News release: "Governments responsible for serious human rights violations have over the past year intensified attacks against human rights defenders and organizations that document abuse, Human Rights Watch said in issuing its World Report 2010. The 612-page report, the organization's 20th annual review of human rights practices around the globe, summarizes major human rights trends in more than 90 nations and territories worldwide, reflecting the extensive investigative work carried out in 2009 by Human Rights Watch staff. The volume's introductory essay by Executive Director Kenneth Roth argues that the ability of the human rights movement to exert pressure on behalf of victims has grown enormously in recent years, and that this development has spawned a reaction from abusive governments that grew particularly intense in 2009."

News release: "Iceland (1) has claimed the top spot of the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index 2009 from Norway (3) which slipped to third position behind Finland (2). Sweden (4) completed the Nordic countries’ continued dominance of the top four. The report’s Index assesses countries on how well they are dividing their resources and opportunities among their male and female populations, regardless of the overall levels of these resources and opportunities. South Africa and Lesotho made great strides in closing their gender gaps to enter the top 10, at sixth and 10th position respectively. The Philippines (9) lost ground for the first time in four years but remains the leading Asian country in the rankings."

News release: "More than three million girls’ genitals are forcibly cut every year and approximately 140 million women are living with mutilated genitals. Maternal mortality and infection are just two of the many health effects they suffer. This issue of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) was brought to the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting by Julia Lalla-Maharajh who runs the campaign www.endfgmnow.org. Julia entered her cause into a competition run by the Forum and YouTube, The Davos Debates, to find a person with a cause worthy of the world's attention. Her FGM cause won the global vote."

National Corrections Reporting Program, Thomas P. Bonczar, January 21, 2010

Via DOJ Office of Special Counsel of the Civil Rights Division: "ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) instructors and immigrant advocates now have new workbooks at their disposal courtesy of the Justice Department’s Office of Special Counsel for Immigration Related Unfair Employment Practices (OSC) education grant program. Through lessons titled: “Working in the United States” and “Discrimination in the Workplace,” the workbooks educate potential victims of employment discrimination about their rights under the anti-discrimination provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). These ESOL workbooks are available to the public free of charge in instructor and student versions."

A Review of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Use of Exigent Letters and Other Informal Requests for Telephone Records, January 2010, Unclassified, Redacted.

UN Permanent Forum Origin and Development Report: State of the World's Indigenous Peoples, January 2010.

Official Google Blog:

Follow up to previous postings on government implementation of whole body scanning technology at airports, news that EPIC has posted more than 250 pages of documents it obtained in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit concerning body scanners. The documents, released by the Department of Homeland Security, reveal that Whole Body Imaging machines can record, store, and transmit digital strip search images of Americans. This contradicts assurances made by the TSA. The documents include TSA Procurement Specifications, TSA Operational Requirements, TSA contract with L3, TSA contract with Rapiscan (1), and TSA contract with Rapiscan (2). The DHS has withheld other documents that EPIC is seeking."

Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, Report on the Situation of Economic and Social Rights in Afghanistan - IV Qaws 1388 (November/December 2009)

Report of the Council to the Membership of The American Law Institute on the Matter of the Death Penalty: "On October 23, 2009, the ALI Council voted overwhelmingly, with some abstentions, to accept the resolution of the capital punishment matter as approved by the Institute’s membership at the 2009 Annual Meeting in May. The resolution adopted at the Annual Meeting and now accepted by the Council reads as follows:

For reasons stated in Part V of the Council’s report to the membership, the Institute withdraws Section 210.6 of the Model Penal Code in light of the current intractable institutional and structural obstacles to ensuring a minimally adequate system for administering capital punishment.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child: Background and Policy Issues, Luisa Blanchfield, Specialist in International Relations, December 2, 2009

Privacy: An Overview of Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping, December 3, 2009: "Depending on one’s perspective, wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping are either “dirty business,” essential law enforcement tools, or both. This is a very general overview of the federal statutes that proscribe wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping and of the procedures they establish for law enforcement and foreign intelligence gathering purposes. Although the specifics of state law are beyond the scope of this report, citations to related state statutory provisions have been appended. The text of pertinent federal statutes and a selected bibliography of legal materials appear as appendices as well."

