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February 29, 2008

House Lawmakers Question Privacy in Cyber-Security Plan - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/28/AR2008022803505....
House lawmakers yesterday raised concerns about the privacy implications of a Bush administration effort to secure federal computer networks from hackers and foreign adversaries, as new details emerged about the largely classified program. The unclassified portions of the project, known as the "cyber initiative," focus on drastically reducing the number of connections between federal agency networks and the Internet, and more closely monitoring those networks for malicious activity. Slightly more than half of all agencies have deployed the Department of Homeland Security's program. But administration officials have not said how far monitoring would go, and whether oversight would extend to networks operated by state, local, and private sector entities, including government defense contractors.
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Feds' test of surveillance system raises privacy concerns - USATODAY.com

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-02-28-airvideo_N.htm...
The Homeland Security Department is testing technology that would allow its agents to use cellphones or e-mail devices to covertly share live video of possible terrorists over a law enforcement network. The idea is prompting concern from privacy advocates. Department officials call the security surveillance system RealEyes because it instantly broadcasts images to anyone connected to the system. It can stream the video across the country to computers and give the law enforcement agencies a front-row view of what's going on in real time. If it passes a privacy test, the technology could allow air marshals, border officers or Secret Service agents to videotape surreptitiously in airports, at border crossings, and anywhere else where there's a possible threat. A live video feed could be shared with "dozens or hundreds of authorized users," Homeland Security spokeswoman Amy Kudwa says.
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A legacy left unmarked for black Civil War vets -- chicagotribune.com

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-black-soldiers-feb29,1,616761...
For more than a century, the bodies of some 300 black soldiers who died in the Civil War have lain in unmarked graves on the bank of Skull Creek harbor. These former slaves who fled the plantations to fight for freedom on the side of the Union Army are heroes few people know about. The small plot of land where they are buried is overshadowed by multimillion-dollar condos and a private marina — symbols of the transformation that has occurred in Hilton Head over the last 50 years, changing the island from a predominantly black town to a city of gated communities for the wealthy.
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February 28, 2008

Former Prosecutor to Testify for Detainee - New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28gitmo.html?ref=us...
Until four months ago, Col. Morris D. Davis was the chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay and the most colorful champion of the Bush administration’s military commission system. He once said sympathy for detainees was nauseating and compared putting them on trial to dragging “Dracula out into the sunlight.” Then in October he had a dispute with his boss, a general. Ever since, he has been one of those critics who will not go away: a former top insider, with broad shoulders and a well-pressed uniform, willing to turn on the system he helped run. Still in the military, he has irritated the administration, saying in articles and interviews that Pentagon officials interfered with prosecutors, exerted political pressure and approved the use of evidence obtained by torture. Now, Colonel Davis has taken his most provocative step, completing his transformation from Guantanamo’s chief prosecutor to its new chief critic. He has agreed to testify at Guantanamo on behalf of one of the detainees, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a driver for Osama bin Laden.
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Mukasey tours Guantanamo Bay - USATODAY.com

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-02-27-mukasey_N.htm...
Attorney General Michael Mukasey met briefly Wednesday with government prosecutors at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as the U.S. prepares its case against six al-Qaeda suspects accused of being responsible for the 9/11 attacks. The attorney general was expected to spend only about six hours at the Naval station during his previously unannounced first trip there, said Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr. Mukasey "is meeting with military personnel and other officials involved in the military commissions proceedings," Carr said. He said Justice Department prosecutors "have been involved in the investigation since the high value detainees were moved to Guantanamo Bay." Mukasey was to return to Washington by Wednesday afternoon.
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U.S. may sign Guantanamo accord with Algeria: agency - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/27/AR2008022701836....
The United States may soon sign an agreement with Algeria on the possible return home of Algerian prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, the official Algerian APS news agency reported on Wednesday. Visiting Assistant U.S. Secretary of State David Welch told Algerian reporters that Washington hoped "to conclude soon an accord with Algeria" on the issue, APS reported. Algerian newspapers have said there are believed to be between 17 and 25 Algerians held at the facility on Cuba. U.S. President George W. Bush has said he would like to close the camp, which holds about 275 detainees and he calls a necessary tool in the war on terrorism. Human rights groups and foreign governments have said holding suspects for years without trial violates basic international legal standards.
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GOP Uses Surveillance Bill to Bash Democrats - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/27/AR2008022703316....
Republicans are convinced that highlighting their counterterrorism policies will be a political winner in this presidential election year, and they have focused this week on Democratic opposition to their version of a new surveillance bill as a way to paint Democrats as soft on national security, according to GOP lawmakers and their aides. Democrats respond that they are unfazed by the attacks, arguing that most Americans doubt the credibility of President Bush and Republicans when it comes to warning about security threats. Bush and GOP lawmakers have been releasing a blizzard of public statements and organizing multiple news conferences to pressure the House to adopt a Senate bill renewing and expanding a temporary surveillance law called the Protect America Act. The measure would grant legal immunity to telecommunications companies over their cooperation in warrantless wiretapping done after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. House Democratic leaders oppose the immunity provision and maneuvered to allow the temporary statute to expire on Feb. 16. The administration has repeatedly said that telecom firms need protection from lawsuits in order to cooperate with the government.
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Supreme Court allows age bias suit - USATODAY.com

