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The US Supreme Court will decide whether senior Bush
administration officials were responsible for detainee mistreatment after 9/11.
See story from
Christian Science Monitor
Imprisoned terror suspects at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, won a
major legal victory when the US Supreme Court ruled that they have the right to
petition US courts challenging the legality of their open-ended detention. See story from Christian
Science Monitor
The US criminal justice system is up to the task of
detaining, placing on trial, and punishing suspected international terrorists,
according to a new report. With preparations under way for military commission
trials to begin in July at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the advocacy group Human
Rights First has published an analysis of 107 terrorism cases prosecuted in
American courts since the 9/11 attacks. The authors, both former federal
prosecutors, say an examination of US terror cases reveals that existing
structures and institutions in the federal justice system are robust and
flexible enough to detain and prosecute most terror suspects. See story from
Christian Science Monitor
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved 2,370
warrants last year targeting people in the United States believed to be linked
to international terror organizations. That figure represents a 9 percent
increase over 2006. See
story from Associated Press
As Congress and the Bush administration skirmish over
still-secret interrogation techniques, American faith communities are mounting
a national campaign to prohibit torture and cruel and inhumane treatment of
US-held detainees. See story from
Christian Science Monitor
The Senate sent President Bush the conference report on a
fiscal 2008 intelligence budget that requires CIA personnel to obey the Army
Field Manual's ban on torture of prisoners. The manual outlaws harsh techniques
such as waterboarding. See vote
Senators killed a bill to tighten court oversight of the
government's warrantless surveillance program and allow lawsuits to proceed
against telecommunication companies that allegedly cooperated with the secret
program for years after 9/11. See vote
The Senate failed to reach 60 votes for advancing a bill
drafted by the Senate Intelligence Committee to expand the 1978 Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act beyond its original domestic focus to address U.S.
government spying on electronic communications in which at least one party is
located overseas. See vote
In a strictly party line vote, the Senate failed to get 60
votes for advancing a bid to renew the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
for four years rather than six years. See
vote
It took US Army interrogators at Guantánamo Bay five years
to reach the conclusion that Adel Hassan Hamad was exactly who he claimed to
be: a hospital administrator in Pakistan. On Dec. 11, 2007, they put him back on a military cargo plane, hooded and handcuffed, and sent him back to his
home to Sudan. Now Mr. Hamad says he'll sue the US government for compensation
for those lost years – years where his family became impoverished and one
daughter became sick and died. But he says it's not just about the money. He
wants the US to return to what it used to be, a beacon of freedom. See story from
Christian Science Monitor
President Bush and Democrats disagree regarding oversight of
government surveillance operations. The Democrats want more frequent court
oversight of National Security Agency activities. See story from
Christian Science Monitor
The House rejected a proposal to require that the U.S.
military's prisoner interrogations be videotaped and that prisoners in U.S.
