[JURIST] Google [corporate website] is urging the US government [press release], including the Departments of State and Commerce, the Office of the US Trade Representative [official websites], and various House and Senate committees, to fight the rise of global Internet censorship [JURIST news archive], according to Monday reports. Google's Director of Public Policy and Government Affairs Andrew McLaughlin said in a statement that censorship acts as a non-tariff trade barrier for industries that depend on the free flow of information to deliver their services across borders. He added:

For Google, censorship constitutes the single greatest trade barrier we currently face. [W]e’re not interested in forcing the US Constitution's First Amendment on other countries. Rather . . . we would like to see the federal government take to heart the interests of the information industries and treat the elimination of unwarranted censorship as a central objective of our bilateral and multilateral trade agendas in the years to come.

[JURIST] The government of Canada [JURIST news archive], currently investigating whether detainees in Afghanistan were abused while in Canadian custody [JURIST report], will not make inquiries into allegations of torture or abuse after the detainees were transferred to Afghan officials [JURIST report], according to Monday reports. Lieutenant-Commander Philip Anido, a spokesman for the board of inquiry in charge of the probe, said the board was only convened to "make findings and recommendations up to the point when our soldiers transfer detainees to Afghan authorities." The Canadian government has been deeply embroiled in controversy over the torture issue since the Toronto Globe and Mail reported [text] in April that thirty terror suspects were tortured by Afghan security forces after being transferred from the custody of Canadian troops belonging to NATO's International Security Assistance Force for Afghanistan (ISAF) [official website] mission. The detainees gave accounts of being beaten, electrocuted, starved, and left in freezing temperatures while detained in Kandahar province jails. The Toronto Globe and Mail has more.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) announced in April [JURIST report] that it will investigate allegations of human rights violations committed by Afghan prison officials. The announcement came after a Canadian human rights group made allegations that Canada has been violating international law by allowing detainees initially held in Canadian custody to be turned over to Afghan forces, where they suffer abuse. Last month, Canada signed a new detainee transfer agreement [JURIST report] with the Afghan government allowing for monitoring of prisoners transferred from Canadian to Afghan custody as a safeguard against torture and abuse. In related news, the ISAF announced Monday that it will investigate allegations that American and Afghan forces abused a suspect in Afghanistan earlier this month. German magazine Focus [media website] correspondent Wolfgang Bauer reported [text, in German] that he had witnessed soldiers abuse a suspect apprehended during a search for Taliban fighters, threatening to drag him behind a vehicle if he did not comply. According to Bauer, the suspect was not dragged and was released. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Portuguese Prime Minister José Sócrates [official website] said Monday that Portugal - which takes over the rotating EU presidency from Germany in July - would work to have negotiations pursuant to Saturday's landmark agreement [JURIST report; press release] on an EU reform treaty finalized by October. Portugal's Permanent Representative to the European Union, Alvaro Mendonca, told the Centre for European Policy Studies [think tank website], that Portugal will immediately begin to create a new legal document out of the changes agreed upon to the originally-rejected EU constitution [text; European Constitution [JURIST news archive]. Mendonca said he thought that the agreements were substantive enough that there should not be much dispute over the new treaty. Ratification of the document would then take place over the next few years.

The new treaty will create a full-time EU president, as well as organize regular meetings of EU heads of states. A European office for a unified foreign minister will also be created, and will be provided the resources and support to represent the EU as a single body. The reforms will also slim down the European Commission [official website] beginning in 2014, and transfer more power to the European Parliament [official website]. Reuters has more. EUobserver has additional coverage.

[JURIST] German prosecutors said Monday they will seek the extradition of 13 US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) [official website] agents they believe to be responsible for the alleged 2003 kidnapping and extraordinary rendition [JURIST news archive] of German national Khalid El-Masri [Wikipedia profile; JURIST news archive]. US State Department Deputy Spokesman Tom Casey said that he hadn't formally heard about the German request, but told reporters that the US response would be "about the same" [press briefing transcript; video] as prior extradition requests for CIA agents. In February, the State Department said that the US would not extradite CIA agents to Italy [JURIST report] for a rendition-related trial. The German government can block the prosecutor's demand if it decides it harms the public interest.