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-02-27-scotus-fedex_N.htm...
The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that an age discrimination lawsuit against FedEx could proceed even though the federal agency that oversees such cases improperly handled the initial grievance. By a 7-2 vote, the justices deferred to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's fairly open rules for initial filings. The FedEx couriers who brought the case failed to complete the usual paperwork because of the agency's ambiguous practices. At FedEx's request, a trial judge had thrown out the lawsuit by 14 couriers because a lead worker completed an initial EEOC questionnaire but not the proper "charge" form that would then prompt notice to FedEx of the grievance. During oral arguments last November, the justices were annoyed that the EEOC had not told the worker about the proper filing. Workers seeking to sue under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act must file a charge with the EEOC 60 days before suing in court. This is intended to trigger possible reconciliation.
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Justices Let Age Bias Lawsuit Move Ahead - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/27/AR2008022703130....
The Supreme Court yesterday gave the benefit of the doubt to a FedEx worker who claimed age discrimination, and said her case should not be thrown out because of mistakes made by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The court ruled 7 to 2 that Patricia Kennedy's suit could move forward, even though her employer had not been notified by the EEOC that Kennedy and others had made charges against it, as the Age Discrimination in Employment Act requires. The act says that a formal charge must be made with the agency before a lawsuit can be filed, and that in that interim, the EEOC is to notify the company, investigate the claim and seek conciliation between the employer and employee before lawyers and judges become involved. At oral argument, it became clear that the form Kennedy filed with the EEOC sometimes was considered by the agency to constitute a formal charge, and sometimes not. Justices criticized the government for the inconsistency, and it responded that it is changing its policies. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's opinion said that because of the lack of clarity on the part of EEOC, "both sides lost the benefits" of the informal dispute resolution process, and it again criticized the agency.
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February 27, 2008

