Wiretaps increased by 19 percent last year, with federal and state judges approving 1,710 applications while denying none, the Administrative Office of the US Courts reported Thursday. New York, California, New Jersey and Florida accounted for three of every four surveillance orders. The number of court-authorized wiretaps jumped last year as investigators pursued drug and [...]

The Florida Supreme Court , in a 4-3 decision, on Thursday rejected Rush Limbaugh's appeal to review a lower court's decision that the state could seize his medical records. The court will not consider a motion for rehearing. Florida's 4th District Court of Appeal had ruled the state did not violate Limbaugh's privacy rights when [...]

The UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) on Thursday sentenced Mika Muhimana, who was a councilor in the western Rwandan province of Kibuyea, to prison for the rest of his life for his role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide . Judge Khalida Rashid Khan said the tribunal had found beyond any reasonable doubt that [...]

Former Army Sgt. Erik Saar, who served as a Guantanamo Bay translator, told CBS's 60 Minutes that prisoner interrogations were staged to give visiting congressmen, senators and generals the impression that valuable intelligence information was being gathered from detainees on a regular basis. The interview will be broadcast Sunday on CBS. Saar, who spent six [...]

Stephen Cambone , undersecretary of defense for intelligence, on Thursday told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the CIA will no longer be allowed to hold unregistered "ghost" detainees at US military installations such as Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison . Cambone said the newly issued interim interrogation rules which require a single standard to be [...]

Sgt. Hasan Akbar , the US soldier convicted of premeditated murder and attempted premeditated murder for attacking comrades with a rifle and grenades in Kuwait during the early stages of the Iraq invasion, was sentenced to death by a military jury on Thursday. Two officers were killed and fourteen others were injured in the attack. [...]

HR 240 . Read the full text of the House resolution as adopted by HR 241 . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Quintavalle v Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, UK House of Lords, April 28, 2005 . Read the full text of the opinion. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Advice on the legality of a war with Iraq, Lord Goldmsith, Attorney General for England and Wales, to UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, March 7, 2003 . Excerpt: To sum up, the language of resolution 1441 leaves the position unclear and the statements made on adoption of the resolution suggest that there were differences of [...]

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist on Thursday offered Democrats a compromise over judicial nominees that would allow appellate court nominations to be voted on but would retain the filibuster for district court nominees. Under the offer, the Senate would be limited to 100 hours of debate on appeals court judicial nominees before they would be [...]