custody be given access to international humanitarian officials. See vote
The House voted to require the Bush administration to
present a plan for relocating all detainees from the military prison at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The document is to include data such as the number of
prisoners being held without charges. See
vote
The Senate failed to reach the 60 votes needed to end a GOP
filibuster blocking action on a measure that would require the CIA to tell
Congress the locations of its secret prisons abroad and identify interrogation
techniques. See vote
The US and other Western democracies may favor an expansion
of what they see as universal human and political rights, but powers like China
and Russia are pushing back – especially when they believe a state's national
sovereignty is being threatened. The emergence of such antidemocratic
"push back" is just one factor in what is being called global
"freedom stagnation" by Freedom House, a Washington-based
organization supporting expansion of political rights and civil liberties. See story from
Christian Science Monitor
Congress sent President Bush a bill that endorses his plan
to interrogate and prosecute terror suspects. Many Democrats opposed the
legislation because they said it eliminated rights of defendants considered
fundamental to American values, such as a person's ability to protest court
detention and the use of coerced testimony as evidence. See Senate vote See House vote
The House moved to put into law the administration's program
of warrantless domestic eavesdropping outside the limits of the 1978 Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act. This bill would permit surveillance for 90 days
without warrants and allows the warrants to be issued for broad categories of
spying rather than on a case-by-case basis, as is now required. See vote
A federal judge ruled on that the government's warrantless
surveillance program is unconstitutional and ordered an immediate end to it. See story
from Associated Press
European lawmakers have reported a ``widespread regular practice'' of human rights violations by the CIA in Europe. The lawmakers said they had documented a series of incidents in which terror suspects were kidnapped by the CIA in Europe, or handed over to the agency by European officials in violation of human rights treaties. They said they had also found that the CIA has conducted more than 1,000 undeclared flights over European territory since the Sept. 11 - some carrying suspected terrorists to countries where they could face torture. See story from Associated Press
The US is under scrutiny for its interrogation tactics by the UN's Committee Against Torture. Although this UN agency has no specific enforcement powers, the session is viewed as an opportunity to hold the US publicly accountable if allegations of torture are sufficiently proven. See story from Christian Science Monitor
Washington is immersed in a furious debate over the legality of the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program - and the argument's outcome may affect the balance of power in the US government for decades to come. See story from Christian Science Monitor
UN human rights investigators have called for the immediate closure of the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay. A UN report on conditions in the Cuba camp says the US should try all inmates or free them "without further delay". Some aspects of the treatment of the 500-strong camp population amount to torture, the UN team alleges. The US has rejected most of the allegations as "largely without merit", saying the five investigators never actually visited Guantanamo Bay. See story from Christian Science Monitor
It may be one of the most controversial congressional bills in years, but the USA Patriot Act is on the verge of becoming more entrenched than ever in US law. The addition of some new civil liberties protections made the Patriot Act's final lurch toward passage possible. To critics, these changes are but tissue-paper defenses. But the bill's defenders say its provisions are necessary - and that much of the opposition to the Patriot Act is driven, not by the bill itself, but by opposition to administration domestic-security policies. See story from Christian Science Monitor
The Bush administration, seeking to revive an online pornography law struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, has subpoenaed Google Inc. for details on what its users have been looking for through its popular search engine. See story from London Sunday Times
The United States flew detainees to other countries where they would be tortured and European governments probably knew about it, the head of a European investigation into the controversy. See story from BBC
Efforts to resolve House and Senate differences over a revised USA Patriot Act have reached a stalemate which means the current version of the law is likely to remain in place through next month or longer unless Senate Democrats and a handful of Republicans drop their demands for greater privacy safeguards in a proposed renewal. See story from Washington Post
As the Bush administration faces daily questions about a highly secretive program at the National Security Agency aimed at monitoring terror suspects, the following is some background information about the controversy. See story from Associated Press
The US government is developing a massive computer system that can collect huge amounts of data and, by linking far-flung information from blogs and e-mail to government records and intelligence reports, search for patterns of terrorist activity. The system - parts of which are operational, parts of which are still under development - is already credited with helping to foil some plots. It is the federal government's latest attempt to use broad data-collection and powerful analysis in the fight against terrorism. But by delving deeply into the digital minutiae of American life, the program is also raising concerns that the government is intruding too deeply into citizens' privacy. See story from Christian Science Monitor