El-Masri alleges that CIA agents kidnapped him while on vacation in Macedonia in 2003 and transferred him to Afghanistan, where he was held in a secret prison for five months and subjected to inhumane conditions and coercive interrogation. He was released in Albania in 2004 without apology or funds to return to Germany. El-Masri sued [ACLU materials] various CIA officials in 2005, arguing that they violated international human rights law in his rendition to Afghanistan. A US federal appeals court upheld [JURIST report] the dismissal of that lawsuit in March 2007, ruling that the case could not be heard in a US court because of the state secrets privilege [Sourcewatch backgrounder]. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Iranian 2003 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi [advocacy website, in Persian; JURIST news archive] Monday accused the Iranian government of interfering in judicial affairs to prevent the release of two US clients currently detained by Iranian authorities. In a letter to Iranian Judiciary [official website] head Seyyed Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, Ebadi said the government had required Radio Farda [media website] correspondent Parnaz Azima to pay $500,000 bail. Ebadi contrasted that with the $10,000 bail demanded of a confessed rapist. She said that another client, Dr. Haleh Esfandiari [WWC profile], has been in solitary confinement for over 40 days, and that the Iranian government has refused to grant her bail or to allow Ebadi to meet with her [JURIST report]. Esfandiari is accused of being involved in an alleged plot "against the sovereignty of the country" and Azima is accused of being involved in an alleged espionage conspiracy against the government [JURIST reports].

Azima, who has been released on bail, cannot leave Iran because the government has confiscated her passport. Numerous Western officials, including US President George W. Bush, have called for the release [WH statement; JURIST report] of the detainees, who were all arrested last month. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders, the International Federation for Human Rights, and Ebadi have also issued a joint statement [text] calling for their release. BBC News has more. AFP has additional coverage.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] granted certiorari Monday in four cases [order list, PDF] to be heard next term. In Riegel v. Medtronic (06-179) [docket; cert. petition] the court will decide whether Food and Drug Administration (FDA) [official website] regulation of medical devices protects manufacturers, such as Medtronic, Inc. [corporate website], from state product liability lawsuits. The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit found [opinion, PDF] that a damages claim by a man injured by a Medtronic device was preempted by the device's FDA approval. AP has more.

In Rowe v. New Hampshire Motor Transport (06-457) [docket; cert. petition, PDF], the court will consider a Maine tobacco transport law which required special inspection of tobacco packages to be delivered in Maine, to prevent purchases from unlicensed retailers who do not verify buyer age to be at least 18. The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit found [opinion] the law to conflict with federal law regarding interstate transportation services. AP has more.

In Knight v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue (06-1286) [docket], the court will decide if investment-advice fees incurred by a trust are not considered costs which "would not have been incurred if the property were not held in such trust" within 26 USC 67 [text], and consequently are deductible from gross income to the extent that they exceed 2 percent of the trust's adjusted gross income. The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, as well as the Tax Court, held [opinion, PDF] that that Section 67(e)(1) allows full deductibility only for expenses that are not commonly incurred outside of the trust setting, and therefore that investment advice fees are subject to the 2 percent floor.

Finally in Snyder v. Louisiana (06-10119) [docket], the Supreme Court will examine the death sentence given to an African-American man who was convicted of murder by an all-white jury. During the sentencing phase of the trial, the prosecutor drew comparisons between the trial of Allen Snyder and the trial of OJ Simpson [CourtTV case materials]. The Louisiana Supreme Court upheld [opinion, PDF] Snyder's death sentence. The appeal argues that the prosecutor used the comparison to create a race-based appeal for the death penalty. AP has more. SCOTUSblog has additional coverage of the Snyder case, as well as the rest of Monday's certiorari grants.

[JURIST] The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation [official website, in Russian] has upheld a 2006 Moscow ban on gay pride parades [JURIST report], dismissing an appeal by parade organizers [JURIST report]. The decision handed down Friday upheld a Moscow City Court ruling in May of last year finding that a city ban was legal under Russian law and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) [text] because the government can prohibit events to ensure public security and prevent public disturbances. Nicolas Alexeyev, organizer of the Moscow Gay Pride [advocacy website], says that the group will petition for a review with the head of the top court, who has the authority to renew proceedings.

The parade organizers have already filed a complaint [JURIST report] with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) [official website; JURIST news archive], seeking €20,000 euros (approximately $27,000) in compensation. In May, the ECHR ruled that Poland had violated the rights of gay rights activists [JURIST report] by refusing to authorize a 2005 rally in Warsaw. The Pink News has more. Interfax has local coverage.

[JURIST] A court in Tel Aviv ruled Monday on an appeal [JURIST report] by Omri Sharon [JURIST news archive], reducing his prison sentence for corruption from nine to seven months. Sharon, son of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, pleaded guilty in 2005 to charges of campaign finance violations [JURIST reports] that included falsifying corporate documents and lying under oath. His plea avoided more serious fraud charges. Sharon's lighter sentence reflects good behavior demonstrated since his guilty plea; Sharon has renounced his parliamentary immunity and has given up his seat in the Knesset [official website]. Monday's court ruling also delayed the start of Sharon's sentence until the end of July, so that Sharon can continue to spend time with his comatose father [JURIST report].

