[JURIST] US Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) [official website] Sunday promised a thorough congressional probe into President Bush's domestic surveillance program [JURIST news archive]. Specter denied that the President was given a "blank check" to conduct any kind of domestic spying, but downplayed the possibility of impeachment over the issue as "the president is making a good faith effort, that he sees a real problem as we all do, and he's acting in a way that he feels he must." Specter disagrees with the Bush administration's view that Congress' authorization of military force after the September 11 attacks includes eavesdropping on US citizens, but he warned that presidential war powers under the US Constitution [text] might supersede that law. Lawmakers, legal scholars and human rights groups have questioned the authority of the program and its constitutionality. The US Department of Justice [JURIST report] and the Senate [JURIST report] are currently conducting investigations into the warrantless wiretaps. Senate Judiciary Committee hearings scheduled for next month will include testimony [JURIST report] from US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales [official profile]. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] US Senate Judiciary Committee member Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) [official website] warned Sunday against any filibuster by Democrats to stall the vote for US Supreme Court nominee Judge Samuel Alito [official profile, JURIST news archive]. Feinstein plans to vote against Alito but said "this might be a man I disagree with, but it doesn't mean he shouldn't be on the court." Although there has been talk of a filibuster [JURIST report], Democrats will likely be unable to muster the 41 votes needed to sustain it. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) [official profile] insists, however, that a filibuster is still a possibility, "It's premature to say anything till we fully assess the record." All 10 Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee [official website] have announced they will vote to confirm the nomination and the Senate's 55 Republicans are expected to follow. AP has more.

[JURIST] President Bush's "faith-based initiative" to get taxpayer funding to religious organizations to provide social services suffered a setback Friday when a three-judge panel of the US Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals [official website] reinstated a 2004 lawsuit brought by the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) [advocacy website] on the grounds that the program may violate the constitutional separation of church and state. President Bush created the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives [official website] and similar centers in ten federal agencies by executive order [text] in 2001 in an effort to help faith-based and community organizations receive federal funds to support various social programs. The lawsuit was originally dismissed when a judge ruled that taxpayers could not question appropriations made by the executive branch, but the appeals court held there was an exception to that when the appropriation used taxpayer money to promote religion. The FFRF previously won a lawsuit against the program [JURIST report] when a judge suspended a federal grant to a Christian college because it "amounted to an unconstitutional endorsement of religion". AP has more.

[JURIST] The government of British Prime Minister Tony Blair will in a few weeks lift a longstanding ban on wiretapping the phones of members of parliament as part of a push to expand the surveillance powers of Britain's MI5 [official website] security service in the wake of the July 2005 London bombings [JURIST report], according to the Independent on Sunday newspaper. Former Prime Minister Harold Wilson [CNN profile] promised MPs in the late 1960s that their communication lines would never be tapped by security officials, "whatsoever the circumstances," an assurance now referred to as the Wilson Doctrine. Blair has previously indicated [Guardian report] that subjecting MPs to wiretaps would be consistent with governmental powers authorized by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act of 2000 [text], and would be exercised only in extreme situations. A number of Labour Party backbenchers as well as members of the opposition Liberal Democrats [party website] have expressed concern over the proposed change, arguing that lifting the ban could facilitate the use of sensitive information for political, rather than security, purposes. The Independent reported that discussion of the plan prompted a major Cabinet controversy before Christmas, with British Defence Secretary John Reid [official profile], traditionally a strong Blair ally, speaking out forcefully against it. The Independent has more.

[JURIST] Iraqi officials are attempting to persuade the chief judge in the Saddam Hussein trial [JURIST news archive] to remain in his position, according to prosecutors speaking Sunday. A tribunal official confirmed Saturday that Kurdish judge Rizgar Amin [Wikipedia profile] had officially filed his resignation [JURIST report] in protest over Shiite leaders' objections to how he was running the trial. Commentators say Amin's resignation could bring further disrepute to the already-contentious proceeding, which also drew high-level public criticism from US Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) during a visit to the Baghdad tribunal [JURIST report] last month. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey said in a newspaper interview [in French] published Sunday that the Swiss government has asked the United States for information about 74 alleged CIA flights through Swiss airspace and several landings of CIA aircraft in Switzerland, although she added she had no proof that the flights were actual renditions [JURIST news archive] or were otherwise illegal. A poll released Sunday by Swiss newspaper SonntagsBlick [media website] meanwhile shows that 75 percent of Swiss citizens want the government to officially protest the use of Swiss airspace to fly suspected terrorists to secret US detention facilities in Europe. Pressure on Swiss officials to act on the renditions issue has increased since the publication earlier this month of an alleged Egyptian government fax [JURIST report] leaked to SonntagsBlick after being intercepted by Swiss intelligence suggesting that 23 Iraqi and Afghan citizens were being held by the CIA at a detention facility in Romania, and that other secret prisons existed in Ukraine, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria. Swiss senator and rendition investigator Dick Marty endorsed the credibility of the allegations [JURIST report] in a report to the Council of Europe [official website] last month. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Two Iraqi journalists working for Reuters were among 509 prisoners released from US military custody Sunday. The journalists, one a correspondent and the other a cameraman, had been stationed in the Sunni-dominated insurgency stronghold of Ramadi, and were freed from Baghdad's Abu Ghraib [JURIST news archive] prison after spending several months in detention there and at Camp Bucca in southern Iraq without being charged with a crime. At least three other international journalists remain in US custody in Iraq without charges, a fact which has prompted criticism from the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) [press release] and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) [protest letter]. Reuters has more.