In Wiretap Law’s Stead, Uncertainty - New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/us/27fisa.html?ref=washington...
All last week, intelligence officials fielded calls from nervous lawyers for the country’s phone companies. With a wiretapping law allowed to lapse in Congress, they were no longer certain what they were supposed to do when the government came to them with a wiretapping order, administration officials said. “They’re raising questions, and they’re saying, ‘Look, we’ve got an expired piece of legislation,’ ” recounted a senior administration official who was involved in the conversations. “It’s not crystal clear.” President Bush and his senior aides have been warning for the last 10 days that the country was left more vulnerable by the expiration of the surveillance law on Feb. 16, and said last week that the government had already lost valuable counterterrorism intelligence because of Congressional inaction. But as a practical matter, the issue is less about harm that has actually been done than about the prospect that such harm will be done because of uncertainty in the government and the telecommunications industry over what is now allowed, officials involved in the discussions say. Even with the law lapsed, intelligence officials continue to be able to put wiretaps on terrorism and espionage suspects under directives that were approved before the expiration of the six-month law, the Protect America Act, which gave the government a freer hand in deciding whom to wiretap without court approval.
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No ruling from justices in age-bias case - Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-scotus27feb27,1,94586.story...
The Supreme Court on Tuesday decided not to decide one of its most closely watched job discrimination cases. The non-decision was unanimous. At issue was whether a laid-off older worker who sued her employer for age bias could rely on the testimony of other older workers who also were fired from the same company. A federal trial judge had excluded testimony from five co-workers in the age-bias case brought by Ellen Mendelsohn, a 51-year manager who was dismissed by Sprint's headquarters near Kansas City. The judge said in a two-sentence order that the plight of these co-workers was not relevant because they had been fired by other supervisors, not the supervisor who laid off Mendelsohn. Taking the opposite view, the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver said this kind of testimony always should be heard because it is "relevant to [the company's] animus toward older workers." On Tuesday, the high court said both views were wrong.
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Moussaoui Challenges Court Secrecy Rules - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/26/AR2008022601102....
Lawyers urged Zacarias Moussaoui not to plead guilty to terrorism charges. They just couldn't tell him why. In newly filed court documents, Moussaoui argues that court-imposed secrecy undermined his ability to present an adequate defense. His new lawyers say Moussaoui's guilty plea should be thrown out and a new trial should be convened for the man who once claimed to have been a part of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist plot. Moussaoui was not allowed to see the classified evidence against him and was shut out from closed-door hearings in which that evidence was laid out. His lawyers could advise him, but they could not discuss everything _ only the evidence approved by prosecutors or the judge. Defense lawyers say they were barred from even discussing with Moussaoui evidence that could help prove his innocence. They say Moussaoui faced an unconstitutional choice: plead guilty or go to trial without knowing the evidence.
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Pastor Fights Fine for Pre-War Iraq Trip -- chicagotribune.com

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-peace-pastor,1,1658385.sto...
A New Jersey pastor who defied government restrictions and traveled to Iraq in 2003 to protest the pending U.S.-led invasion wants a judge to declare the fine he received unconstitutional. Lawyers for the Rev. Frederick Boyle, 58, were expected to ask a federal judge on Wednesday to nullify the $6,700 fine and declare the travel restrictions violate his constitutional rights. His lawyers also argue Boyle is being singled out due to his vocal opposition to the war, and was never given the opportunity to defend himself.
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Ruling May Aid Those Charging Age Bias - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/26/AR2008022602973....
The Supreme Court wrestled for more than two months with the question of whether a worker alleging age discrimination may present as evidence similar stories from co-workers. Its ruling yesterday was a unanimous maybe. Such "me, too'' evidence is not automatically admissible or inadmissible, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote. In the case at hand, justices said they could not tell why the district judge had decided to exclude such testimony, and sent the matter back for more work. The ruling brought an inconclusive ending to what was once thought to be one of the more important employment-law cases on the court's docket this term.
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Computer Spying Unconstitutional -- chicagotribune.com

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-germany-trojan-horses,1,38...
Germany's highest court says that security services cannot use virus-like software or similar tactics to spy on the computer hard drives of suspected criminals and terrorists. The Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe ruled Wednesday that using such software to spy violates the country's constitutional protections and freedoms. Germany's Interior Ministry had hoped to use the tactic as part of its arsenal to investigate suspected terrorist and mafia activity.
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February 26, 2008

