The US Senate has voted to approve the one-month extension of the Patriot Act passed by the House of Representatives earlier Thursday after House Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. James Sesenbrenner blocked a six-month Senate extension on the grounds that the original Patriot Act conference report making key provisions of the Act permanent needed to be [...]

Summary of legal authority supporting National Securitry Agency surveillance activities, letter from the US Department of Justice Office of Legislative Affairs to senior members of the US Senate and House Intelligence Committees, December 22, 2005 . Read the full text of the DOJ letter .

A federal judge ruled Thursday that two Chinese Uighur detainees held by the US at Guantanamo Bay could be detained there indefinitely even though their imprisonment was unlawful. US District Judge James Robertson said that the courts simply had no relief to offer the men, who are no longer deemed enemy combatants by the government [...]

AP is reporting that the US House of Representatives has passed a one-month extension of the Patriot Act , significantly less than the six-month extension approved by the Senate Wednesday night. 4:32 PM ET – House Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) objected to the six-month extension, and the one-month holdover good until February [...]

The Texas Third Court of Appeals Thursday denied a request by US Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) to hasten his appeals process by reducing allowable filing periods from 20 to five days. Prosecutors are appealing the dismissal of the conspiracy charge against DeLay, and Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle has requested that his trial for [...]

The presiding judge of the 11-member Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) , the secret court charged with overseeing government espionage activities, has organized a classified briefing for panel members to allow administration representatives to report on the scope of the recently uncovered National Security Agency (NSA) secret eavesdropping program. According to the New York Times [...]

The Iraqi Special Tribunal Thursday adjourned the Saddam Hussein trial until January 24 after a day of testimony during which Hussein berated the US for denying his claims, made Wednesday , that he had been beaten in custody. During cross-examination, Hussein analogized the US position on his injuries to the US position on Iraq's alleged [...]

The French Senate approved anti-terror legislation in a 202-122 vote Thursday after preliminarily approving the bill last week. The bill, introduced by conservative presidential hopeful and current Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy and influenced by the recently enacted British anti-terrorism bill, increases funding for video surveillance of public areas such as airports and train stations, permits [...]

A British appellate court has ruled Thursday that British soldiers in Iraq are forbidden to subject Iraqi prisoners to cruel or degrading treatment while in their custody. The determination that the Human Rights Act – a 1998 statute encating the European Convention on Human Rights into English law – applies to any British troop with [...]

Australian police have arrested a 33-year-old man for using text messages to incite rioting a week after race riots broke out in Sydney involving 5,000 people, mostly white men and youths, attacking Muslim residents on local beaches. Wednesday's arrest marks the first instance someone has been charged with such an offense. The man allegedly forwarded [...]