In a report released Tuesday, Justice Department officials endorsed a pair of controversial bills favored by the entertainment industry that would criminalize passive sharing of copyrighted material through file-swapping programs and create tort liability for companies that induce copyright infringement by marketing products that facilitate the violations. The DOJ officials called file-sharing a "widespread" issue and have requested more agents, funding, and prosecutorial power to combat the problem. Following is an excerpt from the statement of Attorney General John Ashcroft announcing the recommendations:

Intellectual property theft is a clear danger to our economy and the health, safety, and security of the American people... The enforcement of our intellectual property laws is among the highest priorities of the Justice Department, and I created the Intellectual Property Task Force to explore ways for us to strengthen our protection of the nation’s valuable intellectual resources. With the recommendations put forward by the Task Force, the Department is prepared to build the strongest, most aggressive legal assault against intellectual property crime in our nation’s history.”

With Democratic candidate John Kerry opening a recent lead in Pennsylvania according to recent polls, President Bush is making trial lawyers a target of his campaign in the battleground state. The Bush campaign is airing a series of television and radio spots beginning this weekend in the Philadelphia media that cite excessive damage awards and frivolous lawsuits as the reason for increases in medical malpractice premiums. Attorneys fired back Monday, accusing the president of using them as a scapegoat while pandering to corporate donors to his campaign in the insurance, health care and pharmaceuticals industries. The Legal Intelligencer has more. The Bush-Cheney campaign website outlines the trial lawyers ad now running in a press release. Watch a national version of the ad here.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced late Tuesday that it is seeking a $1.18 million fine against 169 Fox television stations over their alleged broadcast of indecent material during an April 2003 episode of the reality show "Married By America." The FCC voted 5-0 in favor of fining the stations $7,000 each after receiving 159 complaints about the broadcast. The agency cited depictions of vulgarity and sexual activity, including nudity, being aired at a time when many children were likely to be viewing. Fox denies that the scenes, which used pixilation to blur any nudity, were indecent. Read the FCC release [PDF] and the Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture [PDF] detailing the FCC's complaint. Reuters has more.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has filed a formal protest with the Federal Election Commission over plans by a major broadcast group to air a film next week criticizing presidential hopeful John Kerry's anti-war activism upon returning from active duty in Vietnam. Sinclair Broadcast Group has asked its 62 television stations to pre-empt regular programming next week in order to show the film, which accuses Sen. Kerry of betraying American POWs through his activism. Democrats allege that the broadcast is an improper use of the airwaves and an illegal in-kind contribution to the Bush-Cheney campaign. CNN has more. CNSNEWS.com reports on a statement by Federal Communications Commissioner Michael J. Copps Tuesday calling the Sinclair broadcast an "abuse of public trust" just days prior to the presidential election. The DNC has posted a response to the planned broadcast on its website.

In Tuesday's corporations and securities law news, a federal jury in Memphis has ordered Medtronic Inc. to pay $400 million in punitive damages to a Los Angeles surgeon for infringing patents covering spinal-implant products. Just last month, jurors awarded the same surgeon $159 million for Medtronic's violation of contracts covering the same product. Medtronic has a press release here. Bloomberg has more.

In other news, a Delaware judge has delayed the trial involving a lawsuit brought by Walt Disney Co. shareholders which is seeking to recoup former company President Michael Ovitz's $140 million severance package. Disney shareholders asked for the delay to study newly discovered papers about Ovitz's tenure at Disney. AP has more.... As previously reported on JURIST's Paper Chase, Russia's Justice Ministry said Tuesday that it would sell off a subsidiary of Yukos to satisfy unmet claims for back taxes owed by the mammoth Russian oil company. The Russia Journal has continuing coverage of Yukos' court battles. AP has more.... The SEC is mulling new rules to require corporations to disclose its executives' retirement package and other compensation. CBS MarketWatch has more.... Chiron Corp. announced a federal grand jury is investigating the company relating to its failure to deliver flu vaccines because regulators did not consider it safe. Read Chiron's written testimony to a Government Reform Committee on the flu vaccine shortage here [PDF]. Reuters has more.... As previously reported on JURIST's Paper Chase, the Department of Justice has opened a probe into mortgage giant Fannie Mae to determine whether the company broke accounting rules to smooth earnings and boost executive bonuses. The investigation is in relation to a OFHEO report. Read the report here [PDF]. AP has more.... Amkor Technology Inc., a contract assembler and tester of semiconductor packages, announced the SEC is conducting an informal inquiry into insider trading in its securities. Read the Amkor press release disclosing the informal investigation here. The Philadelphia Business Journal has more.... US Airways reached an agreement with its lenders to extend financing which will allow the airline to fly through mid-January 2005. Reuters has more.