• Biosurveillance: Developing a Collaboration Strategy Is Essential to Fostering Interagency Data and Resource Sharing, GAO-10-171, December 18, 2009
• Department of Veterans Affairs' Implementation of Information Security Education Assistance Program, GAO-10-170R, December 18, 2009
• DOD Civilian Personnel: Intelligence Personnel System Incorporates Safeguards, but Opportunities Exist for Improvement, GAO-10-134, December 17, 2009
• Overseas Contingency Operations: Funding and Cost Reporting for the Department of Defense, GAO-10-288R, December 18, 2009
• Softwood Lumber Act of 2008: Customs and Border Protection Established Required Procedures, but Agencies Report Little Benefit from New Requirements, GAO-10-220, December 18, 2009
• Juvenile Justice: DOJ Is Enhancing Information on Effective Programs, but Could Better Assess the Utility of This Information, GAO-10-125, December 17, 2009
• UN Office for Project Services: Management Reforms Proceeding but Effectiveness Not Assessed, and USAID's Oversight of Grants Has Weaknesses, GAO-10-168, November 19, 2009

Follow up to previous postings on government implementation of whole body scanning technology at airports, this news: On December 17, 2009, EPIC filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice concerning the use of devices that capture images of individuals stripped naked. The Transportation Security Administration has confirmed the Whole Body Imaging machines are being used in at least one Virginia federal court by the US Marshall Service. EPIC submitted a FOIA request for information about these devices including the contracts with the manufacturer of the machines, and information about technical specifications and training materials. The Marshall Service failed to respond adequately to the request. EPIC filed suit, said that the agency had not performed a sufficient search and should disclose the documents requested."

"The Death Penalty Information Center released the The Death Penalty in 2009: Year End Report on December 18, noting that the country is expected to finish 2009 with the fewest death sentences since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Eleven states considered abolishing the death penalty this year, a significant increase in legislative activity from previous years, as the high costs and lack of measurable benefits associated with this punishment troubled lawmakers."

New York Times, New York Finds Extreme Crisis in Youth Prisons: "A draft report by a New York state task force, Charting a New Course: A Blueprint for Transforming Juvenile Justice in New York, shines a harsh light on the problems in the state's prisons for juvenile offenders. The problems are so acute that the state agency overseeing the prisons has asked New York’s Family Court judges not to send youths to any of them unless they are a significant risk to public safety, recommending alternatives, like therapeutic foster care."

• Prisoners in 2008: "Presents data on prisoners under jurisdiction of federal or state correctional authorities on December 31, 2008, collected from the National Prisoner Statistics series. This annual report compares changes in the prison population during 2008 to changes from yearend 2000 through yearend 2007. These are the only comprehensive national-level data on prison admissions and releases. Findings cover data on decreasing growth in state and federal prisons through declining admissions and increasing releases; imprisonment rates for prisoners sentenced to more than 1 year by jurisdiction; the number of males and females in prison; age, race, and gender distributions; the number of inmates in custody in state and federal prison and local jails; and custody incarceration rates. The report also includes the count for inmates held within facilities operated by and for the military, U.S. territories, Indian country, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and juvenile authorities."
• Probation and Parole in the United States, 2008: "Presents the number of adults under community supervision (probation or parole) at yearend 2008 and the growth rates in these populations during the year and since 2000. The report examines factors associated with changes in the probation and parole populations, such as the number of entries and exits, the rate at which probationers and parolees exit supervision, changes in the populations within jurisdictions, and compositional changes in both populations. The bulletin also provides 2008 detailed data in appendix tables by jurisdiction, including entries and exits by type, gender, race and Hispanic origin, type of offense, supervision status, offenders (including sex offenders) tracked through a Global Positioning System (GPS), and other information."

News release: "Statistics released today by the Federal Bureau of Investigation revealed that 7,783 criminal incidents involving 9,168 offenses were reported in 2008 as a result of bias toward a particular race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity/national origin, or disability. Published by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program, Hate Crime Statistics, 2008, includes data about hate crime incidents submitted by law enforcement agencies throughout the nation."

"The UT Libraries' Human Rights Documentation Initiative (HRDI) is committed to the long-term preservation of fragile and vulnerable records of human rights struggles worldwide, the promotion and secure usage of human rights archival materials, and the advancement of human rights research and advocacy around the world. The HRDI website highlights the following types of materials:

1. UT Collections: Primary source, archival materials related to human rights
   
2. Archived Web Resources: Websites, reports, audio, video, photographs on human rights struggles that are produced by individuals or small organizations who lack resources and opportunities for widespread distribution of their work
   
3. Audiovisual documentation (limited access): Fragile, born-digital, audiovisual documentation of human rights violations acquired through partnerships with human rights organizations worldwide (see About the HRDI, access to these materials is currently limited due to the sensitive nature of the information)

News release: "Based on the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, 22,295,000 Americans with disabilities are of working age; however, only 36.9 percent were employed, compared to the 79.7 percent of the non-disabled. Acknowledging this disparity, the American Bar Association Commission on Mental and Physical Disabilities hosted the “Second ABA National Conference on the Employment of Lawyers with Disabilities” in June and are now releasing a report, based on the conference, as a resource tool for legal employers and lawyers with disabilities. The report provides guidance as to the best practices for employment of lawyers with disabilities as well as mentoring, retaining and promoting lawyers with disabilities. Additionally, there is guidance and insight as to how lawyers and law students with disabilities can attain employment."

