John Negroponte on Tuesday promised that security and intelligence agencies would not use torture in gathering intelligence under his watch as National Director of Intelligence. Negroponte faced tough questioning during a confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee , which continues throughout this afternoon. In response to a question of whether interrogations of suspects would [...]

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The federal government has unsealed the indictment of three men charged with plotting an attack on several financial institutions in the US. The three charged were Dhirin Barot, Nadeem Tarmohamed and Qaisar Shaffi, all of the UK. The indictment accuses the three men of conducting surveillance of the New York Stock Exchange and Citicorp Building [...]

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Following up on a story reported yesterday in JURIST's Paper Chase, the New York State Assembly Codes Committee Tuesday defeated a bill to reinstate New York's death penalty by a vote of 11-7. The legislation, supported by Governor George Pataki , is now effectively defeated for this year. The vote came after five days of [...]

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The US Supreme Court asked for more police on Tuesday, citing recent attacks on judges and fears of terrorism. Justice Anthony Kennedy submitted a request to Congress for an additional $639,000 to pay for additional police patrols in the court's plaza and around the building. "A visible security presence is believed to be one of [...]

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The RIAA announced Tuesday that it intends to sue hundreds of individual college students accused of illegally distributing music and movies across Internet2 , a super-fast computer network connecting universities and used for internet research. RIAA executives said it will file federal copyright lawsuits Wednesday against 405 students at 18 colleges with access to Internet2, [...]

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Conservatives in the Canadian parliament plan to introduce an amendment Tuesday to scrap Bill C-38 , which establishes the Civil Marriage Act and allows for same-sex unions. Federal Liberals believe they will have enough votes to block the amendment. Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper argued that the proposed legislation "fails to define marriage as the [...]

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A federal judge in Alabama indicated Tuesday that she would throw out three perjury counts against former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy , but that she would allow his trial to proceed on additional charges. District Judge Karon Bowdre indicated that she would grant a defense motion to bar jurors from hearing evidence about Scrushy's sworn [...]

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