Speaking at a news conference Tuesday in Riyadh, Saudi Prince Mansour, head of his country's election committee, announced that Saudi women would not be permitted to run or vote in next year's round of nationwide municipal elections. He insisted that this was not a ban, but rather a problem of inadequate time for making requisite electoral changes for 178 councils under a new law that did not not specifically exclude women. Read the Saudi Press Agency report of the news conference here, continued here. AP has more. US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has pressed for democratization of the Saudi political process, accepted the announcement for the time being as a choice the Saudi government itself had to make, and observed it was "novel that the Saudis are having elections in the first place", but he told Arab TV Tuesday that "These things have to come in due course and (we are) still waiting to see whether that is the final official position of the Saudi government." Review the full transcript of Powell's interview here. AFP has more.

Mortgage giant Fannie Mae announced Tuesday that the Department of Justice is investigating whether it broke accounting rules to smooth earnings and boost executive bonuses. The US Attorney for the District of Columbia has asked the company to save documents related to the accounting abuses. The SEC opened a probe into the company last month. Fannie Mae also announced eight separate lawsuits have been brought against the company in US District Court for the District of Columbia and the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. The cases will likely be consolidated into a securities class action suit. The problems at Fannie Mae began when the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) issued a report that stated the company was using faulty accounting. Read the OFHEO report on Fannie Mae here [PDF]. Reuters has more.

The US Supreme Court heard two cases Tuesday on the issue of whether the US government can send immigrants back to countries that have not agreed to accept them, a matter of considerable concern since the events of September 11. Jama v. INS (summary from Duke Law School) involved a Somali refugee who does not dispute the deportation but instead is arguing he should not be sent to a lawless country which is in no position to take him back. A federal judge has stayed all deportations of Somalis pending this decision. Read the opinion of the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit here. The Court also heard arguments in Leocal v. Ashcroft (summary from Duke Law School), the case of a Haitian man fighting deportation after pleading guilty to a felony charge of drunk driving. The issue here is whether a felony of drunk driving is a "crime of violence" which allows the government to begin deportation proceedings. Read the ACLU amicus brief here [PDF]. AP has more.

The Federal Trade Commission announced at a press conference Tuesday that it has launched its first court action against a manufacturer of spyware, software that is downloaded off the Internet to a user's computer without his or her permission and then "spys" on their surfing habits. A FTC press release issued in conjunction with the press conference says that since December 2003 Seismic Entertainment Productions, Inc., Smartbot.Net, and Sanford Wallace had operated Web sites that distributing spyware, installing it on user machines and then inducing users to but software purporting to eliminate it, an unfair practice in violation of the FTC Act. Read the full FTC complaint filed Thursday here [PDF].

Russia's Justice Ministry said Tuesday that it would sell off a subsidiary of Yukos Oil to satisfy unmet claims for back taxes owed by the mammoth Russian oil company. As previously reported on JURIST's Paper Chase, a Moscow court ruled Monday that Yukos owed the state almost $1.34 billion in fines connected to unpaid taxes from 2001 alone; its total debt is said to be over $3.7 billion. The value of the subsidiary to be sold has been set at just over $10 billion, somewhat less than previous estimates. Yukos has been under a legal cloud ever since its erstwhile CEO, pro-opposition Russian tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was arrested last year for fraud and tax evasion. From Moscow, Mosnews.com has more in English.

