[JURIST] Nominee for director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) [official website] Leon Panetta [profile] said Friday that the Obama administration will not prosecute CIA officials who used harsh interrogation techniques, reiterating testimony [JURIST report] he gave Thursday. After a second day of confirmation hearings [materials] before the US Senate Intelligence Committee [official website], Panetta told reporters that he would not prosecute Bush administration officials [AP report] because they were following legal orders. Panetta also backtracked on testimony he gave Thursday, saying that that while the Obama administration would not engage in the same type of extraordinary rendition [JURIST news archive] seen under the Bush administration, they would continue to send detainees abroad, but only on the condition that they be treated humanely.

President Barack Obama [official profile] nominated [JURIST report] Panetta to lead the CIA last month. Panetta has served as a Congressman, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) [official website] Director, and White House Chief of Staff. Panetta will replace current CIA director Michael Hayden [JURIST news archive], who has agreed to stay on [press release] and cooperate fully until the transition is complete. Last month, Admiral Dennis Blair, nominated [press release] by Obama for Director of National Intelligence, stressed his respect for civil liberties and lawfulness [JURIST report] in intelligence investigations during testimony [text, PDF] before the Intelligence Committee.

[JURIST] Britain's House of Lords Constitution Committee [official website] released a report [text, PDF; evidence appendix, PDF] Friday saying that the country's use of widespread video surveillance and personal data collection pose a threat to citizens' privacy and freedom. The committee said that while such surveillance and data collection could serve legitimate law-enforcement purposes, those interests should be balanced against privacy concerns, including Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights [text]. The committee also issued specific recommendations that DNA data on individuals be consolidated to the National DNA Database [materials], and that closed-circuit television surveillance only be used under strict oversight and where it has been shown to be effective.

In February 2008, the UK Home Office [official website] said that the government has no plans [JURIST report] to create a compulsory DNA database for British citizens. Rights groups have criticized the National DNA Database for retaining information on criminal suspects after they are found innocent, and for displaying a racial bias [JURIST reports] against minorities. In September 2007, UK rights group Liberty [advocacy website] released a report [press release; JURIST report] arguing that the government was endangering the privacy of law-abiding Britons by increasingly using mass surveillance to profile people rather than targeting individual criminal suspects using intelligence-led policing.

[JURIST] Many UN member states are failing to hold other countries accountable for human rights violations [press release], according to a UN Watch [advocacy website] report [text, PDF] released Friday. The report, entitled "Mutual Praise Society," focused on meetings of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) [official website] and tracked reports made by various countries about the status of other UN members. Finding that the majority of countries failed to provide any form of accountability to other nations, the report stated:

The substantial data compiled in this study reveals, however, that the reviews conducted by the vast majority of countries participating in the UPR process are failing to achieve its stated purpose. More than 300 UPR interventions were analyzed and evaluated, as detailed in 12 country charts. Out of 55 countries examined—including all 47 members of the UN Human Rights Council—only 19 had average scores indicating that they contributed positively. Tragically, a majority of 32 out of 55 countries acted as a mutual praise society, misusing the process in order to legitimize human rights abusers, instead of holding them to account.

[JURIST] US State Department [official website] spokesperson Robert Wood said Wednesday that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton [official profile] has told Congress that she intends to begin preliminary negotiations with Russia [press briefing] on a new treaty that would significantly lower nuclear stockpiles in both countries. The 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) [text], which limited the US and Russia to 6,000 nuclear warheads each, will expire at the end of the year. Wood told reporters that the Obama administration "is very serious about further reductions in nuclear weapons" and plans to put negotiations with Russia on a replacement treaty "on the fast track." Nuclear disarmament languished [AP report] under the Bush administration, and diplomats and officials are optimistic [Guardian report] that Moscow will quickly come to an agreement with the Obama administration to cut warheads to about 1,000. Negotiations may be slowed, however as some important arms control positions have not yet been filled in Washington.

In addition to the proposed negotiations with Russia, the State Department is taking a strong stance against foreign violations of US rules against the spread of weapons and missile technology. On Monday, the department announced [Federal Register materials, JURIST report] that it instituted sanctions against Chinese, Iranian, and North Korean arms companies for violations.

[JURIST] Convening authority of military commissions Susan Crawford [official profile, PDF; JURIST news archive] announced Thursday that the Pentagon has formally dropped charges [text, PDF] against suspected USS Cole bomber Abd al-Rahimal al-Nashiri [DOD materials; JURIST news archive]. Crawford's order ends the last active military commission trial, complying with President Barack Obama's executive order [text; JURIST report] mandating a reprieve of the prosecution of all cases at the Guantanamo Bay [JURIST archive] military prison. The announcement that the charges against al-Nashiri would be dropped ended a conflict between the Obama administration and several US military personnel, created last week when Army Col. James Pohl rejected [order and defense response, PDF; JURIST report] the request of government prosecutors to delay the proceedings against al-Nashiri. Earlier on Thursday, Pohl announced that he would rule [order, PDF] on Monday regarding a motion concerning measures to limit al-Nashiri's ability to see and hear at his military tribunal, despite Obama's executive order. Crawford's decision to drop charges effectively supersedes the necessity for Pohl to make such a ruling.