"Despite considerable progress in the past decades, societies continue to fail to meet the health care needs of women at key moments of their lives, particularly in their adolescent years and in older age. These are the key findings of the WHO report Women and health: today's evidence tomorrow's agenda. WHO calls for urgent action both within the health sector and beyond to improve the health and lives of girls and women around the world, from birth to older age. The report provides the latest and most comprehensive evidence available to date on women's specific needs and health challenges over their entire life-course. The report includes the latest global and regional figures on the health and leading causes of death in women from birth, through childhood, adolescence and adulthood, to older age."

"The Institute for Workplace Studies (IWS) in conjunction with the Cornell Law School is committed to helping the Rwanda Tribunal garner more attention world-wide. The lessons and legacy of ground-breaking legal matters related to the unspeakable events in Rwanda should not be forgotten. Humans, whether from rich or poor countries, must remain vigilant in curbing the motivations that lead individuals and groups to violent hatred and barbaric acts against a class of people. Consequently, items about this tribunal, which will end shortly after 2010, will appear from time to time on this news service. Last month, the IWS Colloquium Series, with cosponsorship of the Cornell Law School (represented by Prof. Claire Germain) hosted Sir Dennis Byron, President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), who spoke about the Role of the Courts in Protecting and Preserving Human Rights. It was a fascinating evening that touched on both legal and institutional issues, never flinching from some of the moral and social issues. Of particular note are the ground-breaking precedents of the ICTR in regard to sexual violence and the limits of freedom of speech. [Stuart Basefsky]

Follow up to previous postings on airport whole body imaging technology, "EPIC filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit challenging the Department of Homeland Security's failure to make public details about the agency's Whole Body Imaging program. The devices capture detailed naked images of air travelers in the United States. After the agency announced that the body scanners would become the primary screening device in US airports, EPIC demanded that the agency disclose records that describe the scanners' capacity to save and transmit images. In June, EPIC sent a letter to the Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano urging her to suspend the digital strip searches."

Strategy for gender mainstreaming in the Employment Sector for the implementation of the ILO Action Plan for Gender Equality 2008-09 / International Labour Office. - Geneva: ILO, 2009, 24 p. [Stuart Basefsky]

New York Times: "In September 2008, the Bush administration changed domestic intelligence-gathering rules. The Federal Bureau of Investigation's interpretation of those rules was recently made public when the bureau released a redacted copy of its "Domestic Investigations and Operation Guide" in response to a Freedom of Information lawsuit. The new rules have given F.B.I. agents the most power in national security matters that they have had since the post-Watergate era."

"EPIC joined the Privacy Coalition letter sent to the House Committee on Homeland Security urging them to investigate the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Chief Privacy Office. DHS is unrivaled in its authority to develop and deploy new systems of surveillance. The letter cited DHS use of Fusion Center, Whole Body Imaging, funding of CCTV Surveillance, and Suspicionless Electronic Border Searches as examples of where the agency is eroding privacy protections."

News release: "A report released today by the Death Penalty Information Center concludes that states are wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on the death penalty, draining state budgets during the economic crisis and diverting funds from more effective anti-violence programs. A nationwide poll of police chiefs conducted by RT Strategies, released with the report, found that they ranked the death penalty last among their priorities for crime-fighting, do not believe the death penalty deters murder, and rate it as the least efficient use of limited taxpayer dollars."

• Smart on Crime: Reconsidering the Death Penalty in a Time of Economic Crisis - National Poll of Police Chiefs Puts Capital Punishment at Bottom of Law Enforcement Priorities. A Report from the Death Penalty Information Center, 10/17/2009
  
• New York Times: One Reporter’s Lonely Beat, Witnessing Executions - "Of all the consequences of shrinking newsrooms, one of the oddest is this: Fewer journalists are available to watch people die. But Michael Graczyk has witnessed more than 300 deaths, and many of those were people he had come to know. An Associated Press reporter based in Houston, Mr. Graczyk covers death penalty cases in Texas, the state that uses capital punishment far more than any other, and since the 1980s, he has attended nearly every execution the state has carried out — he has lost track of the precise count. Whenever possible, he has also interviewed the condemned killers and their victims’ families."
  
• Related postings on financial system

Follow up to previous postings on airport whole body imaging technology, this article from the Economist.com: "Much excitement in Manchester where trials have started of Britain’s first whole-body scanner. The machine takes X-ray photographs of passengers, and can reveal concealed threats without requiring the removal of clothing."

News release: "Increases in global contraceptive use have contributed to a decrease in the number of unintended pregnancies and, in turn, a decline in the number of abortions, which fell from an estimated 45.5 million procedures in 1995 to 41.6 million in 2003. While both the developed and the developing world experienced these positive trends, developed regions saw the greatest progress. Within the developing world, improvement varied widely, with Africa lagging behind other regions, according to Abortion Worldwide: A Decade of Uneven Progress, a major new Guttmacher Institute report released today."

