Outgoing Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director Michael Hayden during a Thursday press conference defended the controversial interrogation techniques used to gather information in the "war on terror." Hayden strongly defended the CIA-termed "enhanced interrogation techniques," including waterboarding , a practice Hayden banned from use in 2006. While admitting these interrogation tactics were harsh and coercive, [...]

In Re: Directives * Pursuant to Section 105B of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, August 22, 2008 . Read the full text of the opinion . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

The Chairman-Designate of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Mary Schapiro on Thursday expressed her commitment to reinvigorate enforcement at the SEC during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs . Schapiro said that "it is imperative that the SEC be given the resources and the support it needs [...]

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Thursday ruled in favor of French publishers Olivier Orban and Xavier de Bartillat who were convicted in France in 2002 of defending war crimes and aiding and abetting that offense, respectively. The court held that their prior conviction, based on the publication of the book Services Spéciaux [...]

The US federal government acted within the Constitution when it compelled a telecommunications company to assist in warrantless surveillance of certain customers, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review (FISC) said in a ruling released Thursday. The redacted decision, dated August 22, 2008, was a response to the unnamed firm's challenge to government demands made [...]

The US has not formally asked the European Union (EU) to accept detainees from Guantanamo Bay following US President-elect Barack Obama's planned closing of the facility, according to a Thursday statement from European Commission vice president Jacques Barrot during the Informal Meeting of Ministers for Justice and Home Affairs in Prague. Closing the facility will [...]

US Attorney General nominee Eric Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee in confirmation hearings Thursday that he believes waterboarding constitutes torture and that it could take a long time to close the Guantanamo Bay prison despite the incoming Obama administration's pledge to do so. In his opening statement to committee members he nonetheless pledged to [...]

UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs David Miliband said Thursday in a Guardian editorial that the "war of terror" embraced by the US and UK governments in recent years was a "misleading and mistaken" term and that terrorism should be fought by championing the rule of law, not subordinating it, for it [...]

Sudanese authorities on Wednesday detained prominent political opposition figure and Islamist leader Hassan al-Turabi in response to al-Turabi's calls for President Omar al-Bashir to turn himself over to the International Criminal Court (ICC) . Turabi, the leader of the Popular Congress Party (PCP), was expecting to be detained after telling reporters Monday that Bashir is [...]

Asim Qureshi : "One of the key components of the Bush administration's understanding of torture is the extreme technicality with which they approach the topic. When the teenager Mohammed Jawad was captured in Afghanistan in 2002, his abuse at the hands of his captors was by Afghans and not US personnel. It is this fact [...]