[JURIST] The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [advocacy website] filed a lawsuit [complaint, PDF; press release] Tuesday seeking information related to the treatment of prisoners at the US detention facility at Bagram Air Base [GlobalSecurity backgrounder; JURIST news archive] in Afghanistan. The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York [official website] against the Departments of Defense, Justice, and State, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) [official websites], follows a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) [text] request [materials] filed by the ACLU in April. None of the departments have turned over any records in response to the request. ACLU staff attorney Melissa Goodman said:

There is growing concern that Bagram has become the new Guantanamo – except with hundreds more prisoners, held indefinitely in reportedly harsher conditions, with no access to lawyers or courts. ... Yet the public is still in the dark when it comes to basic facts such as whom our military is holding there, for how long and on what grounds, and the rules that govern their detention, release and treatment. As long as the Bagram prison is shrouded in secrecy, there is no way to know the truth or begin to address the problems that may exist.

[JURIST] The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania (ACLU-PA) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) [advocacy websites] filed suit [complaint, PDF] Monday on behalf of two groups protesting this week's Group of 20 (G-20) Summit [official websites] in Pittsburgh, alleging that police have violated their Constitutional rights. Seeds of Peace and Three Rivers Climate Convergence (3RCC) [advocacy websites] claim that police searched and seized members of the groups and their property in violation of the Fourth Amendment [text] and that police retaliated against members for exercising their right to free speech under the First Amendment [text]. Seeds of Peace claims that police detained their bus without cause, illegally searched and impounded the bus, and also conducted a warrantless raid on the property on which the bus was being stored. A hearing was held Tuesday in front of Judge Gary Lancaster of the US District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania [official website].

Last week, Lancaster ruled [JURIST report] that the city of Pittsburgh must grant a permit allowing CodePink [advocacy website] to set up a tent city in a park days before the summit, but allowed the city to deny permits to two other protest groups. Earlier that week, the Pittsburgh City Council [official website] passed [JURIST report] an ordinance [text, PDF] in anticipation of the G-20 summit that will allow police to cite people in possession of certain items if they intend to use them unlawfully. The temporary ordinance, passed in anticipation of protests at the summit scheduled for September 24 and 25, expires at the end of the month. It prohibits the possession of tools or other items such as handcuffs, padlocks, and pipes with an intent to use those items to block access to streets, sidewalks, and public buildings or to defeat crowd control orders. A proposal to ban masks and hoods [text, PDF] during the summit was voted down [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette report] by the City Council earlier this month.

3:50 PM - Lancaster has declined to issue an injunction [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette report] against the police actions. The groups may still seek monetary damages, as there was no ruling as to whether Constitutional violations occurred.

[JURIST] Google's AdWords, a system that causes advertisements to be shown alongside natural search results on Google [corporate website; JURIST news archive], does not violate EU trademark law, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) [official website] said in an advisory opinion [materials; press release, PDF] Tuesday. AdWords allows advertisers, for a fee, to select keywords that, when searched by a Google user, bring up a link to the advertiser's website. The suit, originally filed in France by Louis Vuitton [corporate website], alleges that AdWords infringes upon companies' trademarks by allowing advertisers, including competitors and those that sell imitation or counterfeit products, to use the trademarked names of brand name manufacturers and sellers. The case was referred to the ECJ by the Cour de Cassation [official website, in French], France's highest court. In stating that Google did not violate any trademarks through its use of AdWords, Advocate General Poiares Maduro [official profile] reasoned in part that most Internet users would not be surprised or confused to see links to products similar to those they searched for. The opinion did not, however, rule out holding Google liable where companies can show that the use of their trademark caused actual damage to the company. As an advisory opinion, Tuesday's opinion is non-binding, and the court will issue its judgment at a later date.

