Leaders urge adoption of new EU rules on data retention after London bombings News
Leaders urge adoption of new EU rules on data retention after London bombings

[JURIST] After last week's bombings in London, UK foreign minister Jack Straw [official profile] has joined with European Union justice commissioner Franco Frattini [official website] in calling for new EU rules to allow government access to telecommunications data [AFP report]. "I believe that provided there are proper safeguards that no one's civil liberties are threatened by retention and access to data, but the protection of everybody is more greatly enhanced," Straw said. Frattini has also proposed the creation of an info-sharing network between EU nations; both proposals are expected to be debated [AP report] at a Wednesday meeting of EU ministers called in response to the bombings. UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Goron Brown has has also called for stepped up EU-wide efforts to provide for the seizure of terror-related assets. BBC News has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.