Bringing criminal charges against Blackwater employees for the September 16 killings of 14 Iraqi civilians in West Baghdad would require surmounting numerous legal hurdles, US Department of Justice officials told Congress during a private meeting in December, the New York Times reported Wednesday. The meeting, which was held after a US federal grand jury opened [...]

Ross Ray QC : "David Hicks may have been released from prison on 29 December, but he is not a free man. Although it has not been alleged, let alone proven, that Hicks has committed any offence under Australian law, he is now subject to an interim control order issued under the Commonwealth Criminal Code. [...]

Stoneridge Investment Partners, LLC v. Scientific Atlanta et al., US Supreme Court, January 15, 2008 . Read the full text of the opinion . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Michael Simpson : "In a major victory for students, parents, and public education, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held on January 7th that the Bush Administration's interpretation of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) violates the federal Constitution. The court's ruling came in an NEA-sponsored lawsuit filed in 2005 on [...]

US District Judge Marcia Cooke Tuesday refused to rule out the possibility of a life sentence for convicted terrorism conspirator Jose Padilla . Cooke found that the enhanced terrorism penalties could be applied, rejecting the defense's argument that evidence linking Padilla and his co-conspirators to actual terrorist groups was insufficient for federal terrorism standards to [...]

The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) is spearheading US efforts to form an international database of biometrics data on major criminals and terrorists, the UK Guardian newspaper reported Tuesday. The program, called "Server in the Sky," would be a cooperative venture by participating countries to collect and share information such as fingerprints, iris and palm [...]

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Tuesday praised a bill passed Saturday by the Iraqi parliament that would allow most members of Saddam Hussein's now-defunct Baath Party to be reinstated to public life as "a step forward" for the stabilization of Iraq. Passage of the de-Baathification reform legislation was noted by the White House last [...]

Amnesty International Tuesday called on Iran to abolish executions by stoning , an execution method that Iran denies is still in official use. Amnesty decried stoning as a "grotesque and horrific" practice designed to inflict maximum suffering on condemned adulterers; it pointed to language in the Iranian penal code that said stones used should be [...]

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour Tuesday urged the Sri Lankan government to abide by international law as a 2002 ceasefire with the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) , or "Tamil Tigers," expires Wednesday. Fighting between government forces and the Tigers escalated in 2006, and last month the government announced it [...]

Three men were sentenced to life in prison Tuesday for a 2002 attempt to assassinate Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf . Mohammad Imran, Mohammad Hanif and Mohammad Ashraf, all thought to belong to the Harkut ul-Mujahideen al-Almi {MIPT backgrounder] terror group, were originally sentenced to 10 years each in 2003, but appealed their convictions. The Sindh [...]