The Obama administration has been pushing Congress to repeal DADT as courts have also been weighing in on the issue. Earlier this month, the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) [official website] heard conflicting testimony [JURIST report] from top military leaders on the services' readiness to repeal DADT. The hearing was held to review a Department of Defense (DOD) [official website] report [text, PDF; JURIST report], released earlier that week, which concluded that repealing DADT would only minimally effect military effectiveness, soldier retention and family readiness. Last month, US Air Force Major Margaret Witt, who was discharged under DADT, became the first openly gay person to serve in the US military after the Obama administration did not pursue a stay of a previous federal court decision ordering her reinstatement [JURIST reports]. Also in November, Defense Secretary Robert Gates called on the 112th Congress to repeal DADT [JURIST report]. Gates issued a memorandum in October limiting the authority to discharge openly gay service members [JURIST report] to five senior DOD officials. The policy was struck down by a federal court in September, but an appeals court has since stayed that ruling [JURIST reports]. Since the enactment of DADT in 1993, approximately 13,000 servicemen and women have been discharged from the armed forces as a result of the policy.

We intend to prove that these defendants are responsible for government removal costs, economic losses, and environmental damages without limitation. Even though the spill has been contained, the Department's focus on investigating this disaster and preventing future devastation has not wavered. Both our civil and criminal investigations continue, and our work to ensure that the American taxpayers are not forced to bear the costs of restoring the gulf area and its economy is moving forward.

The government's lawsuit is one of hundreds filed against BP and other companies in connection with the oil spill. In August, the US Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation [official website] selected [order, PDF] Judge Carl Barbier [FJC profile] to hear [JURIST report] more than 300 such lawsuits. Also that month, BP and the DOJ announced the completion of negotiations over the implementation of a $20 billion fund [JURIST reports] to aid victims of the oil spill. In July, a class-action lawsuit [complaint, PDF; JURIST report] was filed against BP in a Louisiana state court alleging that its negligent actions led to the spill and that BP was further negligent in its oversight of the cleanup effort, resulting in volunteers falling ill due to inadequate protective equipment. In June, two lawsuits were filed against BP [JURIST report] alleging violations of the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) [18 USC § 1961 et seq.] statute. The lawsuits allege that BP purposefully defrauded the American public in order to increase company profits.

The citizens of the Republic of Kosovo and wider international opinion will not believe the ill-intentioned fabrications of those who oppose the independence and sovereignty of our country and in absolutely no way, will they allow hooligans to defile the pure war of the Kosovo Liberation Army and the sacrifice of all the citizens of our country. The Government of the Republic of Kosovo calls on all member states of the Council of Europe to strongly oppose this fabricated and tendentious report and to not join the side of those who at all costs want to obstruct the stability, progress and good governance of the Republic of Kosovo.

Claims of Kosovo's involvement in human organ trafficking originated in 2008 when former prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website] Carla Del Ponte [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] alleged in a book [JURIST report] on her time at the tribunal that about 300 Serbian and other non-Albanian prisoners were victims of organ trafficking [JURIST news archive] during the war. That year, Serbian prosecutors condemned Albania's refusal to initiate [JURIST report] an investigation into allegations of organ trafficking in Kosovo. Albanian Prosecutor General Ina Rama refused to cooperate with Serbian war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic [official website] and said that her country would only pursue the allegations if the ICTY decided to reopen its investigation.

The detainee management framework draws on applicable international standards and advice from international organisations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) [official website]. It is consistent with the Laws of Armed Conflict and the Geneva Convention [text, PDF]. Australian officials, both ADF and officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, continue to monitor detainees'; welfare and conditions while they are in US or Afghan custody, until they are released or sentenced. The monitoring team visit detainees shortly after transfer and around every four weeks after the initial visits.

An internal military probe in 2008 cleared [JURIST report] members of the Australian Defence Force of allegations that they mistreated four Taliban members detained following the death of an Australian soldier in Afghanistan. The investigation [JURIST report] also cleared soldiers of any wrongdoing in connection with civilian deaths during the November battle, but said that such deaths were "highly regrettable." Concerns over detainee abuse were first brought to light in a 2007 report [JURIST report] in AI which said that the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) [official website], led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), was exposing terrorism detainees to risks of torture by transferring NATO-held detainees into custody of Afghanistan authorities. AI's report focused on actions by Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway and the UK, saying that the forces from those countries have been transferring terror detainees to the NDS, despite numerous reports of torture.