Sharon's defense team is expected to launch another appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court [official website, in Hebrew], seeking to further reduce his sentence. In Monday's ruling, one of the three judges recommended that Sharon's sentence be commuted to community service. AFP has more.

[JURIST] China's National People's Congress [official website] on Sunday revised a proposed law regulating media during national emergencies [JURIST report] after delegates and local people's congresses criticized the law as improper. The proposal, first introduced last June, would have imposed fines up to $13,000 on media outlets that report on public emergencies such as floods or disease outbreaks without formal authorization or using fabricated information. The new draft, a response to concerns that local governments may use the law to suppress negative disaster coverage to avoid embarrassment, removes the government authorization requirement and only targets media outlets that fabricate or use fabricated information. Media outlets deemed to have violated the law will be subjected to "warnings, punishment, or prosecution" if the false reporting caused "serious consequences." The law defines public emergencies as to include industrial accidents, natural disasters, and also public health and security crises.

China [JURIST news archive] has been accused of attempting to cover up the extent of natural disasters or disease outbreaks. In 2003, China received widespread criticism for its handling of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) [CDC backgrounder] epidemic. Local authorities reportedly downplayed statistics and restricted media coverage, causing delays in efforts to treat or quarantine the disease. AFP has more. The China Daily has local coverage.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] handed down decisions in five cases Monday, including Morse v. Frederick [Duke Law case backgrounder; JURIST report], where the Court held that public schools do not violate the First Amendment rights of students by sanctioning them for speech during a school-sanctioned activity that may be reasonably interpreted to promote the use of illegal substances. A high school student was suspended after he displayed a banner with the message "Bong hits 4 Jesus" during a televised parade on a school day. The student subsequently sued his principal, arguing that the principal unreasonably restricted his right to free speech. The Court reversed the Ninth Circuit's decision [PDF text] and held that the "First Amendment does not require schools to tolerate at school events student expression that contributes" to the danger of illegal drug use. Read the Court's opinion [text] per Chief Justice Roberts, along with a concurrence [text] from Justice Thomas, a second concurrence [text] from Justice Alito, a partial concurrence and dissent [text] from Justice Breyer, and a dissent [text] from Justice Stevens.

In Hein v. Freedom from Religion Foundation [Duke Law case backgrounder; JURIST report], the Court held that taxpayers do not have standing to challenge executive branch actions under the Establishment Clause. The Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFR) [advocacy website] filed a lawsuit over the use of government funds to promote President Bush's Faith-Based and Community Initiatives [official website]. The district court held that FFR did not have standing to sue and dismissed the case, but the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled [opinion text, PDF] that taxpayers have standing to challenge a program created by a Presidential executive order, alleged to promote religion, and which is financed by a congressional appropriation. The Supreme Court reversed Monday, holding:

The link between congressional action and constitutional violation that supported taxpayer standing in Flast is missing here. Respondents do not challenge any specific congressional action or appropriation; nor do they ask the Court to invalidate any congressional enactment or legislatively created program as unconstitutional. That is because the expenditures at issue here were not made pursuant to any Act of Congress. Rather, Congress provided general appropriations to the Executive Branch to fund its day-to-day activities. These appropriations did not expressly authorize, direct, or even mention the expenditures of which respondents complain. Those expenditures resulted from executive discretion, not congressional action.

We have never found taxpayer standing under such circumstances.

We now confront such an as-applied challenge. Resolving it requires us first to determine whether the speech at issue is the "functional equivalent" of speech expressly advocating the election or defeat of a candidate for federal office, or instead a "genuine issue a[d]." We have long recognized that the distinction between campaign advocacy and issue advocacy "may often dissolve in practical application. Candidates, especially incumbents, are intimately tied to public issues involving legislative proposals and governmental actions." Our development of the law in this area requires us, however, to draw such a line, because we have recognized that the interests held to justify the regulation of campaign speech and its "functional equivalent" "might not apply" to the regulation of issue advocacy.

In drawing that line, the First Amendment requires us to err on the side of protecting political speech rather than suppressing it. We conclude that the speech at issue in this as-applied challenge is not the "functional equivalent" of express campaign speech. We further conclude that the interests held to justify restricting corporate campaign speech or its functional equivalent do not justify restricting issue advocacy, and accordingly we hold that BCRA §203 is unconstitutional as applied to the advertisements at issue in these cases. [citations omitted]

[JURIST] The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) [official website; JURIST news archive] Monday declassified a 693-page file detailing the CIA's illegal activities compiled from a comprehensive internal investigation initiated in May, 1973 by then-CIA director James R. Schlesinger [corporate profile] following the Watergate scandal [BBC backgrounder]. The probe revealed multiple instances of possible illegal detention, burglary, domestic surveillance of American journalists, lawyers and political activists, and assassination attempts on foreign leaders, including Cuban President Fidel Castro [official profile, in Spanish].

