[JURIST] The US District Court of the Central District of California [official website] Friday ended the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) [official website] consent decree [LAPD materials; PBS backgrounder] to federal oversight that the LAPD was forced into in 2001 resulting from US Department of Justice Civil Rights Division [official website] pressure after the Rampart Area Corruption Incident [PBS backgrounder]. Judge Gary Feess, Jr., who had presided over the decree, reasoned that the LAPD had accomplished substantial progress to merit release the department from federal supervision. Feess' ruling retained DOJ jurisdiction over an approved three-year transition agreement from federal oversight to Los Angeles Police Commission supervision, while specifying that if the mandated reform process is unsatisfactory, the LAPD risks returning to federal oversight. The ruling also emphasized the need for more reforms in officer training, officer financial disclosure policy, and reports on how officers address racial profiling complaints. While LAPD Chief William Bratton [official profile] viewed the ruling as long overdue, citing the significant progresses of the department, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California [advocacy website] Legal Director Mark Rosenbaum decried [press release] the ruling as a disappointment because "there [is] still too much evidence that skin color makes a difference in who is stopped, questioned, and arrested by the LAPD."

Feess extended the consent decree twice within the past month. In June, the Office of the Independent Monitor of the LAPD issued its final report [materials], referenced in Feess' ruling in recognizing the reform progress accomplished by the department. The original consent agreement was for five years, and called for an independent monitor over reforms in officer training, investigations, and audits to address Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights violations.

[JURIST] The US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee [official website] will launch an investigation into plans by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) [official website] to assassinate al Qaeda members, the Committee announced [press release] Friday. The Committee has already requested documents [Washington Post report] from the CIA and will likely hold hearings, according to Committee-member Jan Schakowsky [official profile]. The Committee hopes to learn whether former vice president Dick Cheney told the CIA to hide the program from Congress as media reports alleged [NYT report; JURIST report] last week. Former Bush administration officials have defended the decision not to reveal the program to Congress on the grounds that the program was only in the planning phase and not yet fully developed. It is not yet known whether the committee will call Cheney as a witness.

Members of Congress called for an investigation [JURIST report] into the program earlier this week. CIA director Leon Panetta [official profile] revealed the program to Congress and announced its termination in June.

[JURIST] The Obama administration may create a special unit of interrogators to handle certain terror suspects, the Wall St. Journal reported Saturday, citing unidentified government officials. In creating the unit, the administration would reduce the role of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) [official website] in interrogating suspects as the CIA has faced criticism [JURIST report] for its interrogation techniques [JURIST news archive] during the Bush administration. It is not clear which agencies the team would draw members from, but it is expected that members of both the CIA and the FBI would be included [AP report]. The interrogation team would reportedly not use certain controversial interrogation techniques like waterboarding [JURIST news archive]. A spokesperson for the White House [official website] refused to comment on the report.

The appropriateness of Bush-era intelligence policy has been hotly contested since the change in administration earlier this year. Last week, five federal agencies released a report [text; JURIST report] on the prior administration's warrantless wiretapping program that reviewed both the flawed legal origins of the program and questioned the effectiveness of information produced by wiretapping international communications of American citizens. In May, for Vice President Dick Cheney vigorously defended the national security policies [speech transcript; JURIST report] of the Bush administration in a speech to the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) [organization website].