Hearing testimony on new FBI Patriot Act powers [US Senate Intelligence Comm.] News
Hearing testimony on new FBI Patriot Act powers [US Senate Intelligence Comm.]

Hearings on a Bill to Reauthorize Certain Provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act and for Other Purposes, US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, May 24, 2005 [including prepared testimony by the FBI General Counsel Valerie Caproni asking for sweeping new powers to seize records from private citizens and businesses in terrorism investigations without first obtaining a judge's approval]. Read the full text of the hearing statements. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Dred Scott decided

On March 6, 1857, the US Supreme Court announced its landmark decision in Dred Scott v. Sanford, holding that black people—slaves as well as free—were not and could never become citizens of the United States and that the 1820 Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. Learn more about the Dred Scott case from Washington University in St. Louis (the city where Dred Scott initially filed his suit for freedom and had his case first tried). Review a selection of contemporary newspaper editorials reacting to the decision.