Crime Against People with Disabilities, 2007: "Presents the first findings about nonfatal violent and property crime experienced by persons with disabilities, based on the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). The report includes data on nonfatal violent victimization (rape/sexual assault, robbery, aggravated and simple assault) and property crime (burglary, motor vehicle theft, theft) against persons with disabilities in 2007. It compares the victimization experience of persons with and without disabilities, using population estimates based on the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS). Data are presented on victim and crime characteristics of persons with and without disabilities, including age, race and gender distribution; offender weapon use; victim injuries; and reporting to the police."

ACLU: "The Senate Judiciary Committee passed the USA PATRIOT Act Extension Act of 2009 [October 9, 2009], a bill which falls far short of restoring the necessary civil liberties protections lacking in the original Patriot Act. The bill, passed by the committee after two sessions of debate, makes only minor changes to the disastrous Patriot Act and was further watered down by amendments adopted during markup. The American Civil Liberties Union had endorsed the JUSTICE Act, an alternative bill that would heavily reform not only the Patriot Act but other overly broad surveillance laws."

News release: "The Department of Justice is releasing a new study today that measures the effects of youth violence in America, and the results are staggering. More than 60 percent of the children surveyed were exposed to violence in the past year, either directly or indirectly. Nearly half of children and adolescents were assaulted at least once, and more than one in ten were injured as a result. Nearly one-quarter were the victim of a robbery, vandalism or theft, and one in sixteen were victimized sexually. Those numbers are astonishing, and they are unacceptable. We simply cannot stand for an epidemic of violence that robs our youth of their childhood and perpetuates a cycle in which today’s victims become tomorrow’s criminals."

Crime Against People with Disabilities, 2007, 10/1/09: "First national study on crime against persons with disabilities — Young and middle-age persons with disabilities experienced higher rates of violence than persons of similar ages without disabilities."

"The Doing Business Gender Law Library is a collection of national legal provisions impacting women's economic status in 183 economies. The database facilitates comparative analysis of legislation, serves as a resource for research, and contributes to reforms that can enhance women’s full economic participation. We update the collection regularly but do not guarantee that laws are the most recent version, nor is the library exhaustive. Translations are not official unless indicated...The Doing Business Gender Law Library is a joint initiative of the Doing Business Project and the World Bank Gender Action Plan, supported by Vital Voices Global Partnership."

World Bank - Gender Equality as Smart Economics Newsletter, October 2009

Statement of Glenn A. Fine, Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary concerning Reauthorizing the USA Patriot Act, September 23, 2009

EPIC: "...the Department of Justice announced a new policy that limits the government’s use of the state secrets privilege. The state secrets privilege is a rule of evidence intended to prevent genuine matters of national security from being disclosed in open court. However, recently it has been misused by both the Bush and Obama administrations in order to derail litigation completely. For instance, in 2007 EPIC filed a “friend-of-the-court” brief in a warrantless wiretapping case, Hepting v. United States, in which the government argued that the case should be dismissed because it would reveal “state secrets.” Under the new policy, the privilege will be invoked only "to the extent necessary to protect against the risk of significant harm to national security." The Attorney General will also have to approve each determination. The State Secret Protection Act of 2009, legislation with a similar purpose, is now pending in Congress. For more information, see EPIC Open Government."

News release: "A judge ordered the government Thursday to release more records about the lobbying campaign to provide immunity to the telecommunications giants that participated in the NSA's warrantless surveillance program. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White ordered the records be provided to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) by October 9, 2009. The decision is part of EFF's long-running battle to gather information about telecommunications lobbying conducted as Congress considered granting immunity to companies that participated in illegal government electronic surveillance. Telecom immunity was eventually passed as part of the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) of 2008, but a bill that would repeal the immunity -- called the JUSTICE Act -- was introduced in the Senate last week."

"A fast-growing FBI data-mining system billed as a tool for hunting terrorists is being used in hacker and domestic criminal investigations, and now contains tens of thousands of records from private corporate databases, including car-rental companies, large hotel chains and at least one national department store, declassified documents obtained by Wired.com show. Headquartered in Crystal City, Virginia, just outside Washington, the FBI’s National Security Branch Analysis Center (NSAC) maintains a hodgepodge of data sets packed with more than 1.5 billion government and private-sector records about citizens and foreigners, the documents show, bringing the government closer than ever to implementing the “Total Information Awareness” system first dreamed up by the Pentagon in the days following the Sept. 11 attacks."

