London Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens said in an interview Saturday that he believed the current UK laws addressing the rights of home owners to defend themselves against intruders needed reform. To avoid liability, the current law requires the homeowner to prove that the force used in resisting an intruder has to be 'reasonable' [...]

Cobell et al. v. Norton, Secretary of the Interior et al., US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, December 3, 2004 . Excerpt: The district court could not resolve the state of Interior's IT systems security without conducting a hearing on the evidence in dispute.In opposition to the plaintiffs' motion for injunctive relief [...]

Columbia's most notorious drug trafficker, Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuelo, was flown to the US early Saturday to face trial in federal court on charges of smuggling cocaine and money laundering. As head of the Cali cartel, Orejuelo and his brother Miguel controlled nearly 80 percent of the world's cocaine trade, earning $8 billion annually. While serving [...]

A majority of the Senate has voted in favor of the Sept. 11 intelligence bill, although AP is reporting that the vote is not over yet.

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled Friday that the US Interior Department does not have to disconnect its computers from the Internet despite the possibility of tampering by hackers. The dispute arose regarding the security of a US Interior Department website that contains information about royalty payments owed to American [...]

Signed into law by President Bush December 3, 2004 . Read the full text of the Act here. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

In Friday's environmental law news, John Thwaites, Minister of the Environment for the state of Victoria in Australia, has announced that he will be calling on the national Environment and Heritage Protection Council (EHPC) to adopt a plan that would require large emitters to report their greenhouse gas emissions annually. Currently, emitters have to report [...]

KGW-TV in Portland is reporting that Washington state Democrats have said they will pay for a full statewide hand recount of the ballots cast in the November Washington governor's race, which Republican Dino Rossi won on the night by 261 votes, but by only 42 votes after a machine recount. The hand recount, which will [...]

President Bush Friday signed into law H.R. 1350, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004 (IDEA), designed among other things to ensure that students with disabilities will have special education teachers with the skills and training to teach special education and their subject area. The President's remarks at this morning's signing are online from [...]

The US Supreme Court announced at midday Friday that it would hear appeals from the Federal Communications Commission and the cable industry on whether broadband services that offer computer users high-speed links to the Internet via cable are an "information service" subject to minimal regulation by federal or local authorities or whether, following lower court [...]