[JURIST] US Attorney General Michael Mukasey said Wednesday that the Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation [press release] into the CIA's destruction of videotapes showing the interrogation of terror suspects [JURIST news archive]. The decision to launch a criminal probe follows the joint DOJ-CIA preliminary inquiry [JURIST report] conducted by the DOJ National Security Division and the CIA's Office of Inspector General. Mukasey has asked John Durham, the first assistant United States attorney in the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Connecticut, to head the investigation.

Existence of the videotapes was verified in November after the CIA admitted it had mistakenly denied [JURIST report] that it had recorded interrogations in a court declaration during the trial of 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. CIA Director Michael Hayden acknowledged [statement text] last month that the CIA had videotaped the interrogation of two al Qaeda suspects in 2002, but said that the tapes had been destroyed in 2005 amid concerns that they could be leaked to the public and compromise the identities of the interrogators. In addition to the DOJ investigation, multiple congressional inquiries have been launched into the tapes' destruction. AP has more.

[JURIST] California filed a lawsuit [petition, PDF; press release] against the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Wednesday challenging the agency's decision to deny the state's request for a waiver [rejection letter, PDF; JURIST report] that would have allowed it and 16 other states following its lead to impose stricter greenhouse gas emissions standards on cars and light trucks. California's Air Resources Board [official website] adopted the greenhouse gas standards in 2004 [press release], but it could not mandate them unless the EPA granted a waiver of the lighter federal Clean Air Act (CAA) [text] standards. This was the first time that the EPA denied California a waiver since Congress established the state's right to seek CAA waivers in 1967.

In an email to the AP, EPA spokesperson Jonathan Shradar argued that US President George W. Bush's plan to raise fuel economy standards to 35 mpg by 2020 as part of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 [HR 6 materials; WH fact sheet] was "a more beneficial national approach to a national problem, which establishes an aggressive standard for all 50 states - as opposed to a lower standard in California and a patchwork of other states." California maintains that its standards are higher, requiring vehicles to meet 36.8 mpg by 2016 or cut emissions by one-third. Last month, Congressional Democrats announced that they would begin a probe into whether the EPA decision was politically motivated. In a letter [PDF text] sent to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman questioned whether the agency ignored evidence in rejecting the California waiver request and asked that all documents relating to the request be turned over to the committee. At the end of December 2007, the EPA indicated that it would comply with the request [JURIST report]. AP has more. The Los Angeles Times has local coverage.

[JURIST] Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf said Wednesday in a televised address that he was setting up a special commission to investigate widespread violence that broke out in the wake of last week's assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto [JURIST report]. Looting, burning and general vandalism led to the deaths of at least 47 people nationwide. Musharraf said the probe would identify those responsible and that they would be prosecuted for their crimes. He did not, however, go so far as to endorse a call by Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, for an international commission of inquiry [JURIST report] into the killing itself similar to that conducted in the wake of the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri.

Musharraf said the violence and associated damage to electoral offices and equipment was forcing parliamentary elections scheduled for January 8 to be postponed until February 18. As an additional security measure he also announced that Pakistan army and ranger units would be deployed to control what he described as the threat of electoral violence, and said they would remain deployed even after the vote. BBC News has more. AAP has local coverage.

[JURIST] Jakarta lawyers for TIME magazine [media website] are ready to file their appeal of a defamation judgment [JURIST report] by the Supreme Court of Indonesia awarding $106 million in damages to former Indonesian President Haji Mohammad Suharto [CNN profile; JURIST news archive], a lawyer told the The Age Wednesday. Suharto sued TIME over a 1999 article [text] that said Suharto had hidden billions of dollars in foreign banks. The Supreme Court overturned two lower court decisions against Suharto, ordering TIME to pay damages and publish a formal apology in Indonesian newspapers and its own magazine. Todung Mulya Lubis [firm profile], one of TIME's lawyers and a prominent human rights advocate, told The Age that the case "goes to the very fundamental principles of press freedom and democracy in Indonesia," but said that he was confident that the ruling would be overturned because the review judges would not want to stifle the freedom of the press. The Age has more.

In the 2007 annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index [index materials] compiled by Reporters Without Borders [advocacy website], Indonesia is ranked 100th out of the 167 countries listed, a small improvement from its 2006 ranking of 103rd, but still far lower than its rank of 57th when the index was first published in 2002. The group's report on Indonesia [text] shows marginal gains for the freedom of the press in the country, including the decriminalization of "insult to the head of state" and a decrease in violence against reporters, but still cites journalist safety, criminal laws against press offenses, and the certain bans on foreign press as major obstacles.