Bush Pushes House to Renew Surveillance Law - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/25/AR2008022501410....
President Bush called on the House of Representatives today to renew a surveillance law that expired this month and to protect telecommunications companies from lawsuits, saying it was "not fair" to allow the firms to be sued for cooperating with the federal government's efforts to monitor terrorist suspects. Addressing an annual gathering of the nation's governors, Bush began his speech by lobbying once again for legislation that would permanently extend provisions of the Protect America Act of 2007, which expired Feb. 16, and would add retroactive legal immunity for telephone companies. "I get briefed every morning about threats we face, and they're real," Bush told the National Governors Association at the White House. "In my judgment, we have got to give the professionals who work hard to protect us all the tools they need. To put it bluntly, if the enemy is calling to America, we really need to know what they're saying. And we need to know what they're thinking. And we need to know who they're talking to. . . . It's essential that we understand the mentality of these killers." Congressional Democrats accused Bush of using scare tactics in an effort to divide them and to distract attention from the administration's policy failures.
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High court to rule on warrantless search of vehicle - Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-scotus26feb26,1,7635825.sto...
The Supreme Court agreed Monday to rule on whether police officers are free to search a parked vehicle whenever they arrest a driver or a passenger. Prosecutors, including Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, asked the high court to set "a clear, bright-line rule" that permits officers to search a vehicle whenever an arrest is made, even if the handcuffed person has been taken away. In the past, the court has focused on the danger faced by officers when they stop a vehicle and make an arrest. In a 1981 decision, the court said officers may search a vehicle when they arrest an occupant so as to check for weapons. These searches were reasonable, the justices said, because the officers may be in danger if weapons are hidden in the vehicle. Most prosecutors and judges interpreted that decision as giving police ample authority to search vehicles after an arrest. But the Arizona Supreme Court took a different view in a case in which Tucson police had arrested a man who was standing near his parked car.
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Court Will Rule on Vehicle Searches - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/25/AR2008022501014....
The Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide when police without a warrant can search the vehicle of a person who is under arrest. Rodney Joseph Gant was handcuffed, seated in the back of a patrol car and under police supervision when Tucson, Ariz., police officers searched his car. A sharply divided Arizona Supreme Court ruled that the search violated the Constitution's Fourth Amendment. The state asking the U.S. high court to overturn that ruling. The justices said they will hear the case next fall to decide whether officers must demonstrate a threat to their safety or the need to preserve evidence to justify a warrantless search in cases like Gant's. Gant was arrested about 10 feet away from his parked car. When officers searched the car they found cocaine and drug paraphernalia.
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February 25, 2008

Gitmo cases offer legal complexities - USATODAY.com

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-02-24-guantanamo_N.htm...
Recent action in three sets of cases against Guantanamo detainees demonstrates the complexities of the alternative legal system the Bush administration created for foreign terrorist suspects. Two legal challenges are intersecting at the Supreme Court, where the justices on Friday issued an order related to the detainees. A third involves the first criminal charges brought against men accused of murder in connection to the Sept. 11 attacks. In November 2001, President Bush ordered the creation of special military commissions to hear cases against al-Qaeda suspects and other foreigners captured in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks. The U.S. government soon began transferring terrorist suspects to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Over the past six years, Guantanamo detainees have challenged the basis for their detention, the screening procedures used to determine "enemy combatant" status and the commission procedures themselves. Rulings from the Supreme Court on some of these challenges have forced the administration to change its procedures. Numerous legal challenges remain.
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Justice Probes Authors Of Waterboarding Memos - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/22/AR2008022201643....
An internal watchdog office at the Justice Department is investigating whether Bush administration lawyers violated professional standards by issuing legal opinions that authorized the CIA to use waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques, officials confirmed yesterday. H. Marshall Jarrett, counsel for the Office of Professional Responsibility, wrote in a letter to Democratic lawmakers that his office is investigating the "circumstances surrounding" Justice opinions that established a legal basis for the CIA's interrogation program, including a now-infamous memo from August 2002 that narrowly defined torture and was later rescinded by the department. "Among other issues, we are examining whether the legal advice contained in those memoranda was consistent with the professional standards that apply to Department of Justice attorneys," Jarrett wrote. This is the second publicly disclosed Justice Department investigation related to the CIA's use of waterboarding, a type of simulated drowning that is considered torture by most human rights groups and legal scholars. Jarrett's inquiry got underway in 2004, but was not confirmed publicly until now, officials said.
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Job discrimination cases hit new opposition - USATODAY.com

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-02-24-court_N.htm...
Two new job discrimination cases have Supreme Court justices considering how broadly federal law protects workers from retaliation after they complain about bias. Arguments in one of the cases this past week showed that many of the justices appear ready to retreat from the generous interpretation of retaliation coverage in a 2005 case with then-justice Sandra Day O'Connor casting the decisive vote. On Wednesday, justices heard a case begun by a black Cracker Barrel restaurant worker who was fired after complaining about a manager's allegedly derogatory remarks. The arguments showed how much the court is changing from 2005 and, more conclusively, from prior decades when a majority of the justices broadly interpreted anti-discrimination laws. Justice Antonin Scalia referred to "the bad old days" when the court was broadly interpreting laws "all over the place" to permit lawsuits by workers and other individuals. Then he and U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement, who was arguing on the side of the former Cracker Barrel worker, began a spirited exchange over the dates of key cases on workers' rights to sue. "When do you think the bad old days ended?" Scalia quipped. "The bad old days ended when you got on the court, Mr. Justice Scalia," Clement shot back.
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$65M for Gay Rights, HIV/AIDS Groups -- chicagotribune.com