The documents, some of which are available online [materials] by George Washington University's National Security Archive [official website], are among the first CIA documents to be voluntarily declassified since the late 1990s. An additional 11,000 pages of material containing CIA analyses of Sino-Soviet relations and Russian and Chinese domestic policies between the 1950s and 1970s as well as Warsaw Pact military intelligence have also released. AP has more.

UPDATE 6/26/07 - The declassified documents [press release] have now been released in two collections - the so-called "Family Jewels" and the CAESAR-POLO-ESAU papers on Sino-Soviet relations.

[JURIST] Russian Deputy Prosecutor General Ivan Sydoruk has said that the country should police Internet sites to prevent the spread of extremist material, according to the newspaper Kommersant [media website] Friday. Extremism has recently been a major concern for Russian politicians [JURIST report] due to deadly attacks on dark-skinned foreigners. Last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin [official website] signed a controversial law against extremism [JURIST report] that criminalized the following: incitement to racial hatred, publicly defending terrorism, "humiliating national merit," "public slander of state officials" and "hampering the lawful activity of state organs."

Kommersant noted that the legislature has not yet considered an Internet censorship law. Critics worry that anti-extremism laws in general could be used to silence political opponents. AFP has more.

[JURIST] China's National People's Congress [official website] Sunday began considering measures to codify legal ethics, improve criminal suspects' access to defense lawyers and evidence, and allowed experienced lawyers to establish individual private law firms. The reforms, which guarantee lawyers the right to meet defendants in all cases with the exception of those involving state secrets, were proposed by the Ministry of Justice [official website] and will most likely be approved. The proposals also prohibit the state from conducting surveillance of the defendants meeting their lawyers, and grants defense lawyers legal immunity for statements in court provided that statements do not constitute slander or threaten national security.

Lawyers with more than five years experience and no record of license suspension will also be permitted to establish individual private law firms. Legal ethnics prohibiting lawyers from representing clients if they have a personal conflict of interest will also be specifically codified for the first time in China [JURIST news archive]. The proposed reforms to China's Law on Lawyers [text in English; HRF backgrounder] if approved, will be the first amendments to the law since its implementation in 1997. Xinhua has more.

[JURIST] An Egyptian state security court convicted Muhammad Sayed Saber of spying for Israel's Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations (Mossad) [official website] Monday and sentenced the former Egyptian Atomic Energy Agency [FAS backgrounder] employee to life in prison. Two foreign nationals, Brian Peter of Ireland and Shiro Izo of Japan, were convicted in absentia and also sentenced to life imprisonment. Saber, who passed documents to Mossad in exchange for $17,000, argued he was innocent because he only turned over outdated material that posed no security threat to Egypt [JURIST news archive].

Saber was arrested [JURIST report] in February, but Egyptian authorities delayed the announcement of the arrest until April pending further investigation. Egypt is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty [text; JURIST news archive] and is allowed to develop peaceful uses of nuclear technology under international supervision. AP has more.

[JURIST] Former Liberian President Charles Taylor [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] continued his boycott [JURIST report] Monday of the judicial proceedings against him during the second day of his trial at the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) [official website]. Taylor is demanding that the court either allow him to represent himself or obtain a British Queen's Counsel. Taylor fired his court-appointed lawyer Karim Khan two weeks ago and currently remains unrepresented, although SCSL prosecutors and the registrar [official websites] have refused to recognize the firing. Both say that only the court's judges have the authority to remove appointed defense lawyers. Principal Defender Vincent Nmehielle [official profile] has recognized Khan's firing but has not yet appointed a replacement, which is preventing the prosecution from proceeding with their first witness. Presiding Judge Julia Sebutinde [official profile] questioned Nmehielle on the delay Monday and criticized the defense office and the registrar for not acting sooner.

A UN report recently concluded that Taylor may retain control over large sums of personal assets [JURIST report] located in Nigeria and Liberia, disputing Taylor's claims that he is an indigent defendant. Taylor, who claims his defense is unfairly outnumbered by the court's prosecution team, is charged [indictment text, PDF] with murder, rape, and the recruitment of child soldiers during the bloody civil war in Sierra Leone [JURIST news archive]. If acquitted, he will be permitted to return to Liberia; if convicted, he will serve his jail time in Britain. The trial, which is expected to last 18 months, was relocated to The Hague from Sierra Leone for security reasons last year. AP has more.

9:56 AM ET - The trial has now been adjourned until July 3 [BBC report].