02/02/12: The Washington Times reports that a secret police document shows that the New York Police Department recommended increasing surveillance of thousands of Muslims and their mosques based solely on their religion. The Associated Press obtained a copy of a May 2006 NYPD intelligence report on Iran. It says police should expand clandestine operations at Shiite mosques and then lists mosques around the Northeast. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said the NYPD never considers religion in its policing.
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12/13/11: The New York Times reports that in the debate over using civilian trials for terrorists, one of the key issues — the ability to first question a suspect to gain critical intelligence on terrorist cells or plots and still pursue a criminal prosecution — is getting an early test in Mr. Ahmed’s case in Federal District Court in Manhattan. Lawyers for Mr. Ahmed have asked a judge to suppress statements that the United States government has said he made after waiving his Miranda rights and being interrogated by the FBI in Nigeria. They claim that any such waiver was not voluntary and thus any statements he made are inadmissible.
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11/17/11: The Wall Street Journal reports that Barbara Handschu had tried to remove her name from the agreement that is her legacy. More than a quarter century ago, after New York's police were caught spying on Americans who were exercising their right to free speech, she and others filed suit to stop it. The outcome was an agreement to place limits on surveillance — the Handschu rules.
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11/10/11: The Washington Post reports that the former chief military prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay is suing the Library of Congress for firing him after he wrote opinion columns in two leading newspapers criticizing the Obama administration’s decision to try some suspected terrorists before military tribunals. Attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union argued Thursday in federal appeals court in Washington that retired Air Force Colonel Morris Davis should be allowed to continue the lawsuit against the ex-supervisor who fired him.
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09/22/11: The Houston Chronicle reports that a federal appeals court on Wednesday dismissed two lawsuits by former Iraqi detainees who claimed civilian interrogators and translators participated in their torture at the Abu Ghraib prison. In a 2-1 decision, a panel of the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the state law claims against contractors CACI International Inc. and L-3 Services, formerly Titan Corporation, are pre-empted by federal authority to manage a war.
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09/21/11: The Washington Post reports that the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reached a 6-6 decision Wednesday, upholding the standing of a group of American lawyers, human rights activists and journalists to challenge the constitutionality of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as amended by Congress in 2008. The revision expanded the government’s surveillance authority, permitting intelligence agencies to collect information on US soil without a warrant identifying a particular individual.
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08/30/11: Wired.com reports that whether the federal government and the nation’s telecommunication companies can be held accountable for allegedly funneling every American’s electronic communication to the National Security Agency without warrants is the subject of oral arguments scheduled for a federal appeals court Wednesday. At issue is a January 31, 2006 lawsuit, and others that followed, alleging violations of the Fourth Amendment right to be free from warrantless searches and seizures. The cases, about three dozen which will be consolidated into two oral arguments, have been thrown out of court on a variety of grounds, chiefly the government’s claim that the lawsuits would expose state secrets, and a 2008 law that immunized the nation’s telcos from such lawsuits.
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08/24/11: The Washington Post reports that the transit agency in the San Francisco Bay area hopes to ease tensions with a public meeting over whether there should be a policy on cutting wireless access to its stations during protests. The Bay Area Rapid Transit agency board of directors meets Wednesday morning in Oakland to discuss whether it wants to continue using the tactic, which drew unfavorable comparisons to Hosni Mubarak’s attempts to cut Internet access to most of Egypt to quell demonstrations protesting his regime.
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07/27/11: The Miami Herald reports that FBI agents did not initially tell a man suspected of planting a bomb along the route of a Martin Luther King. Jr. Day parade why he was arrested because they wanted to gain his trust, newly released documents state. The court records released Tuesday addressed concerns voiced by US District Judge Justin Quackenbush about a delay of several hours in telling suspect Kevin Harpham the reason for his arrest and to immediately provide his Miranda rights.
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07/13/11: Wired.com reports that lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union will file a lawsuit Wednesday morning in a federal court in Michigan to compel the government to release any information it collected on Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor who blogs on Mideast issues at Informed Comment. The suit seeks disclosure of “federal government discussions of, correspondence regarding, inquiries about, and investigations of Professor Cole,” the ACLU’s filing says. That disclosure is ”urgently needed to inform the national debate about US accountability with respect to the unlawful investigation and surveillance of its citizens.”
Continue reading "Blogger sues to see if government kept a file on him" »
07/08/11: CNN reports that the United States breached international law by executing a Mexican national without having granted him consular access, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said Friday. Navi Pillay, in a statement, said she deeply regrets the execution of Humberto Leal Garcia, after a 5-4 decision by the US Supreme Court denied him a stay of execution Thursday night. "The execution of Mr. Leal Garcia places the US in breach of international law," said Pillay, who is on an official mission in Mexico. "What the state of Texas has done in this case is imputable in law to the US and engages the United States' international responsibility."
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06/11/11: The New York Times reports that the Justice Department has eased restrictions preventing lawyers representing prisoners at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, from reading the classified files about their clients that were leaked to WikiLeaks and then made widely available on the Internet. In guidance to the lawyers — who have security clearances, and thus are required to follow government rules for the handling of classified information — the department’s court security officer said Friday that they were now permitted to view the leaked documents on the Internet. But they are still not allowed to download, save or print the documents because they might contain restricted information.
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05/23/11: The Washington Post reports that attorneys for five Muslim immigrants convicted of plotting a deadly strike at a New Jersey military base will challenge the Patriot Act as they appeal the convictions. The lawyers argue that FBI informants entrapped their clients. They say the discussions amounted to little more than a religious debate about jihad. They will also challenge the constitutionality of a Patriot Act provision used to seize video the defendants left at a store for reformatting.
Continue reading "Five Muslim immigrants appeal NJ terrorism convictions in deadly Fort Dix plot" »
05/19/11: SCOTUSblog reports that with a fading chance that the Supreme Court will agree to hear the last of the eight Guantanamo Bay detainee cases filed earlier this Term, making a complete sweep for the government, lawyers for a Yemeni national have made a new bid to get the Justices to clarify – and limit — the law of detention. The new petition in Al-Bihani v. Obama (docket 10-1383) may not be acted upon until next Term; the timing appears to be too close.
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Commentary: Gitmo’s prying eyes
02/01/12: The American Conservative features an opinion piece by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos alleging that Department of Defense actions have deprived Guantanamo detainees of the attorney client privilege. Vlahos notes that the Office of Chief Defense Counsel for Military Commissions, whose clients are incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay, is engaged in a standoff. They’ve refused to sign the user agreement required by the Department of Defense that consents to “the routine monitoring, interception and search” of “all communications using or data stored on” the Pentagon’s global computer network, which all DoD personnel—including the attorneys—use every day. HT to Neal R. Sonnett.
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February 01, 2012 at 02:08 PM in Military, Constitutional Law, Detainees / Guantanamo, Commentary / Opinion | Permalink