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-gay-rights-bequest,1,84900...
The estate of Ric Weiland, a high school classmate of Microsoft Corp. founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen and one of the first five people to work at the software giant, has left $65 million to gay rights and HIV/AIDS organizations. The bequests were announced Sunday by the Pride Foundation of Seattle, where Weiland was a board member for several years. The foundation called it the largest single bequest ever given to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender causes. Gates and Allen hired Weiland in 1975, the year they founded Microsoft. He worked as a project leader for the Microsoft Works word processing and spreadsheet software, and was a lead programmer and developer for the company's BASIC and COBOL systems, two of the first personal computing interfaces. He left Microsoft in 1988.
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February 22, 2008

C.I.A. Used a British Island to Transport Terrorism Suspects - New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/22/world/europe/22britainweb.html?ref=world...
In tones freighted with frustration, Britain’s foreign secretary, David Miliband, on Thursday told the House of Commons that “contrary to earlier explicit assurances” the Central Intelligence Agency had confirmed using an American-operated airfield on the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean for refuelling two American “rendition” flights carrying terrorism suspects in 2002.
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U.S. Fueled 'Rendition' Flights on British Soil - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/21/AR2008022100822....
U.S. and British officials disclosed Thursday that two U.S. "extraordinary rendition" flights carrying terrorism suspects refueled on U.K. territory in the Indian Ocean in 2002, despite repeated denials by both governments that clandestine CIA flights had ever used British airspace or territory. Prime Minister Gordon Brown expressed "disappointment" that the United States notified the British government of the flights just last week and called it a "very serious issue." Officials from both governments said the flights came to light after a recent review of records by U.S. officials. British officials have long denied any involvement in the CIA's rendition program, in which terror suspects have been secretly flown for interrogation to countries where torture is often used by government security services. Although Britain has been a close ally of the United States in Iraq and in the wider "war on terror," Brown and his predecessor, Tony Blair, have distanced themselves from a CIA program that has been broadly criticized in Europe.
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Ex-Prosecutor to Serve as Defense Witness in Terror Case - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/21/AR2008022102662....
The former chief military prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said yesterday that he will be a defense witness for the driver of Osama bin Laden. Air Force Col. Morris D. Davis, who resigned over alleged political interference in the U.S. military tribunals, said he will appear at a hearing for Salim Ahmed Hamdan. "I expect to be called as a witness. . . . I'm more than happy to testify," Davis said. He called it "an opportunity to tell the truth." It is not clear whether the Pentagon will allow Davis to testify. In December, two months after he resigned as the chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals, the Defense Department barred Davis from appearing before a Senate subcommittee. Hamdan's defense team plans to argue at an April pretrial hearing that the alleged political interference cited by Davis violates the Military Commissions Act, said Hamdan's military attorney, Navy Lt. Brian Mizer.
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Detainees at Guantanamo Fight Further Appeal Delay - New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/22/us/22scotus.html?ref=washington...
Lawyers for a group of Guantanamo detainees who are appealing their classification as enemy combatants have told the Supreme Court that it would be “unconscionable” to grant the Bush administration’s request for further delay in producing the records necessary for the appeals to move forward. The lawyers asserted, in a brief filed Wednesday, that the stay the administration is seeking of a lower court’s order “would, once again, freeze judicial review of cases in which that review is years overdue.” “The human cost of further delay is simply too great,” the brief said. The justices are most likely to act on the case promptly, perhaps as early as Friday.
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February 21, 2008

Columbia Professor Accused of Plagiarism -- chicagotribune.com

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-columbia-noose,1,1351457.s...
A Columbia University Teachers College professor whose colleagues found a noose hanging from her office door is now being accused of plagiarism, a charge she says is part of efforts to intimidate her because she is black. The school said Wednesday it imposed sanctions against Madonna G. Constantine following an investigation that uncovered "numerous instances in which she used others' work without attribution in papers she published over the past five years." Her lawyer, Paul J. Giacomo Jr., said his client could prove her innocence and called the school's investigation "extremely underhanded from the beginning." He said he would appeal the sanctions, which neither side would disclose.
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Hate Mail Sent to Blacks at Prep School Is Investigated - New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/us/21hate.html?ref=us...
A police investigation is under way at an elite prep school here after many black students received anonymous letters that the head of the school described as “threatening hate mail.” A spokeswoman for the school, St. Paul’s, said the letters had arrived in the students’ mailboxes on Tuesday. The spokeswoman, Jana Brown, would not disclose the contents of the letters or how many students received them, but said, “Students of color do appear to be the target.” According to several people associated with St. Paul’s, each student received a copy of his own photo from the school’s internal face book with the words “bang bang get out of here” written below. They said the letters, sent through the Postal Service, were postmarked from nearby Manchester, N.H.
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February 20, 2008