Follow up to August 23, 2009 posting - "Why Women's Rights Are The Cause of Our Time" - today's news release: "Millions of girls and women will have access to improved health care, better education, and increased economic opportunity because of commitments made today at the Fifth Annual Meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), which brings together leaders from across sectors of society to identify solutions to some of the world's most pressing problems. Women perform 66 percent of the world's work, and produce 50 percent of the food, yet earn only 10 percent of the income and own 1 percent of the property," President Bill Clinton said. "Whether the issue is improving education in the developing world, or fighting global climate change, or addressing nearly any other challenge we face, empowering women is a critical part of the equation." Reports show that when women and girls are empowered, entire regions see measurable results. This is especially true for economic empowerment – for example, a woman is likely to reinvest about 90 percent of her earnings into her family's well-being, compared with 35 percent for a man. Increases in access to education among girls accounted for a decline of 43 percent in the malnutrition rates between 1970 and 1995. Investing in women's health, especially reproductive health, not only saves the lives of half a million mothers, but also unleashes an estimated $15 billion in productivity each year."

News release and Fact Sheet: "U.S. Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Jon Tester (D-MT), Tom Udall (D-NM), Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Daniel Akaka (D-HI) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) have introduced legislation to fix problems with surveillance laws that threaten the rights and liberties of American citizens. The Judicious Use of Surveillance Tools In Counterterrorism Efforts (JUSTICE) Act would reform the USA PATRIOT Act, the FISA Amendments Act and other surveillance authorities to protect Americans’ constitutional rights, while preserving the powers of our government to fight terrorism. The JUSTICE Act reforms include more effective checks on government searches of Americans’ personal records, the “sneak and peek” search provision of the PATRIOT Act, “John Doe” roving wiretaps and other overbroad authorities. The bill will also reform the FISA Amendments Act, passed last year, by repealing the retroactive immunity provision, preventing “bulk collection” of the contents of Americans’ international communications, and prohibiting “reverse targeting” of innocent Americans. And the bill enables better oversight of the use of National Security Letters (NSLs) after the Department of Justice Inspector General issued reports detailing the misuse and abuse of the NSLs. The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on Wednesday, September 23rd, on reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act."

"Banned Books Week (BBW): Celebrating the Freedom to Read is observed during the last week of September each year. Observed since 1982, this annual ALA event reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted. BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where the freedom to express oneself and the freedom to choose what opinions and viewpoints to consume are both met. As the Intellectual Freedom Manual (ALA, 7th edition) states:

Intellectual freedom can exist only where two essential conditions are met: first, that all individuals have the right to hold any belief on any subject and to convey their ideas in any form they deem appropriate; and second, that society makes an equal commitment to the right of unrestricted access to information and ideas regardless of the communication medium used, the content of the work, and the viewpoints of both the author and receiver of information. Freedom to express oneself through a chosen mode of communication, including the Internet, becomes virtually meaningless if access to that information is not protected. Intellectual freedom implies a circle, and that circle is broken if either freedom of expression or access to ideas is stifled.

AL-KIDD v. ASHCROFT, No. 06-36059 D.C. No. CV-05-00093-OPINION

OIG-09-64 - Role of the No Fly and Selectee Lists in Securing Commercial Aviation (PDF, 63 pages] Redacted, July 2009.

"Welcome to our new website! As the Executive Director of the Council [Valerie Jarrett], I’m very excited to launch this site as we commemorate Women’s Equality Day on August 26. On this day when we remember the bravery and struggles that won women the right to vote, we are very pleased to add this website to share with everyone the work of this Administration to address the issues of concern to women and girls. The mission of the White House Council on Women and Girls is to ensure that every part of the federal government takes into account the needs of women and girls in the policies we draft, the programs we create, the legislation we support. Through this site you will be able to meet the member of the Council and the key staff in each agency who are charged with meeting this charge from the President."

• The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)
  
• History
  
• States parties
  
• Reservations
  
• Country Reports
  
• Other UN Conventions on Women
  
• Commentary: Celebrating Women’s Equality Day

New York Times: "Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, a son of one of the most storied families in American politics, a man who knew acclaim and tragedy in near-equal measure and who will be remembered as one of the most effective lawmakers in the history of the Senate, died late Tuesday night. He was 77."

News release: "Today, the National Security Archive posted a side-by-side comparison of two very different versions of a 2004 report on the CIA's "Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Activities" by Agency Inspector General John Helgerson. Yesterday, the Obama administration released new portions of the report including considerably more information about the use of torture and other illegal practices by CIA interrogators than a version of the report declassified by the Bush administration in 2008. The report was first posted on the Web yesterday by the Washington Independent.

News release: "The [redacted] documents [below] were released through FOIA litigation by the Center for Constitutional Rights, Amnesty International USA, and the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University School of Law seeking disclosure of information concerning “disappeared” detainees, including “ghost” and unregistered prisoners. The original FOIA requests were filed with several U.S. government agencies including the Departments of Justice and Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency...CCR has led the legal battle over Guantanamo for the last seven years – sending the first ever habeas attorney to the base and sending the first attorney to meet with a former CIA “ghost detainee” there. CCR represents current and former detainees who were tortured and abused at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and in the secret CIA detention program."

