The US Department of Defense (DOD) is circumventing legal limits on its relatively narrow power to issue so-called national security letters (NSLs) by getting the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to use its broader NSL-issuing powers on the DOD's behalf, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said Tuesday. The report follows review of thousands of [...]

JURIST Guest Columnist Allen Rostron of the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law says that by approaching the District of Columbia v. Heller case in a spirit of conciliation and compromise rather than extremism, the Court can make its ruling on the interpretation of the Second Amendment a victory for everyone… In a few [...]

The National League for Democracy (NLD), the main opposition party in Myanmar , on Wednesday urged citizens to reject the proposed constitution put forth by Myanmar's military government. In a statement to Reuters, an NLD spokesman appealed to citizens to vote against the constitution when they go to the polls next month, following similar calls [...]

The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) passed a resolution by a 32-0 vote Tuesday "extending the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression for three years," and adding extra oversight to require reporting when "abuse of the right of freedom of expression constitute [...]

Tadao Maruko v Versorgungsanstalt der deutschen Bühnen, European Court of Justice, April 1, 2008 . Read the full text of the judgment. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Kevin P. Martin : "In Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806 (1975), the Supreme Court held that the Sixth Amendment provides a constitutional right to a criminal defendant to decline the assistance of counsel and instead to represent himself. The Court explained that a defendant's decision to invoke this right should be honored even in [...]

Triantafyllos Tafas v. Jon W. Dudas, US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, April 1, 2008 . Read the full text of the memorandum opinion . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

US senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Christopher Dodd (D-CT) have asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate the enforcement division of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) after learning that the number of fines ordered by the SEC dropped by more than half from fiscal year 2006 to 2007, Reed said Tuesday. The GAO [...]

The lower house of the Polish parliament voted 384-56 Tuesday to approve the EU reform treaty , formally known as the Treaty of Lisbon . The upper house is expected to ratify the treaty Wednesday. Poland had raised numerous objections to the pact during negotiations, many having to do with the proposed Council of Europe [...]

The US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on Tuesday rejected new US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) rules that would have retroactively limited the number of claims that can be included in a patent application and the number of times a continuation application can be filed for a given invention. The court [...]