In his four-year campaign against al Qaeda, President Bush has turned the U.S. national security apparatus inward to secretly collect information on American citizens on a scale unmatched since the intelligence reforms of the 1970s. See story from Washington Post
The US Senate has rejected an attempt to reauthorize several sections of the main US anti-terror law. The White House had lobbied determinedly for the provisions to be passed and hoped to satisfy critics by adding new safeguards and expiration dates for the most controversial elements. These include roving phone taps and secret warrants for documents from businesses and hospitals, and for records of library books taken out by private citizens. Republican and Democratic opponents of the legislation said they could swiftly reauthorize the legislation if it were altered to give greater protection to civil liberties. See story from BBC See vote The House approved the same measure which makes permanent 14 of the 16 provisions set to expire at the end of year. Provisions allowing roving wiretaps and secret warrants for business, library and other records would expire in four years. See vote
The House voted to back a Senate-passed ban on cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of foreign terrorism suspects. The White House had opposed the measure until a compromise was reached between President Bush and John McCain. See vote Under the torture ban sponsored by Sen. John McCain, Americans questioning suspected terrorists would be limited to techniques authorized by the Army's manual on intelligence interrogation, a guide that clearly spells out the rules. See story from Knight Ridder
Americans are split as to whether President Bush has substantially violated the public's civil rights by employing unauthorized spy operations. See story from Christian Science Monitor
The US Senate has ended a high-stakes impasse and voted to extend for six months key provisions of the anti-terrorism USA Patriot Act set to expire in 10 days. The temporary extension was approved without dissent. See story from News.com
The White House decision to order surveillance of international phone calls by U.S. citizens without a warrant violated longstanding practices and could undermine a key U.S. intelligence agency that's critical in the struggle against terrorists, former senior intelligence officials and other experts said this week. See story from Knight Ridder
Nearly 18 months after images of abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison stunned the world, the US Senate voted to clarify rules that govern the military's treatment of detainees. The amendment's overwhelming passage, despite objections from the White House, marks a rare congressional challenge to President Bush as commander-in-chief at a time when public support for his presidency is at a low. See story from Christian Science Monitor See vote
None of five federal agencies using electronic data mining to track terrorists, catch criminals or prevent fraud complied with all rules for gathering citizen information. As a result, they cannot ensure that individual privacy rights are appropriately protected, according to a General Accounting Office study. See story from Associated Press
As European governments lower their traditional levels of tolerance for radicalism, they are redrawing the lines between civil liberties and national security in the face of terrorist violence. See story from Christian Science Monitor
Government agencies are expanding secrecy in many areas, according to the findings of a report released today. The 2005 Secrecy Report Card, the second annual report on secrecy from OpenTheGovernment.org, found secrecy in 2004 extended to more classified activity, more federal advisory meetings, more new patents deemed "secret," more domestic surveillance, and more new state laws restricting public access to information. See Press Release from OpentheGovernment.org
In the largest reorganization since the 1980s Mexican cartels have leveraged the profits from their delivery routes to wrest control from the Colombian producers. The shift is also because of the success authorities have had in cracking down on Colombia's kingpins. As a result, Mexican drug lords are calling the shots in what the UN estimates is a $142 billion a year business in cocaine, heroin, marijuana, methamphetamine, and illicit drugs on US streets. See story from Christian Science Monitor
The Senate unanimously approved legislation that would renew expiring provisions of the USA Patriot Act anti-terrorism law while placing new limitations on the government's use of secret search and surveillance powers. The Senate legislation would tighten the requirements that must be met in order to seize business records, allow people to challenge warrants issued by the secret intelligence court, and require that the subjects of secret searches be notified within seven days unless an extension is approved by a judge. The matter is will be the subject of negotiations with the House which passed a measure reauthorizing the Patriot Act without such restrictions. See story from Washington Post
The London bombings which has coincided with Congressional consideration of extending the Patriot Act has rekindled the public debate on the level of government secrecy and invasion of privacy necessary to combat terrorism. See story from Christian Science Monitor
The U.S. House of Representatives has voted to extend indefinitely most of the Patriot Act, while limiting to 10 years two controversial provisions. See story from CBC See vote The House did approve a provision requiring that the Justice Dept. report to Congress on "data-mining". See vote
