JURIST Guest Columnist Carl Tobias of the University of Richmond School of Law says that recent national security issues involving controversial exercises of executive power should encourage senators to carefully analyze Judge Samuel Alito’s perspectives on executive authority, security and liberty in his upcoming confirmation hearings… Recent actions that overemphasize executive power and national security [...]

Presidential Authority to Conduct Warrantless Electronic Surveillance to Gather Foreign Intelligence Information, Congressional Research Service, January 5, 2005 . Read the full text of the report . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) announced in a letter to rank-and-file Republican Representatives Saturday that he was formally stepping down as House Majority Leader . DeLay was forced to temporaily step aside last fall after he was indicted on campaign finance charges in Texas, his home state. He had hoped to resume his duties after clearing [...]

Several French human rights groups led by the French League for Human Rights declared a proposed French immigration bill racist and a "blatant violation of immigrants' rights" in a joint statement issued Saturday. The proposed legislation calls for placing new restrictions on foreign workers, students, and those who want to join their families in France [...]

Former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori , who fled to Japan after a corruption scandal in 2000, registered through intermediaries to run for president of Peru again Friday, shortly after a Chilean judge detained him indefinitely pending consideration of an extradition request from Peru. Fujimori returned to South America in November, but was immediately arrested in [...]

Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle vetoed a bill Friday that would have made doctors inform women seeking abortions after the fifth month of pregnancy that their fetuses may feel pain. The bill passed the Republican controlled Assembly by a count of 61-34 in early November and the Senate by a count of 21-12 in late September. [...]

The Congressional Research Service , the non-partisan public policy research arm of the US Congress, reported Friday that although the legality of the NSA warrantless surveillance program could not be determined due to the need for classified materials, the legal justification for the program "does not seem to be as well-grounded" as the Bush administration [...]

The number of hunger strike participants at the Guantanamo detention facility has decreased from 84 to 40 since a late-December spike US military authorities announced Friday. Thirty-two of the remaining 40 hunger strikers are currently being force-fed through tubes, a procedure declared humane by medical officials at the facility but disputed by lawyers for the [...]

Seven present or former members of the US Third Circuit Court of Appeals will testify on behalf of colleague and now US Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito at his confirmation hearings beginning Monday according to an announcement Friday by Republicans leading the US Senate Judiciary Committee . Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) said the committee would [...]

A federal judge in Miami Friday postponed until next week a scheduled plea and bail hearing for now-indicted "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla , a US citizen originally arrested in 2002 for allegedly plotting to detonate a "dirty bomb" but later charged with unrelated offenses. Magistrate Judge Barry Garber set a new hearing for January 12. [...]