JURIST Special Guest Columnist Shayana Kadidal, one of the lead attorneys on the Center for Constitutional Rights' challenge to the NSA domestic surveillance program, says that the government's invocation of the state secrets privilege in a motion to dismiss the case filed late last week contradicts the core idea of judicial review and essentially allows [...]

The US military said Monday that the number of Guantanamo Bay detainees participating in a hunger strike has increased from 3 to about 75. Navy Cmdr. Robert Durand described the strike as an effort to attract attention. He speculated that it may be related to the events of May 18 , when 4 detainees supposedly [...]

A UN official Monday warned members of fundamentalist Islamic and secular warlord militias fighting for control of the Somali capital of Mogadishu “that any deliberate attempt to prevent wounded or civilians receiving assistance and protection during fighting in the city may constitute elements of future war crimes.” Fighting between various factions has intensified in the [...]

US Marine Corps General Peter Pace , chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff , declined comment Monday on the Pentagon's investigation into the November 2005 killings of up to two dozen Iraqi civilians in the troubled city of Haditha, in the western Anbar province of Iraq. Pace emphasized that if service members are [...]

A Bangladesh court in Dhaka Monday sentenced seven Islamic militants, including leaders Shayek Abdur Rahman of Jamaat-ul Mujahideen and Siddikul Islam Bangla Bhai of Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh , to death for the murder of two judges in a bomb attack last year. Both men shouted "All praise to Allah" as the verdict was read; [...]

The defense team for Saddam Hussein on Monday called several witnesses to testify on behalf of Awad al-Bandar , head of the court responsible for sentencing 148 Shiites to death after a 1982 assassination attempt against the former Iraqi leader in the town of Dujail . Though the trial of the Shiites included only one [...]

EU foreign ministers wrapping up a two day meeting in Austria Sunday agreed to extend the "period of reflection" on the stalled European constitution for another year through the end of the German presidency of the EU in June 2007, but floated the possibility of re-naming the instrument in an effort to allay fears over [...]

US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller held a private meeting with representatives from major internet service providers late last week urging them to retain customer internet activities to combat child pornography. The meeting, reported by CNET, follows a speech by Gonzales last month at the National Center for Missing and Exploited [...]

The British prisoners rights group Reprieve has claimed that over 60 of the foreign detainees imprisoned by the US at Guantanamo Bay were juveniles under 18 years of age when captured, and that some were as young as 14. Reprieve told the Independent newspaper that 17 detainees on the latest US list were under eighteen [...]

Over 1000 UK service personnel have deserted since the beginning of the war in Iraq, the BBC reported Sunday. A total of 134 deserted in 2003, 229 in 2004, 377 in 2005, and 189 so far in 2006, up from 86 in 2001, and 118 in 2002. The UK Ministry of Defence disputes the figures, [...]