Al-Nashiri was accused of terrorism, attempted murder, and providing material support to terrorism for his alleged role in planning the 2000 al Qaeda attack [DOD report] on the USS Cole [official website; JURIST news archive]. He was charged in June [JURIST report] under the Military Commissions Act of 2006 [text, PDF; JURIST news archive]. He would have faced the death penalty if found guilty at his military commission hearing.

[JURIST] Sudan reissued a request to the UN Security Council Thursday to delay for one year war crimes charges against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir [BBC profile] for alleged genocide in Darfur. International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo [official profile] has sought an arrest warrant [JURIST report] for al-Bashir on charges of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, and the ICC is expected to decide whether to issue the warrant as early as this month. With the backing of several African and Arab states, the Sudan Ambassador to the UN Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohammad urged [AFP report] the Security Council to heed the request [JURIST report] of the African Union (AU) [official website] and invoke the Article 16 of the Rome Statute [text], which allows the UN to pass a resolution that defers a prosecution in the ICC for 12 months. The AU is concerned an indictment would pose a threat to the process in the Sudan. Also on Thursday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon's Special Representative for Sudan Ashraf Jehangir Qazi briefed the Security Council on Ban's latest report [text], which expressed concern that an arrest warrant for al-Bashir would create an unfavorable Sudanese reaction. Ban wrote:

While I am encouraged by the assurances of continued support by the Government, I am also concerned about remarks by some of its officials that the Government may redefine its relationship with UNMIS (the UN Mission in Sudan that is mainly concerned with helping to enforce the CPA) should an arrest warrant be issued against President al-Bashir,

[JURIST] Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] researcher Rachael Reid responded [Guardian comment] Friday to media accusations that she received secret information from British officer Lt. Col. Owen McNally, arrested this week [JURIST report] on suspicion of leaking secret information regarding civilian casualty figures in Afghanistan. Reid accused the UK Ministry of Defense (MOD) [official website] of falsely informing the media that she was the recipient of the information and that she had a "close" relationship to McNally. Reid claims that any information she received was not in violation of the Official Secrets Act of 1989 [text] and that the media reports are a "vicious, false slur." Reid acknowledged that the reports may endanger her life and expressed confusion as to why her government would want her reputation "dragged through the mud." Director General of Media and Communication at the MOD Nick Gurr responded [MOD blog post] to Reid's article in a letter to the Guardian by claiming that her accusations are false and that the MOD did not give her name to the media.

Human Rights Watch has published specific data [HRW report] on civilian casualties in Afghanistan. Last year, the United Nations Committee on Human Rights [official website] expressed concern [JURIST report] that the Official Secrets Act as well as other restrictive libel laws prevented issues of public interest from being reported on. The UK Parliament [official website] recently debated security-related reporting restrictions [JURIST report], as opponents have criticized the Secrets Act for precluding important issues from public debate.

[JURIST] US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) [official website] documents [text, PDF] obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) [5 U.S.C. § 552 text; JURIST news archive] show that Bush administration immigration enforcement tactics were both overly-aggressive and ineffective, the Cardozo School of Law's Immigration Justice Clinic [official website] said [text] Wednesday. The documents show that in 2006 ICE policy increased arrest quotas from 125 to 1000 per year and eliminated a previous requirement that 75 percent of arrests must be "criminal aliens." The documents also indicate a significant increase in the ratio of non-criminal to criminal immigrants arrested by ICE since the changes were instituted. Clinic director Peter Markowitz said the Bush administration's efforts failed by their own standards:

ICE’s home raids have primarily led to the arrests of individuals who posed no risk to society and have come at a significant cost to immigrant families and to ICE’s own enforcement priorities. ... ICE has created tremendous bureaucratic incentives for fugitive operation teams to abandon focus on high priority targets in favor of a shotgun approach of undisciplined home raids.

[JURIST] A Turkish court on Thursday sentenced a Kurdish member of the Grand National Assembly [official website, in Turkish], the Turkish parliament, to 18 months in prison on charges of spreading terrorist propaganda. Aysel Tugluk was convicted in connection with a speech she gave in 2006 during which she explained her party's objection to labeling the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) [GlobalSecurity backgrounder] a terrorist organization, saying that the separatist fighters were "heroes to some." Tugluk gave the speech at a rally for the minority Democratic Society Party (DTP) [official website, in Turkish], which supports Kurdish independence and has been accused of connections to the PKK. Tugluk said that she plans to appeal the decision, though she said she may face other charges for at least 30 different comments [Reuters report] she has made about the Kurdish conflict. Although Turkish lawmakers are protected from prosecution while in office, a recent high court decision held that those provisions do not apply to terrorism charges.

In 2007, Tugluk and DTP President Ahmet Turk were convicted [JURIST report] of distributing political materials in a language other than Turkish after they circulated a pamphlet in support of imprisoned Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan [advocacy website]. In December, Kurdish activist Leyla Zana [NNDB profile] was sentenced to 10 years [JURIST report] in prison for supporting the PKK in public speeches. Turkey's limitations on free speech, particularly under Article 301 [AI backgrounder; JURIST news archive], have drawn international criticism and contributed to the nation's delayed accession [JURIST report] to the European Union [official website]. That article's original language making the denigration of "Turkishness" a crime was amended [JURIST report] last year, limiting protection to the "Turkish Nation" instead.