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has collected at least 3,500 pages of internal documents in the last several years on a handful of civil rights and antiwar protest groups in what the groups charge is an attempt to stifle political opposition to the Bush administration. The F.B.I. has in its files 1,173 pages of internal documents on the American Civil Liberties Union, the leading critic of the Bush administration's antiterrorism policies, and 2,383 pages on Greenpeace, an environmental group that has led acts of civil disobedience in protest over the administration's policies, the Justice Department disclosed in a court filing this month in a federal court in Washington. See story from New York Times
A constitutional amendment to ban desecration of the U.S. flag moved closer to reality when the House of Representatives passed it 286-130. See story from Washington Post See vote
The House voted to upend the Patriot Act provision that allows federal agents to examine people's book-reading habits at public libraries and bookstores as part of terrorism investigations. See story from San Francisco Chronicle See vote
Just two months ago, when Congress set out to consider renewal of the Patriot Act, civil libertarians were hopeful they could rein in aspects that they felt went too far. Now, supporters of an enhanced Patriot Act appear to be making headway as they push to give the FBI new powers. See story from Christian Science Monitor
In a move that could expand the police powers in the Patriot Act, the Senate Intelligence Committee will meet behind close doors to discuss, among other things, "a little-discussed provision to enlarge the FBI's ability to wiretap people who it suspects are national security threats." The bill they will discuss is called the Patriot Reauthorization Act (PAREA). If the bill became law, it also would give FBI agents the power to write their own subpoenas without permission from a judge, allowing them to seize records from hotels, banks, and Internet service providers. This provision would require the FBI to make periodic reports to Congress about how often it uses that power to obtain library records, bookstore and firearms sales receipts, and medical or tax records. See story from Christian Science Monitor
A federal law designed to make it harder to assume someone else's identity may instead have the opposite effect, critics of the measure say. The standards are intended to weed out impostors applying for licenses, in part by requiring state employees to check on the validity of birth certificates and other supporting documents. After states adopt the necessary changes, anyone applying for or renewing a license will get one reflecting the new standards. But once the law takes full effect three years from now, it will also give many more bureaucrats access to personal information on people nationwide. And it will add more data to each file - including digital copies of documents with birth and address information. See story from Los Angeles Times
Rights watchdog Amnesty International urged foreign governments to investigate and prosecute President George W. Bush much as they once did former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. Torture and other grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions amount to crimes against humanity and therefore all states have a responsibility to investigate and prosecute people responsible for them See story from One World Net
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales will propose some "technical modifications" to the controversial USA Patriot Act in an effort to address the concerns of critics and ensure that the anti-terrorism legislation is renewed by Congress later this year. See story from Washington Post
The Bush administration is aggressively wielding a rarely used executive power known as the state secrets privilege in an attempt to squash hard- hitting court challenges to its anti-terrorism campaign. See story from Chicago Tribune
In early November 2001, with Americans still staggered by the Sept. 11 attacks, a small group of White House officials worked in great secrecy to devise a new system of justice for the new war they had declared on terrorism. The system gave the military the authority to detain foreign suspects indefinitely and prosecute them in tribunals not used since World War II. White House officials said their use of extraordinary powers would allow the Pentagon to collect crucial intelligence and mete out swift, unmerciful justice. Three years later, not a single terrorist has been prosecuted. Of the roughly 560 men being held at the United States naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, only 4 have been formally charged. See story from New York Times
A U.S. District Judge struck down a USA Patriot Act provision that allowed the FBI to gather phone and Web customer records and then barred the service providers from ever disclosing the search took place. See story from Associated Press
U.S. and international human rights groups have hailed the Supreme Court's rulings that U.S. citizens and foreign nationals detained as "enemy combatants" by U.S. forces have the right to challenge their detention in federal court. See story from One World Net
House Republicans used an extra-long vote to derail a drive to weaken the USA Patriot Act pertaining to libraries and book dealers. The proposal, which had drawn a veto threat from the White House, was defeated 210-210, with a majority needed to prevail. See story from Associated Press See vote
US Attorney General John Ashcroft mounted a strong defense of the Patriot Act by giving Congress nearly three dozen examples of how the Patriot Act had been used to prosecute terrorists and other criminals. Ashcroft's statement comes as the administration tries to prove the act doesn't harm civil liberties The White House is also hoping to stop a move to let key provisions of the act expire in 2005. See story from Christian Science Monitor
Critics of the Patriot Act are trying to draw a distinction between the provisions they find objectionable and other aspects of the law aimed at preventing and investigating terrorism. See story from Newhouse News Services
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