Tape Inquiry: Ex-Spymaster in the Middle - New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/20/washington/20intel.html?ref=washington...
It would become known inside the Central Intelligence Agency as “the Italian job,” a snide movie reference to the bungling performance of an agency team that snatched a radical Muslim cleric from the streets of Milan in 2003 and flew him to Egypt — a case that led to criminal charges in Italy against 26 Americans. Porter J. Goss, the C.I.A. director in 2005 when embarrassing news reports about the operation broke, asked the agency’s independent inspector general to start a review of amateurish tradecraft in the case, like operatives staying in five-star hotels and using traceable credit cards and cellphones. But Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., now the central figure in a controversy over destroyed C.I.A. interrogation tapes, fought back. A blunt-spoken Puerto Rico native and former head of the agency’s Latin America division, he had been selected by Mr. Goss months earlier to head the agency’s troubled clandestine branch. Mr. Rodriguez told his boss that no inspector general review would be necessary — his service would investigate itself. It was a protective instinct that ran deep inside the C.I.A.’s fabled Directorate of Operations, the agency’s most powerful branch. The same instinct would resurface months later, when Mr. Rodriguez dispatched a cable to the agency’s Bangkok station ordering the destruction of videotapes that showed C.I.A. officers carrying out harsh interrogations of operatives of Al Qaeda.
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Supreme Court dismisses challenge to Bush's wiretapping policy - Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-scotus20feb20,1,4883301.sto...
The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a challenge to President Bush's order authorizing the interception of some phone calls and e-mails within the United States, dealing another defeat to civil libertarians who say the president violated the law. The court's refusal to hear the case is a victory for the White House and the president's bold use of his powers as commander in chief. Though not a ruling on the legality of Bush's wiretapping policy, it all but forecloses a successful legal attack on it before the president leaves office early next year. In the meantime, Congress and the White House are negotiating new rules for electronic eavesdropping.
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ACLU's Suit Against Wiretapping Is Declined - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/19/AR2008021901111....
The Supreme Court yesterday declined without comment to hear the American Civil Liberties Union's challenge of the Bush administration's domestic spying program. "We're disappointed," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's National Security Project. "Allowing the executive branch to police itself" is at odds with the Constitution's system of checks and balances. The ACLU brought suit on behalf of journalists, lawyers and others in charging that the administration's warrantless wiretapping that began after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks was unconstitutional. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit said that because none of those in the suit could prove they had been monitored, they had no standing to bring the suit.
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Public Workers' Shield Against Reprisal for Bias Claims Pondered - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/19/AR2008021901564....
Congress decided more than 30 years ago to make it clear that the nation's age discrimination law protects federal employees. So does it make sense that Congress at the same time chose not to shield workers from retaliation for making discrimination allegations? That was the question posed to the Supreme Court yesterday, and the answer will say much about how broadly the court is willing to protect workers from retaliation when the discrimination laws in question do not specifically mention freedom from reprisals. Yesterday's case involving the U.S. Postal Service was the first of two such cases the court will hear this week, and one of several the court has accepted concerning employment discrimination and retaliation. As the American workforce ages and diversifies, it is an issue that is raised with increasing frequency. Jocelyn Frye, general counsel for the National Partnership for Women and Families, said the number of retaliation claims filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has nearly doubled since 1992.
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Wal-Mart Apologizes to Muslim Woman -- chicagotribune.com

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-wal-mart-apology,1,5065189...
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. apologized to a Muslim woman who said she was mocked because of her face veil. "Please don't stick me up," a cashier told the shopper on Feb. 2, according to The Council on American-Islamic Relations. Wal-Mart apologized Monday in a letter signed by Rolando Rodriquez, a vice president and regional general manager. It was released Tuesday by the council's Nevada chapter.
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Most states give green light to tamper-proof IDs - USATODAY.com