• 3 June 2005 - CIA Doc Detainee Reporting Pivotal for the War Against Al-Qa'ida
  
• 13 July 2004 - CIA Khlaid Shaykh Muhammad - Preeminent Source on Al-Qa'ida
  
• Related postings on detention and torture

Background Checks for Firearm Transfers, 2008 - Statistical Tables

• "This web page describes background checks for firearm transfers conducted in 2008. The statistical tables below provide the number of firearm transaction applications checked by state points of contact and local agencies, the number of applications denied and the reasons for denial, and estimates of applications and denials conducted by each type of approval system. Data are also provided on appeals of denied applications and arrests for falsified applications. The Regional Justice Information Service (REJIS) prepared these tables under the supervision of Devon B. Adams, of the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The tables were prepared under BJS cooperative agreement #2008-BJ-CX-K004. The BJSsponsored Firearm Inquiry Statistics (FIST) program collects information on firearm background checks conducted by state and local agencies, and combines this information with FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) transaction data."
  
• Summary findings: "From the inception of the Brady Act on March 1, 1994, through December 31, 2008, over 97 million applications for
  firearm transfers or permits were subject to background checks...Among all state agencies, denial rates for instant check systems ranged from nearly 5% to less than 1%."

EPIC: "Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) are drafting legislative reforms to revise the USA PATRIOT Act. The USA PATRIOT Act allows authorities to conduct surveillance without judicial review through the use of National Security Letters. The Senators asked the Attorney General and the Chairmen of the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence Committee to consider two previous bills that add protections to PATRIOT ACT. Pursuant to a EPIC lawsuit, a federal judge had ordered the Justice Department to provide for independent judicial inspection of documents relating to warrantless wiretapping. For more information, see EPIC USA PATRIOT Act, EPIC FISA, EPIC Wiretapping, and EPIC National Security Letters."

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE): "Assistant Secretary John Morton announced substantial steps, effective immediately, to overhaul the immigration detention system. These reforms will address the vast majority of complaints about our immigration detention, while allowing ICE to maintain a significant, robust detention capacity to carry out serious immigration enforcement. The present immigration detention system is sprawling and needs more direct federal oversight and management. While ICE has over 32,000 detention beds at any given time, the beds are spread out over as many as 350 different facilities largely designed for penal, not civil, detention. ICE employees do not run most of these. The facilities are either jails operated by county authorities or detention centers operated by private contractors. The Future Syste: With these reforms, ICE will move away from our present decentralized, jail-oriented approach to a system wholly designed for and based on ICE’s civil detention authorities. The system will no longer rely primarily on excess capacity in penal institutions. In the next three to five years, ICE will design facilities located and operated for immigration detention purposes. These same reforms will bring improved medical care, custodial conditions, fiscal prudence, and ICE oversight."

On Locational Privacy, and How to Avoid Losing it Forever, By Andrew J. Blumberg and Peter Eckersley, August 2009: "Over the next decade, systems which create and store digital records of people's movements through public space will be woven inextricably into the fabric of everyday life. We are already starting to see such systems now, and there will be many more in the near future...Locational privacy (also known as “location privacy”) is the ability of an individual to move in public space with the expectation that under normal circumstances their location will not be systematically and secretly recorded for later use. The systems discussed [in this report] have the potential to strip away locational privacy from individuals..."

Joel Zand, FindLaw: "A panel of three federal judges ordered the State of California to reduce its inmate population because of prison overcrowding, resulting in the release of approximately 43,000 prisoners during the next two years so that the state's prisons can operate at 137.5% of their design capacity. In a 184-page opinion, the panel ordered California to provide an inmate reduction plan within 45 days to carry out the court's directive "in no more than two years."

wkyc.com: "TSA has revealed it is testing scanning technology at Cleveland Hopkins Airport that allows screeners to see through clothing. Despite public concern over what's viewed by some as invasive imagery, TSA is moving ahead with the advanced imagery technology it claims will improve security by allowing screeners to quickly scan passengers for weapons without a need for physical contact. Once testing and training are complete, the new scanners will go into full-time use at Hopkins."

News release: "In conjunction with the 19th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the U.S. Department of Labor has re-named and re-launched DisabilityInfo.gov as Disability.gov. The site now offers comprehensive information about programs and services to better serve the more than 50 million Americans with disabilities, their family members, veterans, employers, educators, caregivers and anyone interested in disability-related information. The new Web site integrates content from 22 federal agencies and will be managed by the Labor Department. The former DisabilityInfo.gov site was revamped with social media tools to encourage interaction and feedback, and new ways to organize, share and receive information. Visitors can sign up for personalized news and updates, participate in online discussions and suggest resources for the site. New features include a Twitter feed, Really Simple Syndication feeds, a blog, social bookmarking and a user-friendly way to obtain answers to questions on such topics as finding employment and job accommodations. Additional tools will be added during the months ahead."

