FISA court to consider making wiretapping rulings public News
FISA court to consider making wiretapping rulings public

[JURIST] A judge on the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act [JURIST news archive] (FISA) court said in an order [PDF text] released Friday that the court would consider [ACLU press release] what she called an "unprecedented" ACLU motion [PDF text; JURIST report] to release to the public hitherto-classified rulings on the extent of the US government's wiretapping authority. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly directed the government to file a response to the motion by August 31. The Department of Justice has not yet indicated whether it will oppose the motion.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court [FJC backgrounder] does not hold public hearings and has traditionally confined itself to releasing annual summaries of the number of wiretaps it has approved. Its only public rulings were released in 1981 and 2002, the latter dealing with interpretation of the USA Patriot Act. The New York Times has more.

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.

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