The newly re-elected conservative government of Australian Prime Minister John Howard indicated Tuesday that it would use its greater control over the Australian Senate to secure passage of tougher anti-terrorism legislation that would allow surveillance of emails and text messages and would protect sensitive national security information in terror-related court cases. The Howard government had campaigned on its commitment to counter-terrorism initiatives, noting in its election platform [PDF] that

Since 11 September 2001, Australia has been at war with international terrorism. On 12 October 2002, the Bali bombing confirmed that Australians and our way of life are targets for terrorists. Al Qaida, Jemaah Islamiya and other groups retain the ability to stage further attacks. Under John Howard’s leadership, Australia’s counter-terrorism response has been swift, comprehensive and decisive.

International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohammad ElBaradei has told UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan that satellite images of Iraq show that equipment and materials that could be used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons have disappeared from that country and can no longer be monitored for compliance with international proliferation standards. In a letter dated October 1 but only released online Tuesday, ElBaradei wrote that

The IAEA continues to be concerned about the widespread and apparently systematic dismantlement that has taken place at sites previously relevant to Iraq’s nuclear programme and sites previously subject to ongoing monitoring and verification. The [satellite] imagery shows in many instances the dismantlement of entire buildings that housed high precision equipment (such as flow forming, milling and turning machines; electron beam welders; coordinate measurement machines) formerly monitored and tagged with IAEA seals, as well as the removal of equipment and materials (such as highstrength aluminium) from open storage areas.

In addition to granting certiorari in two Ten Commandments cases (as reported earlier on JURIST's Paper Chase), the US Supreme Court Tuesday also agreed to hear Lingle v. Chevron, a case involving legislation in Hawaii aimed at reducing the price of gas. Chevron USA challenged the 1997 law, alleging that it was an unconstitutional taking because it limited the amounts oil companies could lease gas stations for and prevented oil companies from taking over the stations. The case was decided in April by the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled in favor of Chevron. View the 9th Circuit's opinion here [PDF]. Georgetown's Environmental Law & Policy Institute has filings in the case, as well as more on the takings clause. AP has more.

Also this morning, the Court granted cert. in five other cases. The Court consolidated two cases, Exxon Corp. v. Allapattah Services, Inc. and Ortega v. Star-Kist Foods, Inc., both of which deal with federal court jurisdiction, one in federal-question cases and the other in class-action cases. AP has more. In Cutter v. Wilkinson, the Court will consider whether a federal law allowing inmates to practice religious beliefs is constitutional. AP has more.

The Court denied petitions for certiorari in several high-profile cases, including three that sought to uphold federal regulations forcing regional phone carriers to allow competitors access to networks at reduced rates. The cases were brought by AT&T, MCI and a state utility group. AP has more. The Court similarly refused to hear a case over whether Internet service providers can be required to turn over names of file sharers to the recording industry. In Verizon Internet Services v. Recording Industry Association of America [PDF], the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the Digital Millenium Copyright Act must be expanded by Congress to cover file sharers before their identity can be obtained by the recording industry. AP has more. Finally, the Court also refused to hear Flynt v. Rumsfeld, in which DC Circuit had ruled that the Defense Department did not have to provide media access to battlefields during conflict. AP has more.

View the complete Supreme Court Order List [PDF].

AP is reporting that the Supreme Court has taken a case on the constitutionality of Ten Commandments displays on government land and buildings.

UPDATE: The justices will consider two cases, one on the constitutionality of a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Texas state Capitol (Orden v. Perry, US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, November 2003; PDF), and the other on the posting of the Ten Commandments in courthouses in Kentucky (ACLU of Kentucky v. McCreary County, US Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, Decemebr 2003; read a press release by Liberty Counsel, representing three Kentucky counties). AP has more.

UPDATE-2: The Supreme Court's complete order list can be viewed here [PDF].