Google is currently engaged in other legal proceedings involving intellectual property. On Friday, the US Department of Justice [official website] filed a statement of interest [JURIST report] urging the US Court for the Southern District of New York [official website] to reject a settlement offer in a case involving Google's book search. The case originated when two lawsuits were brought against Google by the Authors Guild, an advocacy group seeking to preserve copyright protection for authors, and by other plaintiffs including the Association of American Publishers (AAP) [organization website], McGraw-Hill, Penguin Group, and Simon & Schuster [corporate websites] over Google's book-scanning initiative [Google Book Search website]. Under the terms of the settlement agreement, which was reached [JURIST report] last October, Google would pay $125 million to authors and publishers of copyrighted works. In return, Google would be allowed to display online up to 20 percent of the total pages of a copyrighted book, and would offer users an opportunity to purchase the remainder of any viewed book.

[JURIST] A man currently imprisoned for smuggling guns into Canada pleaded guilty Monday to terrorism charges linked to the "Toronto 18" [Toronto Star backgrounder; advocacy website] plot. Ali Mohamed Dirie's guilty plea comes less than three weeks after the first member of the group to plead guilty was sentenced [JURIST report] to 14 years in prison for his role in connection with a plot to carry out terrorist attacks in Toronto [JURIST report] to protest Canada's military presence in Afghanistan. The extent of Dirie's involvement in the terrorist plot has not yet been divulged due to a court ordered publication ban that could affect others in the group currently facing charges. A detailed report is expected to be filed in the court this week.

The "Toronto 18," arrested in 2006, are accused of planning a series of violent attacks on civilians, public officials, and government buildings. Although little information was released about the minors arrested among the Toronto 18, the charges eventually laid against the 12 adult males included participating in a terrorist group, receiving training from a terrorist group, training terrorists, and importing weapons and ammunition for terrorism. In May, one of the group's members, the first person convicted under Canada's post-9/11 terrorism law was sentenced to 36 months [JURIST reports] in prison and released by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice [official website] in consideration of the time he had already served.

[JURIST] Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran [advocacy websites] on Monday called for [press release] the UN General Assembly [official website] to appoint a special envoy to investigate allegations of human rights abuses in Iran since the controversial June presidential election [JURIST news archive]. Both groups urged UN member states to seize the upcoming visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] as an opportunity to discuss human rights abuses the groups have documented since the June 12 election. Deputy Middle East and North Africa director at HRW Joe Stork said:

UN member states, meeting as the General Assembly, have a responsibility to uphold UN human rights principles and demand that Iran stop these grave violations. ... The international community's voice, heard through the UN, can make a big difference in bringing an end to this crisis.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] Monday that states can sue power companies for emitting carbon dioxide, allegedly contributing to global warming [JURIST news archive]. The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by eight states — California, Connecticut, Iowa, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin — as well as New York City and three land trusts against coal-burning utilities American Electric Power, Southern Company, Xcel Energy, Cinergy Corporation [corporate websites], and the Tennessee Valley Authority [official website]. In 2005, a judge in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York [official website] dismissed the suit [opinion, PDF; JURIST report], finding that the plaintiffs' claim was a non-justiciable political question. In reversing that decision, the Second Circuit ruled:

It cannot be gainsaid that global warming poses serious economic and ecological problems that have an impact on both domestic politics and international relations. Nevertheless, Defendants' characterization of this lawsuit as implicating "complex, inter-related and far-reaching policy questions about the causes of global climate change and the most appropriate response to it" magnifies to the outer limits the discrete domestic nuisance issues actually presented. A result of this magnification is to misstate the issues Plaintiffs seek to litigate. Nowhere in their complaints do Plaintiffs ask the court to fashion a comprehensive and far-reaching solution to global climate change, a task that arguably falls within the purview of the political branches. Instead, they seek to limit emissions from six domestic coal-fired electricity plants on the ground that such emissions constitute a public nuisance that they allege has caused, is causing, and will continue to cause them injury. A decision by a single federal court concerning a common law of nuisance cause of action, brought by domestic plaintiffs against domestic companies for domestic conduct, does not establish a national or international emissions policy (assuming that emissions caps are even put into place). Nor could a court set across-the-board domestic emissions standards or require any unilateral, mandatory emissions reductions over entities not party to the suit.