The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has asked a federal judge considering a shutdown of the BlackBerry wireless email network to exempt government workers who rely on the technology. The DOJ submitted a list of 138 governmental agencies who rely on the BlackBerry network, including the NSA, the CIA, and the FBI, to be given [...]

Efforts to amend the Florida constitution to ban same-sex marriage have faltered as supporters of an amendment failed to meet a Wednesday deadline to secure enough signatures to put the issue on the November ballot. The Florida Coalition to Protect Marriage made a last effort this week to get the required 611,009 signatures, but only [...]

The European Commission has told Germany and Luxembourg that the Commission is preparing to take legal action against the countries if they fail to bring national tobacco advertising laws into compliance with an EU directive which bans tobacco advertising in newspapers, on the radio and on the Internet. The Commission sent "reasoned opinions" to the [...]

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has denied allegations from Amnesty International that the government has unlawfully detained thousands of protestors as part of the latest anti-government crackdown. Amnesty has said that thousands of students from the Orono ethnic group have been detained in connection with protests over last year's disputed elections and that eleven of [...]

Human rights observers have accused the US of ignoring a deteriorating situation in Russia, including crackdowns on the media and overreach of executive power. Mark Medish, a spokesman for the independent Council on Foreign Relations, told the US Commission on International Religious Freedom Wednesday that "a democratic government is not a priority" for US-Russian relations [...]

The Bush administration has declined requests from the US Senate Judiciary Committee to produce classified legal opinions on the NSA's domestic spying program for a hearing scheduled for Monday . The Department of Justice has said that the requested documents would add nothing to the debate that has not already been publicly released in defense [...]

Irwin Cotler , the outgoing Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, has said that despite some indications from Canada's incoming Conservative party government , he doubts that the country's recently enacted same-sex marriage law would be repealed. Prime Minister-designate Stephen Harper has said that the government will allow a free vote in the [...]

The US House on Wednesday approved a new short-term extension of the USA Patriot Act that will last until March 10. Certain provisions of the law were originally set to expire on December 31, but were extended until February 3 when Congress failed to reach an agreement on a long-term extension before Christmas. President Bush [...]

Brian J. Foley : "In response to the revelations about presidential spying, several Administration officials, including President Bush and Attorney General Gonzales, have argued that the electronic surveillance program — which appears to exceed the limits allowed by current law — is "necessary" to prevent another terrorist attack. They also say, as Vice President Cheney [...]

US Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Wednesday called for a re-examination of antitrust laws after the Committee held a hearing on consolidation in the energy industry . Specter noted that the Federal Trade Commission has approved numerous mergers in the oil industry in the past 15 years and voiced [...]