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which President Obama ....announce[d] that the US will sign, will be the first international human rights treaty signed by the United States in nearly a decade, Human Rights Watch said... "This treaty was created to make sure that people with disabilities have the same opportunities as everyone else and are fully included in society," said Joe Amon, director of the Health and Human Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. "This is a real victory for both that goal and for the disability rights advocates who have worked so hard for it." The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 2006 and was signed by 82 countries when it opened for signature on March 30, 2007. Today 140 countries have signed, and 61 have ratified. It requires governments to prohibit discrimination against persons with disabilities and support their dignity, autonomy, and full participation in society."

Overview of Statutory Mandatory Minimum Sentencing: "The Commission has identified at least 171 individual mandatory minimum provisions currently in the federal criminal statutes. In the Commission’s fiscal year 2008 datafile, there were 31,239 counts of conviction that carried a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment.3 Because an offender may be sentenced for multiple counts of conviction that carry mandatory minimum penalties, these 31,239 counts of conviction exceed the total number of offenders (21,023 offenders, as reported below) who were convicted of statutes carrying such penalties. Of these 31,239 counts of conviction, the overwhelming majority (90.7%) were for drug offenses (24,789 counts of conviction, or 79.4%) and firearms offenses (3,527 counts of conviction, or 11.3%)."

News release: "The Department of Justice and Department of Defense today announced that the Detention Policy Task Force, which was created pursuant to Executive Order 13493, has issued a preliminary report on military commissions and a process for the determination of prosecution forum for trials of suspected terrorists. A copy of the report is attached. As authorized by the Executive Order, the Attorney General and Secretary of Defense have also decided to extend by six months the period in which the Task Force will conduct its work and submit a final report."

Seeking Bypass: What Will Ultimately End Confidence in the Necessity of Parental Involvement Laws? - Public interest law advocate Diana Philip's commentary focuses specifically on the multifaceted, complex and challenging issues that encompass the dichotomy between reproductive health care and rights available to adult pregnant women and pregnant minors. Diana's position includes references to seminal legal cases as well as to selected scholarly literature in the field of juvenile reproductive health.

New York Times: "Ms. Estemirova was an essential member of a tiny circle of the premier human rights investigators in the entire Caucasus — a woman of immeasurable courage, precision and calm. She was a researcher for Memorial, the human rights organization, in Grozny, Chechnya’s capital."

Secrecy News: "The new CRS report - "Gang of Four" Congressional Intelligence Notifications, July 14, 2009 - explains the role of the "Gang of Four," meaning the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, who are to be informed of particularly sensitive intelligence activities. (When the Bush Administration first notified Congress of its warrantless surveillance program, it limited the disclosure to the "Gang of Four.")"

2009 Trafficking in Persons Report: "The Department of State is required by law to submit each year to the U.S. Congress a report on foreign governments’ efforts to eliminate severe forms of trafficking in persons. This is the ninth annual TIP Report; it seeks to increase global awareness of the human trafficking phenomenon by shedding new light on various facets of the problem and highlighting shared and individual efforts of the international community, and to encourage foreign governments to take effective action against all forms of trafficking in persons."

Refugees and Asylees: 2008 - Daniel C. Martin And Michael Hoefer

Brennan Center for Justice: Language Access in State Courts, Laura Abel

News release: Today’s release of a report by several agency inspectors general reinforces the National Security Archive’s argument in our Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that the Justice Department should declassify and release the legal justifications for the surveillance program authorized by President Bush after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The new report from the inspectors general of the Department of Defense, Department of Justice, Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, and Office of the Director of National Intelligence, criticizes the OLC memoranda that were used to justify warrantless surveillance of US citizens, several of which remain secret and are subject to the Archive’s lawsuit. The IGs state that there were “deficiencies” in the OLC memos, drafted by Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, and that the memos “raise[d] serious concerns” at DOJ because they omitted analysis of key cases and legal provisions and were not subject to the ordinary “rigorous peer review process.”

News release: "The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed suit against the Department of Justice [on June 24, 2009], demanding the public release of the surveillance guidelines that govern investigations of Americans by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The FBI's Domestic Investigative Operational Guidelines went into effect in December of 2008 and detail the Bureau's procedures and standards for implementing the Attorney General's Guidelines on approved surveillance strategies...The FBI's general counsel has acknowledged that "the expansion of techniques available [to the Bureau] has raised privacy and civil liberties concerns." Investigations can include the electronic collection of information from online sources and computer databases, as well as the use of grand jury subpoenas to obtain telephone and email subscriber information. Other recent policy changes allow the FBI to engage in free-ranging investigation of Internet sites, libraries, and religious institutions." [Darlene Fichter]

News release: "Widespread racial profiling by law enforcement agents as a result of Bush-era policies remains a pervasive problem throughout the United States, according to a report out today by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Rights Working Group (RWG). Government policies are a major cause of the disproportionate stopping and searching of racial minorities by law enforcement agencies, according to the report, which was submitted today to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD)."

