Federal appeals court allows domestic spying to continue pending appeal News
Federal appeals court allows domestic spying to continue pending appeal

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit [official website] ruled [text, PDF] Wednesday that the US government can continue to operate its domestic surveillance program [JURIST news archive; US DOJ fact sheet, PDF] pending appeal of US District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor's August 17 ruling [PDF text; JURIST report] that the government's program is unconstitutional. Taylor originally ordered the shutdown of the surveillance program, but held last Thursday that the government could continue domestic surveillance for one more week [JURIST report] while the issue was appealed to the Sixth Circuit. AP has more.

The ACLU filed the lawsuit [complaint, PDF; ACLU materials] on behalf of journalists, scholars, attorneys and national nonprofit organizations having "a well-founded belief that their communications are being intercepted by the NSA" in order to challenge the use of warrantless wiretaps by the National Security Agency [official website] to intercept communications of suspected terrorists.

THIS DAY @ LAW

UN General Assembly approves Palestine partition plan

The UN General Assembly approved UN Resolution Resolution 181 (II) on November 29, 1947, recommending that the British Mandate for Palestine be split into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international zone for Jerusalem. The vote in the assembly was 33 for to 13 against, with 10 abstentions. The resolution sparked a war between Palestinian Arabs and Jews in 1947 and a wider war after Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded the new State of Israel in 1948. Read Resolution 181 (II).

UN divided Palestine between Arabs and Jews

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab territories, leading to the establishment of a Jewish state the following year. Read UN General Assembly Resolution 181.

Defense Secretary Robert McNamara resigns during Vietnam Conflict

On November 29, 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara announced that he was resigning from his office to accept an appointment as head of the World Bank. The announcement came as the Vietnam Conflict was becoming increasingly unpopular in the United States and abroad.