[JURIST] The CIA obstructed the investigations of the 9/11 Commission [official website] by withholding videotapes showing the interrogation of terror suspects [JURIST news archive] even though commission leaders had lawfully and repeatedly asked for information that would clearly be contained in the tapes, commission chairman Thomas Kean and vice-chairman Lee Hamilton [official profiles] wrote in an op-ed [text] in Wednesday's New York Times. In the op-ed, Kean and Hamilton reiterated their concerns [JURIST report] over the withholding of the tapes, and balked at CIA claims that it would have furnished the tapes if the commission had specifically asked for them, writing:

There could have been absolutely no doubt in the mind of anyone at the C.I.A. — or the White House — of the commission's interest in any and all information related to Qaeda detainees involved in the 9/11 plot. Yet no one in the administration ever told the commission of the existence of videotapes of detainee interrogations.

Assessing the truth of statements by these witnesses - sworn enemies of the United States - is challenging. Our access to them has been limited to the review of intelligence reports based on communications received from the locations where the actual interrogations take place. We submitted questions for use in the interrogations, but had no control over whether, when, or how questions of particular interest would be asked. Nor were we allowed to talk to the interrogators so that we could better judge the credibility of the detainees and clarify ambiguities in the reporting. We were told that our requests might disrupt the sensitive interrogation process.

As a legal matter, it is not up to us to examine the C.I.A.'s failure to disclose the existence of these tapes. That is for others. What we do know is that government officials decided not to inform a lawfully constituted body, created by Congress and the president, to investigate one the greatest tragedies to confront this country. We call that obstruction.

[JURIST] New Hampshire became the fourth state in the United States to recognize same-sex civil unions Tuesday when its civil unions law [text] took effect. The law allows same-sex couples to enter into civil unions with the "same rights, responsibilities, and obligations as married couples." New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch signed the legislation [JURIST report] in May 2007. The Boston Globe has more.

Currently, Massachusetts is the only state that has legalized same-sex marriages [JURIST report], but Connecticut, New Jersey, Vermont, and now New Hampshire permit civil unions [JURIST news archive]. In addition, California, Maine, and Washington allow domestic partnerships. An Oregon law [JURIST report] allowing same-sex couples to enter into contractual domestic partnerships was due to take effect on January 1, 2008, but a federal judge temporarily blocked the law [JURIST report] last week in order to give the court time to consider a legal challenge against the domestic partnership law.

[JURIST] US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts [OYEZ profile] used his 2007 year-end report [PDF text] on the federal judiciary to urge Congress to increase the salaries of federal judges and to increase communication between all branches of government. In the report released Tuesday, Roberts repeated his call for judicial pay raises [JURIST report], saying Congress should act on legislation currently under review which would raise judicial salaries [US Courts materials]:

The pending legislation strikes a reasonable compromise for the dedicated federal judges who, year after year, have discharged their important duties for steadily eroding real pay. This salary restoration legislation is vital now that the denial of annual increases over the years has left federal trial judges - the backbone of our system of justice - earning about the same as (and in some cases less than) first-year lawyers at firms in major cities, where many of the judges are located.

I do not need to rehearse the compelling arguments in favor of this legislation. They have already been made by distinguished jurists, lawyers, and economists in congressional hearings, letters, and editorials - and seconded by a broad spectrum of commercial, governmental, and public interest organizations that appear as litigants before the courts. I simply ask once again for a moment's reflection on how America would look in the absence of a skilled and independent Judiciary. Consider the critical role of our courts in preserving individual liberty, promoting commerce, protecting property, and ensuring that every person who appears in an American court can expect fair and impartial justice. The cost of this long overdue legislation - less than .004% of the annual federal budget - is miniscule in comparison to what is at stake.

Each has a valuable perspective on the other. The Branches already engage in constructive dialogue through a number of familiar forums, including the Judicial Conference, congressional hearings, and advisory committee meetings. But the familiar avenues are not necessarily the only ones. ...

The separate Branches may not always agree on matters of mutual interest, but each should strive, through respectful exchange of insights and ideas, to know and appreciate where the others stand.