At least 11 al-Qaeda suspects have "disappeared" while in US custody, according to a report issued Tuesday by the monitoring group Human Rights Watch. The suspects, including Khalid Shaikh Muhammed, the alleged principal architect of September 11; Abu Zubayda, said to be a close aide of Osama bin Laden; and Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who might have been one of the 9/11 hijackers apart form his failure to get a US visa, are all being held incommunicado at secret locations contrary to the terms of the Geneva Conventions, which require that the Red Cross have access to all detainees and that their relatives be informed of their whereabouts. HRW also says some suspects have reportedly been tortured. "Disappearances" have historically been associated with the detentions, abuse and killings of political prisoners in Latin America. Read the HRW report The United States’ ‘Disappeared’: The CIA’s Long-Term ‘Ghost Detainees.’

The President-designate of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, has defended his nominated team of incoming commissioners after an EU parliamentary review panel Monday took the unusual step of rejecting Justice portfolio nominee Rocco Buttiglione, a Roman Catholic who told the panel in testimony last week that he believed homosexuality was a sin (see yesterday's report in JURIST's Paper Chase). The panel's rejection of Buttiglione is not binding, but President-designate Barraso insisted on his confidence in his entire team of 25, and said he would await the views of the full EU parliament when it meets on October 21. BBC News has more.

The trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at The Hague resumed Tuesday after a month-long suspension, granted after British lawyers appointed to represent Milosevic after he was deemed too ill to properly represent himself any longer requested more time to prepare their defense. The first defense witness to take the stand after the resumption of proceedings was a German journalist, Franz-Josef Hutsch, who worked as a war correspondent in Kosovo and who claims that US Army consultants MPRRI deployed Mujahaddin Arab mercenaries in Bosnia in 1998. Radio B92 in Belgrade reports that most of the hundred potential defense witnesses contacted by the Tribunal so far have refused to give evidence. Milosevic's British defense team also has an appeal pending with the Tribunal against their appointment, on the basis that Milosevic is not co-operating with them. BBC News has more.

Reuters is reporting that a grand jury has subpoenaed flu vaccine manufacturer Chiron for information about its vaccine, production of which at a British facilty was stopped last week by UK regulators. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the production stoppage has cut US flu vaccine supplies almost in half, creating a nationwide shortage. Read Chiron's October 5 press release on the production stoppage, and the CDC statement on the US shortage here.

UPDATE: USA Today has more.

Here's a run-down of law-related events, expected developments and live webcasts on JURIST's docket for Tuesday, October 12.

The US Supreme Court will hear 10 AM ET oral arguments in Leocal v. Ashcroft (case summary from Duke Law School), where the Court will decide whether DUI with serious bodily injury is a "crime of violence" that constitutes an "aggravated felony" under the Immigration and Nationality Act. The ABA provides merit briefs filed in the case. The Court will also hear arguments this morning in Jama v. INS (case summary from Duke Law School), where it will decide whether the Attorney General can remove an alien to a designated "additional removal country" under 8 USC §1231(b)(2)(E) without obtaining the country's acceptance of the alien prior to removal. The ABA provides merit briefs filed in the case. AP has more.

The Federal Trade Commission will hold an 11 AM ET press conference to announce a law enforcement action targeting "spyware." Watch a live webcast (via C-SPAN).

The fall meeting of the ABA's International Law Section begins in Houston today. Read the agenda for the conference on the Future of the Americas - The Next Ten Years. Topics include trade and investment, dispute resolution, corporate mergers and finance and public international law.

The trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic resumes at 9 AM local time today at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at The Hague. The trial had been adjourned to allow court-appointed defense council to prepare the defense case. Watch a webcast beginning at 9:30 AM local time (3:30 AM ET); for witness protection, the webcast is on a 30-minute tape delay. The ICTY has background on the case. Also today at the ICTY, former Bosnian Serb army commander Ljubisa Beara will make his initial appearance before the court at 3 PM local time. Watch a webcast beginning at 3:30 (9:30 AM ET); for witness protection, the webcast is on a 30-minute tape delay. Read Beara's indictment and background on the case.

At the United Nations, the Security Council will meet at 10 AM ET to discuss the situation in Afghanistan. The General Assembly will meet at 3 PM ET to resume discussion on the Security Council's report on the question of equitable representation on and increase in the membership of the Security Council.