Lawmakers want more disclosure on Patriot Act News
Lawmakers want more disclosure on Patriot Act

[JURIST] Members of the US Senate Intelligence Committee [official website] told senior Bush administration officials Wednesday that lack of disclosure regarding enforcement of the Patriot Act was hurting efforts to renew 15 key provisions set to expire at the end of this year. Senators noted public concerns about govermment spying prompted by insufficient information about the act, and complained that they themselves had not recieved a promised report on FBI use of a provision requiring ISPs and other businesses to hand over consumer or subscriber information. US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales [Gonzales-Mueller joint testimony, PDF], FBI Director Robert Mueller and CIA Director Porter Gross [prepared testimony] defended the act as having facilitated key arrests and prosecutions, including that of Islamic scholar Ali al-Timimi, convicted Tuesday [JURIST report] of inciting his followers to holy war and joining the Taliban against the United States in the wake of the September 11 attacks. AP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

UN General Assembly approves Palestine partition plan

The UN General Assembly approved UN Resolution Resolution 181 (II) on November 29, 1947, recommending that the British Mandate for Palestine be split into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international zone for Jerusalem. The vote in the assembly was 33 for to 13 against, with 10 abstentions. The resolution sparked a war between Palestinian Arabs and Jews in 1947 and a wider war after Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded the new State of Israel in 1948. Read Resolution 181 (II).

UN divided Palestine between Arabs and Jews

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab territories, leading to the establishment of a Jewish state the following year. Read UN General Assembly Resolution 181.

Defense Secretary Robert McNamara resigns during Vietnam Conflict

On November 29, 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara announced that he was resigning from his office to accept an appointment as head of the World Bank. The announcement came as the Vietnam Conflict was becoming increasingly unpopular in the United States and abroad.