Defense lawyers to investigate illegal wiretaps in terror cases
Defense lawyers working on several high-profile terrorism cases plan to bring legal challenges to discover whether the National Security Agency (NSA) used illegal wiretaps against several dozen Muslims linked to Al Qaeda and whether...
FISC changes to post-2001 Bush wiretap requests may have prompted end-run
The US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) substantively modified 179 Bush administration wiretap requests made after 2001, after declining to modify a single request in 20 of the 21 years between 1979 and 1999, according to an...
Not Authorized By Law: Domestic Spying and Congressional Consent
JURIST Guest Columnist Jordan Paust of the University of Houston Law Center says that contrary to assertions by President Bush and the US Department of Justice, post-9/11 Congressional legislation on the use of military force against terrorists does not authorize...
Federal judge rules Chinese Gitmo detainees can be held indefinitely
A federal judge ruled Thursday that two Chinese Uighur detainees held by the US at Guantanamo Bay could be detained there indefinitely even though their imprisonment was unlawful. US District Judge James Robertson said that the courts simply had...
FISC judges to be briefed on NSA warrantless eavesdropping tactics
The presiding judge of the 11-member Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) , the secret court charged with overseeing government espionage activities, has organized a classified briefing for panel members to allow administration representatives to report on the scope...
FISC judge resigns in protest over NSA domestic surveillance
US District Judge James Robertson , one of 11 members of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) , has resigned in protest over the National Security Agency's secret domestic surveillance program , according to a report...
Bush authorized warrantless phone, email tracking of US residents
A 2002 Presidential order issued in the aftermath of 9/11 authorized the US National Security Agency (NSA) to secretly monitor the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of possibly thousands of US residents without warrants over...
JURIST Special Guest Columnist Wendy J. Keefer, former senior counsel and chief of staff in the US Department of Justice Office of Legal Policy and now with Bancroft Associates in Washington DC, says that the US Senate should join the...
In a JURIST Forum special, JURIST Contributing Editor William G. Ross, Professor of Law at Samford University's Cumberland School of Law in Alabama, reviews the second day of the Senate confirmation hearings for US Chief Justice nominee John Roberts, and...
By voice vote late Friday the US Senate unanimously approved a bill that would permanently extend most provisions of the USA Patriot Act while limiting it in the most controversial areas. The Senate legislation puts a four-year cap...
