In July, The Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information [official website, in German] announced that he initiated legal proceedings [JURIST report] against Facebook for accessing and saving non-users' personal information. Dr. Johannes Caspar [official profile, in German] stated the social networking site could be fined tens of thousands of euros for violating Germany's strict privacy laws [materials, PDF; in German]. In January, the Canadian Office of the Privacy Commissioner [official website] announced that it would launch a new probe [JURIST report] of Facebook to investigate privacy issues in response to complaints. Last year, five Facebook users sued the company in a California court alleging the site violated their privacy [JURIST report].

The plaintiffs, Binyam Mohamed [JURIST news archive], Abou Elkassim Britel, Ahmed Agiza, Mohamed Farag Ahmaad Bashmilah and Bisher al-Rawi, alleged that Jeppesen Dataplan knowingly aided in the rendition and subsequent torture of terror suspects by the CIA. Before Jeppesen could file an answer to the original complaint, the Department of Justice (DOJ) intervened [JURIST report] and asserted the state secrets privilege, arguing that fact-finding in the case could jeopardize national security. The district court dismissed the case and a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit overturned [JURIST report] the ruling on appeal. The DOJ then asked the Ninth Circuit to reconsider the case with a full panel, and was granted an en banc rehearing [JURIST reports]. The original Ninth Circuit panel ruled that the state secrets privilege can only be invoked in relation to established evidence in the case, not just at the possibility that such evidence may be uncovered should the case proceed.

In July, the Chilean Supreme Court released a report detailing the secret fortune of Pinochet, estimating it at over $20 million. This report joins another on Pinochet's hidden assets released last September [JURIST report]. That report concluded that Pinochet amassed USD $25,978,602 in accounts held outside of Chile, of which $20,199,753 is suspected to have been embezzled from official funds. The September report also concluded that the funds were accumulated [Los Tiempos report, in Spanish] over the period from 1973 to 2004, when a US Senate sub-committee investigation first uncovered the accounts [JURIST report]. Victim advocates say the report supports allegations that Pinochet was the recipient of bribes and had other unlawful sources of income.

Congress provided for an exhaustive and exclusively Federal method of bringing to the attention of Federal authorities, problems and worker authorization, the method by which those matters should be investigated, the method by which they should be adjudicated, all of which are controlled as a matter of Federal, exclusive Federal activity; and indeed the ultimate judicial review goes exclusively to the Federal courts of appeals.

Also Wednesday, the court heard arguments in Chase Bank USA v. McCoy [oral arguments transcript, PDF; JURIST report] on whether a creditor seeking to raise the interest rate on a credit card where the cardholder defaulted must provide the cardholder with a change in terms notice. According to Regulation Z, 12 CFR § 226.9(c) [text], a creditor must provide a cardholder with a change in terms notice when the contractual terms governing the account have changed. The court will determine if a change in the interest rate due to the cardholder's default falls within the terms of the statute. The Ninth Circuit found [opinion, PDF] that Regulation Z does require the creditor to provide the cardholder with a change in terms notice where the cardholder has defaulted triggering an increase in the interest rate.

Last month, Serbian President Boris Tadic [official website, in Serbian] apologized [JURIST report] for Serbian war crimes during a visit to Croatia. Tadic and Croatian President Ivo Josipovic [official website, in Croatian] together visited a memorial in Vukovar. Tadic said, "I came here to offer an apology and express regret." Tadic is the first Serbian president to visit the site [BBC report], as the two countries continue to try to find ways to improve relations. Opposition in both countries criticized the visit, calling it nothing more than a political stunt and meaningless.

BOA has been active in reaching settlement agreements with federal agencies. The SEC announced in September that a judge in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York [official website] had approved a $150 million fund [JURIST report] set up by BOA in accordance with the settlement agreement [JURIST report] reached earlier this year. The SEC had charged [JURIST report] BOA with misleading investors regarding billions of dollars paid to Merrill Lynch [corporate website] executives during the acquisition of the firm. The fund will be used for payouts to shareholders [Reuters report] who owned BOA stock as of January 16, 2009. In June, BOA subsidiary Countrywide Home Loans, Inc. reached a $108 million settlement agreement [text, PDF; JURIST report] with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) [official website] to resolve charges that the subsidiary collected excessive fees from homeowners facing foreclosure. The agreement allows the FTC to create a fund to provide refunds to borrowers affected by Countrywide's improper fees. The settlement did not include an admission of wrongdoing by BOA but required the company to stop the improper practices.

The US House of Representatives [official website] voted unanimously [JURIST report] in March to impeach Porteous. After an investigation [report text, PDF] by a special committee, the Judicial Conference found "substantial evidence" that Porteous had signed false financial disclosure forms, falsified statements in a personal bankruptcy proceeding, made false representations to secure a bank loan and violated criminal laws [text] and ethical rules by soliciting and receiving "cash and other things of value" from lawyers in a bench trial over which he was presiding. Porteous' decision in that case, In re Liljeberg enters v. Lifemark Hospitals, was later partially reversed [opinion text] by the Fifth Circuit, which earlier this year reprimanded Porteous [text, PDF]. A House committee began investigating Porteous [JURIST report] in 2008.

Nothing in the Act requires that the finding of past conduct constitute criminal behavior. By its terms, the Act mandates a finding that a person "has engaged or attempted to engage in sexually violent conduct or child molestation." The Act does not define the terms "sexually violent conduct" and "child molestation," which are broad enough to encompass noncriminal conduct such as unlawful, tortious conduct.

The Supreme Court upheld the act [JURIST report] in May in United States v. Comstock [Cornell LII backgrounder] and remanded to the Fourth Circuit. The court said the act was constitutional because the Necessary and Proper Clause [text] granted Congress sufficient authority to pass such laws. A month later, the court made another decision concerning sex offenders in Carr v. United States [Cornell LII backgrounder, JURIST report], ruling that the failure to register provision [18 USC § 2250] of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) [DOJ backgrounder] does not apply retroactively [JURIST report] to offenses occurring before SORNA's enactment. The court agreed to hear the case [JURIST report] in order to reconcile a split in the reading of the statute between the Seventh and Tenth Circuits.