The non-partisan Congressional Research Service , the public-policy research arm of the Library of Congress , called the Bush administration's limited briefings on the NSA domestic spying program "inconsistent with the law" in a report released to the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday. The report, requested by committee member Jane Harman (D-CA) , says that [...]

Lawyers for Tariq Aziz , the former Iraqi deputy prime minister under the Saddam Hussein regime, have asked Italy and Croatia to grant him asylum if Aziz is released from US detention. Aziz's lawyers argue the 69-year-old is in very poor health and have asked several countries to accept him for medical treatment if he [...]

The Electronic Privacy Information Center has announced plans to file a federal Freedom of Information Act lawsuit Thursday against the US Justice Department seeking the release of documents about the department's role in the government's domestic spying program . EPIC has filed FOIA requests asking DOJ officials to release audits and legal opinions relating to [...]

The Nepalese government on Thursday arrested over 52 senior politicians and activists in an apparent attempt to shut down an anti-government rally planned for Friday in the capital. The government banned demonstrations and imposed a night curfew earlier this week in anticipation of the rally, and in reaction to an anti-government rally last week in [...]

The Iraqi Ministry of Justice said Thursday that the US military would release six Iraqi women prisoners from Abu Ghraib prison , but insisted the release is not in response to threats from a militant group that has kidnapped American journalist Jill Carroll on January 7. Carroll's captors have threatened to kill her if all [...]

Detainees held at Guantanamo Bay were able to provide valuable information in connection with last year's London bombings , Army Maj. Gen. Jay Hood, who is in charge of the prison, said Wednesday. Hood said that a number of Guantanamo detainees, though not British citizens, have lived in London and were able to provide background [...]

A leaked UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office memo says that while undertaking or cooperating with extraordinary rendition of terror suspects to countries where they could face a real risk of torture could never be legal under UK law, the British government could not say that it had received no requests for such renditions and would [...]

World Report 2005, Human Rights Watch, released January 13, 2005 . Excerpt: Any discussion of detainee abuse in 2005 must begin with the United States, not because it is the worst violator but because it is the most influential. New evidence demonstrated that the problem was much greater than it first appeared after the shocking [...]

White House spokesperson Scott McClellan Wednesday dismissed findings from the latest Human Rights Watch annual report alleging that the US has made deliberate and blatant use of torture and the inhumane treatment of prisoners in its "war on terror". HRW Executive Director Kenneth Roth wrote in the report's introduction:Any discussion of detainee abuse in 2005 [...]

UK fathers' rights group Fathers 4 Justice announced Wednesday that it would disband after the Sun newspaper published a report that some of its members planned to abduct the 5-year-old son of British Prime Minister Tony Blair . The group, notorious for past stunts such as a 2004 powder attack on Blair in the House [...]