[JURIST] The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] on Wednesday issued summonses for six Kenyan citizens [press release] believed to be responsible for post-election violence in 2007 [JURIST news archive] that resulted in more than 1,000 deaths in that country. The six individuals include current Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta and several Ministry heads. All six are believed to have fomented violence, rape and destruction of property during the 30 days of violence. Two summonses were issued [Ruto, Kosgey, Sang summons, PDF; Muthara, Kenyatta, Ali summons, PDF], each for three of the individuals in question, pursuant to Article 58 of the Rome Statute [PDF], for crimes against humanity. In issuing the summonses, ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo [official website] stated:

The post election period of 2007-2008 was one of the most violent periods of the nation's history. These were not just crimes against innocent Kenyans. They were crimes against humanity as a whole. By breaking the cycle of impunity for massive crimes, victims and their families can have justice. And Kenyans can pave the way to peaceful elections in 2012.

Earlier this month, Moreno-Ocampo rejected the notion [JURIST report] that threats of violence would delay the prosecution of the as-of-that-time unnamed suspects. Last month, the Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights, which implicated former Cabinet minster William Ruto of interfering with the ICC investigation, denied accusations that it had bribed witnesses [JURIST report]. Moreno-Campo had also said that the court will not use testimony [JURIST report] from three Kenyan witnesses who claim they were bribed to provide false evidence against a high-ranking government official. In September, Kenyan businessman Joseph Gathungu filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality [JURIST report] of the ICC investigation into the post-election violence.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] Tuesday that e-mail is entitled to Fourth Amendment [LII materials] protection. The 98-page opinion overturned the prison sentence of Steven Warshak, the founder of Berkeley Premium Nutraceuticals Inc. [corporate website], who was convicted on 93 counts of conspiracy, money laundering and fraud in 2008. The court held that government reliance on the Stored Communications Act [18 USC §§ 2701 et seq materials] did not warrant overturning Warshak's conviction, but that the government violated Warshak's Fourth Amendment rights when it ordered his Internet service provider (ISP) to turn over his e-mails. In finding this violation, the court acknowledged that Warshak enjoyed "a reasonable expectation of privacy" in his e-mails by comparing e-mail to more traditional forms of communication, such as telephone conversations, found to be protected in United States v. Katz [opinion text]. The court stated:

Given the fundamental similarities between email and traditional forms of communication, it would defy common sense to afford emails lesser Fourth Amendment protection. Email is the technological scion of tangible mail, and it plays an indispensable part in the Information Age. Over the last decade, email has become 'so pervasive that some persons may consider [it] to be [an] essential means or necessary instrument[] for self-expression, even self-identification.' It follows that email requires strong protection under the Fourth Amendment; otherwise, the Fourth Amendment would prove an ineffective guardian of private communication, an essential purpose it has long been recognized to serve.

The application of the Fourth Amendment to new technologies has created a number of issues that have recently come before the courts. In late November, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit declined a request [JURIST report] by the US Department of Justice to rehear a case in which that court found that the government could not use GPS to track suspects without a warrant. In September, a three-judge panel for the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled that at times the government might need a warrant to obtain cell phone data [JURIST report] to track a person's location. In June, the US Supreme Court unanimously held that, even if there is a reasonable expectation of privacy in work-issued electronic devices, that an employer's search of private text messages does not violate [JURIST report] the Fourth Amendment so long as the search is not excessive and is pursuant to a legitimate work-related purpose. Last year, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that police must obtain a warrant before searching data stored in a cell phone [JURIST report].

The wearing of religious attire in courtrooms and other public places has been a controversial subject. In May, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] ruled [JURIST report] that a Muslim woman's religious rights were not violated by police officers when she was forced to remove her headscarf while being detained in a holding cell. In April, a judge for the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan [official website] dismissed [JURIST report] a lawsuit against a Michigan judge who ordered a Muslim woman to remove her headscarf in court. The suit [complaint, PDF] was filed by CAIR on behalf of Raneen Albaghdady against Judge William Callahan of the Wayne County Circuit Court. Last year, a Spanish lawyer filed a complaint [JURIST report] with the General Council of the Judiciary [official website, in Spanish] alleging abuse of power and discrimination after a National Court judge asked her to leave the courtroom for declining to remove her hijab.