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-02-19-RealID_N.htm...
Forty-four states are moving ahead to comply with a law requiring more secure driver's licenses, according to the Department of Homeland Security — despite privacy concerns and worry that the new documents will be too expensive. The department's evidence: Those states have applied for and received extensions to a May 11 deadline for issuing new tamper-resistant licenses that require proof of citizenship and address. "We expect that states requesting an extension will comply" with the law, department spokesman Russ Knocke says. Residents will have to show the new identification card before boarding a commercial flight or before entering a federal courthouse, among other things. The federal Real ID Act requires states to issue the more secure version of the driver's license in an effort to make it difficult for criminals and would-be terrorists to get fake licenses. Some states continue to balk at the law.
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Judge Shuts Down Web Site Specializing in Leaks - New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/20/us/20wiki.html?ref=us...
In a move that legal experts said could present a major test of First Amendment rights in the Internet era, a federal judge in San Francisco on Friday ordered the disabling of a Web site devoted to disclosing confidential information. The site, Wikileaks.org, invites people to post leaked materials with the goal of discouraging “unethical behavior” by corporations and governments. It has posted documents said to show the rules of engagement for American troops in Iraq, a military manual for the operation of the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and other evidence of what it has called corporate waste and wrongdoing. The case in San Francisco was brought by a Cayman Islands bank, Julius Baer Bank and Trust. In court papers, the bank said that “a disgruntled ex-employee who has engaged in a harassment and terror campaign” provided stolen documents to Wikileaks in violation of a confidentiality agreement and banking laws. According to Wikileaks, “the documents allegedly reveal secret Julius Baer trust structures used for asset hiding, money laundering and tax evasion.” On Friday, Judge Jeffrey S. White of Federal District Court in San Francisco granted a permanent injunction ordering Dynadot, the site’s domain name registrar, to disable the Wikileaks.org domain name. The order had the effect of locking the front door to the site — a largely ineffectual action that kept back doors to the site, and several copies of it, available to sophisticated Web users who knew where to look.
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February 19, 2008

JFK Assassination Documents Revealed -- chicagotribune.com

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-jfk-memorabilia,1,1115761....
Long-hidden items and documents related to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy were revealed for the first time Monday, after spending nearly two decades locked inside a courthouse safe. Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins presented the articles at a Presidents' Day news conference while standing next to brown and white file boxes stacked in a pyramid. The items include a purported transcript between Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and Oswald's killer, nightclub owner Jack Ruby; a leather gun holster that held the weapon Ruby used to shoot Oswald; brass knuckles found on Ruby when he was arrested; and a movie contract signed by then-Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade. Watkins said investigators told him about the contents of the blue, two-door safe shortly after he took office in 2007. "And every DA up until the new administration decided that they wanted to keep it secret," he said. But he decided "this information was too important to keep secret." One of the most intriguing items was the typed transcript of an alleged conversation between Oswald and Ruby. The transcript -- which hasn't been examined by experts and has already been called farfetched by some -- includes talk of killing the president at the behest of the Mafia.
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February 18, 2008

Justice Official Defends Rough CIA Interrogations - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/16/AR2008021602634....
The Bush administration allowed CIA interrogators to use tactics that were "quite distressing, uncomfortable, even frightening," as long as they did not cause enough severe and lasting pain to constitute illegal torture, a senior Justice Department official said last week. In testimony before a House subcommittee, Steven G. Bradbury, the acting chief of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, spelled out how the administration regulated the CIA's use of rough tactics and offered new details of how simulated drowning was used to compel disclosures by prisoners suspected of being al-Qaeda members. The method was not, he said, like the "water torture" used during the Spanish Inquisition and by autocratic governments into the 20th century, but was subject to "strict time limits, safeguards, restrictions." He added, "The only thing in common is, I think, the use of water." Bradbury indicated that no water entered the lungs of the three prisoners who were subjected to the practice, lending credence to previous accounts that the noses and mouths of CIA captives were covered in cloth or cellophane. Cellophane could pose a serious asphyxiation risk, torture experts said.
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Bush scolds Congress for not passing eavesdropping bill - USATODAY.com

