissions, currently underway for the 9/11 conspirators held at Guantanamo. (The Justice Dept. is taking the position that last week's Boumediene ruling doesn't affect the tribunals.) The cases against them are, in many respects, predicated on classified information. A basic feature of any adversarial system of justice -- and particularly, you know, ours -- is that the accused has the right to view the evidence against him or her. Oh well.
Boumediene: Victory of Law
The decision also raises questions about the future of the Guantanamo Bay facility's 270 detainees.
Carl Levin on Boumediene
Fresh from the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee:
Office of Special Counsel: What's the Real Story?
The Wall Street Journal gets the gas face today for writing an entire story about an Office of Special Counsel investigation without mentioning that the government watchdog is itself being investigated.
The Journal dutifully reports that the Special Counsel has launched a sweeping probe into 32 different whistleblower complaints filed by Federal Aviation Administration Employees. The complaints follow-up on Congressional scrutiny about the FAA allegedly silencing inspectors who reported safety problems at Southwest Airlines.
Why, It's Almost As If The War On Terror Is On Shaky Constitutional Footing
Breaking news about Guantanamo Bay from the SCOTUS:
Guantanamo Trial Unraveling
The case of Omar Khadr shows why the U.S. shouldn't use new procedures for terrorism prosecutions
Can Canada Sway SCOTUS?
At the end of June, the Supreme Court is due to issue a ruling in the Guantanamo Bay habeas corpus case. A similar Canadian decision raises intriguing questions.
Legal Theory Seeks to Curtail Tort Cases
A House committee hopes to prevent the spread of a legal doctrine that shields industry from consumer lawsuits.
The Berkeley Tempest
For one Berkeley professor, a recently released torture memo authored by Yoo raises questions about the meaning of academic freedom.
Torture and the Law
Bush told ABC news he knew administration officials met to discuss the use of torture against detainees. Could a prosecutor charge him with a crime?
Spitzer Violated the Public Trust -- Potentially the Mann Act
The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has launched far reaching investigations the past year into corrupt lawmakers and White House secrecy. But now the watchdog is chartering new waters: New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's potential violation of the Mann Act.
Court of the People?
The judiciary deserves a look these days, with the next president expected to replace two or three aging Supreme Court Justices.
EFF, ACLU Intervene in Wikileaks Case
Last week a Federal judge in San Francisco "shutdown" the whistleblower site Wikileaks over a private dispute between a Cayman Islands bank and a disgruntled former employee. The former employee posted company documents to Wikileaks, which the bank claims violated a confidentiality agreement and banking laws.
Online rights group, Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU have now intervened in the lawsuit, the bank filed against the site and Dynadot, Wikileaks' domain registrar. EFF and ACLU argue that Judge Jeffrey S. White should not have ordered the closure of the entire site -- an unecessarily far-reaching move.
The Supreme Court v. Reality: FDA Version
Today the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that you can't sue a manufacturer for a defective medical device if the Food and Drug Administration has already approved the device. Legally, perhaps, the decision has its merits. But practically the decision ignores the myriad scandals surrounding the agency that call its core competency into question.
When Congress and the President Face Off
Unseating the ruling party in Congress doesn't mean taking power, but that's your Constitution at work.
Wikileaks 'Shutdown'
A federal judge in San Francisco ordered Web-hosting company Dynadot to pull the plug on Wikileaks today, a site created for goverment and corporate whistleblowes with documents "that the world needs to see." The judge handed down the permanent injunction after a Cayman Islands bank sued when company documents appeared on the site. The federal judge's move, of course, doesn't actually delete Wikileaks, which was designed to withstand court-ordered shutdowns. The site -- reportedly started by a group of international political dissidents, mathematicians and journalists -- is still accessible via its IP address and mirror sites.
