senate judiciary committee

Though the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week included lots of expressed concern that the USA Patriot Act compromises civil liberties, the version of the bill being debated in that committee today fails to adequately address the problems, argues Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and  the American Civil Liberties Union.
According to the ACLU, the committee substituted [...]

Just in case he wasn’t familiar with it, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) decided to read the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution to David Kris, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, who was testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee today to urge reauthorization of expiring provisions of the USA Patriot Act.
Franken, who [...]

After seeking to dismiss at least a half-dozen lawsuits alleging torture, illegal wiretapping and other abuses by Bush administration officials, each time on the grounds that the lawsuits would endanger national security by unearthing “state secrets,” the Obama administration today is expected to finally change its tune.
Carrie Johnson at The Washington Post reports that the [...]

Although there is already criticism of Attorney General Erc Holder’s planned investigation of CIA interrogators, it’s worth noting that former senior FBI and Defense Department interrogators support the criminal probe — and also want a more thorough investigation.
As I noted earlier, the Center for Constitutional Rights and others has criticized the probe for its narrow [...]

The percentage of homeowners either in foreclosure or late on a mortgage payment topped 13 percent nationwide in the second quarter of 2009, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported today. The figure is the highest since the MBA began keeping records 37 years ago.
And the trouble is expected only to get worse.

As the nation’s largest ticket seller and largest concert promoter hope to merge before year’s end, more and more members of Congress are growing skeptical over the proposed deal.
Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s anti-trust panel, said Monday that a merger between Ticketmaster and Live Nation would create a ticketing behemoth [...]

The Senate Judiciary Committee just voted to send Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court nomination to the full Senate. The margin was 13-6, with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) as the lone Republican joining all of the Democrats on the committee in approval. A floor vote on the nomination is expected next week.
Update: As a point of comparison, [...]

After a week’s delay, the Senate Judiciary Committee is set to vote this morning on the Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor. Although Sotomayor is expected to win the support of a majority of the committee’s members, the vote is almost certain to be sharply divided along party lines.
Except for the support of Republican Sen. [...]

I emailed Curt Levey, director of the Committee for Justice, after Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) announced that he would support Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court, therefore guaranteeing her a bipartisan vote out of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“I can’t say I’m surprised,” said Levey. “Anyone who listened to Graham during the hearings knew he [...]

Although Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has scheduled a committee vote on the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor for tomorrow, ranking Republican Jeff Sessions has said he’ll ask to hold off the vote for another week — a request that would automatically be granted. So the vote is expected to take place on Tuesday, [...]