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-02-16-bush_N.htm...
President Bush scolded Congress for allowing a government eavesdropping law to expire at midnight Saturday, saying the failure to act will make it more difficult to track terrorists and "we may lose a vital lead that could prevent an attack on America." Bush used his weekly radio address to escalate his war of words with the Democratic leadership of Congress. The Democrats accuse Bush of fear-mongering and misrepresenting the facts. The president wanted the House to approve a Senate bill that would have renewed a law that made it easier for the government to spy on foreign phone calls and e-mails that pass through the United States. Bush opposed a temporary extension of the bill, and lawmakers left for a 12-day recess without extending the law. "Some congressional leaders claim that this will not affect our security," the president said. "They are wrong. Because Congress failed to act, it will be harder for our government to keep you safe from terrorist attack. At midnight, the attorney general and the director of National Intelligence will be stripped of their power to authorize new surveillance against terrorist threats abroad. This means that as terrorists change their tactics to avoid our surveillance, we may not have the tools we need to continue tracking them — and we may lose a vital lead that could prevent an attack on America." Democrats chose Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a former U.S. attorney and attorney general of Rhode Island, to deliver their Saturday radio address on the same subject. "We know this president dislikes compromise, but this time he has taken his stubborn approach too far," Whitehouse said. "He is whipping up false fears, and creating artificial confrontation. As the president himself said in the Rose Garden, 'There is really no excuse for letting this critical legislation expire. So let's get it done.' "But the president instead chose political gamesmanship, rejecting a short extension of the Protect America Act that would allow Congress to complete its work," Whitehouse said. "Make no mistake: If the surveillance law expires, if any intelligence loss results, it is President Bush's choice. Period."
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Democrats' wiretap stance endangers U.S., Bush says - Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-bush16feb16,1,7307887.story...
President Bush warned Friday that the United States was in "more danger of attack" because Congress failed to extend a domestic wiretapping law, while House Democrats said Bush had manufactured the impasse by threatening to veto a short-term extension. "American citizens must understand, clearly understand, that there still is a threat on the homeland," Bush said after meeting with Republican congressional leaders. Noting that the Senate had passed a bill extending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court's warrantless domestic wiretapping, Bush said House Democrats -- protesting protections for phone carriers from privacy lawsuits -- had blocked it. "By blocking this piece of legislation, our country is more in danger of an attack," he said. "By not giving the professionals the tools they need, it's going to be a lot harder to do the job we need to be able to defend America." Temporary provisions in the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act are set to expire this weekend, but Democrats -- dismissing Bush's offer to delay a six-day trip to Africa in hopes of winning a legislative compromise -- argued that the basic law remained in effect. "He knows that the underlying 'intelligence' law and the power given to him in the Protect America Act give him sufficient authority to do all of the surveillance and collecting that he needs to do in order to protect the American people," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said Thursday. With Congress now in recess for the Presidents Day holiday, Bush urged lawmakers to tackle the issue on their return.
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Moussaoui Deprived of Constitutional Rights, Attorneys Say - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021503451....
Zacarias Moussaoui's guilty plea and life prison term for conspiring in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks should be overturned because his case was riddled with errors that deprived him of his constitutional rights, his attorneys said in court papers unsealed yesterday. In their opening brief before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, the attorneys said Moussaoui could not choose his own counsel at trial or learn much of the evidence against him because it was secret. "Moussaoui faced the choice between pleading guilty and facing a fundamentally unfair trial in a death-penalty case. This was an unconstitutional choice, and his plea was involuntary as a result,'' the attorneys, Justin S. Antonipillai and Barbara L. Hartung, wrote in the redacted, 207-page document. The document asks the 4th Circuit to void Moussaoui's guilty plea and order a new trial or, if the plea stands, to send the case back to a federal judge in Alexandria for re-sentencing. "Are federal courts willing to compromise or eliminate constitutional protections if the indictment arises in the context of a terrorism case?'' the appeal asks.
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Guantanamo, Evil and Zany in Pop Culture - New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/18/us/18gitmo.html...
This spring, the stoner screwball movie of 2004, “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle,” will get a sequel. This time, because of some unfortunate confusion on an airplane between a “bong” and a “bomb,” our slacker antiheroes are shipped off to the moviemakers