• The ACLU and RWG's report to CERD
  
• The Bush administration's final submission to CERD

News release: "The CIA informed the American Civil Liberties Union that it would delay by one week its release of a reprocessed version of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) report on the CIA's interrogation and detention program [The heavily redacted version of the report released last year is available here.] The CIA turned over a heavily redacted version of the report in May 2008 as part of an ACLU Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, but on May 28, 2009, informed the court that it would review the same report with a view toward disclosing more information.In a letter to the ACLU, the government said it "will need additional time to make a final determination as to what additional information, if any, may be disclosed from the report."

"The ninth annual Trafficking in Persons Report [download each section or complete report] sheds light on the faces of modern-day slavery and on new facets of this global problem. The human trafficking phenomenon affects virtually every country, including the United States. In acknowledging America’s own struggle with modern-day slavery and slavery-related practices, we offer partnership. We call on every government to join us in working to build consensus and leverage resources to eliminate all forms of human trafficking." --Secretary Clinton, June 16, 2009.

Economist.com chart: "At the end of 2008 10.5m refugees were in the direct care of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, down slightly from 11.4m a year earlier. The conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq again caused the largest numbers of refugees to flee to, or remain in, neighbouring countries. Some 2.8m of the world's refugees are from Afghanistan, most of whom are in Pakistan and Iran. Pakistan hosted almost 1.8m people last year, nearly all from Afghanistan, with Syria and Iran each receiving around 1m people. Germany was the most popular destination among rich countries. But as a share of its population Jordan has by far the highest concentration of refugees."

DHS Office of Immigration Statistics - Refugees and Asylees: 2008, Daniel C. Martin AND Michael Hoefer

New on LLRX.com - FOIA Facts: The Detainee Photo Issue - Is it What it Seems? - Scott A. Hodes comments on the Obama administrations' decision to continue to fight the release of detainee photos.

News release: "United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) policy permits officials to search the laptops and other electronic devices of travelers without suspicion of wrongdoing, according to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed today by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU filed the FOIA request with CBP, a component of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), to learn how CBP's suspicionless search policy, first made public in July 2008, is impacting the constitutional rights of international travelers."

News release: "A record 10,552 fair housing discrimination complaints were filed in fiscal year 2008, according to a report just released by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The State Of Fair Housing FY 2008, Annual Report On Fair Housing, which is produced for Congress each year, shows that a large portion of the complaints, 44 percent, were filed by persons with disabilities. Thirty-five percent, or 3,699, of the complaints alleged discrimination based on race."

"The American Civil Liberties Union today released a report summarizing the civil liberties and civil rights record of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who was nominated by President Obama to replace retiring Justice David Souter as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. The report was prepared in accordance with ACLU policy, and will be made available to the public and members of the Senate. The ACLU does not endorse or oppose candidates for elective or appointive office."

"In cases where the DEA is the lead investigative agency, there are significant geographic variations in the rates at which individuals convicted of criminal offenses get sent to prison. According to Justice Department data obtained and analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse and just published on TRAC's DEA website, in the Northern District of West Virgina (Wheeling) 65.6% of convictions in such cases resulted in prison terms in 2008. In New York West (Buffalo) the rate was 71.1%. On the other hand, in nine districts fully 100% of all convictions in such cases resulted in prison terms. These were: Alabama Middle (Montgomery), Illinois South (East St. Louis), Illinois Central (Springfield), Michigan West (Grand Rapids), Nebraska (Omaha), North Dakota (Fargo), Oklahoma East (Muskogee), Rhode Island (Providence) and Wisconsin West (Madison). Nationally, the rate was 94.6%...For district-by-district DEA enforcement information go here and click on "District Enforcement." There you'll find data on DEA referrals, charges, convictions, prison sentences and much more, for specific districts and the U.S. as a whole."

Federal Justice Statistics, 2006 - Statistical Tables, 5/09: "Describes criminal case processing in the federal justice system, including arrest and booking through sentencing and corrections. These statistical tables present the number of suspects arrested and booked by the U.S. Marshals Service, suspects in matters investigated and prosecuted by U.S. attorneys, defendants adjudicated and sentenced in U.S. district court, and characteristics of federal prisoners and offenders under federal supervision."

Amnesty International: The State of the World's Human Rights

Find a Report - scroll to the bottom of each link below to select a specific country's data

• Africa
  
• Americas
  
• Asia and the Pacific
  
• Europe and Central Asia
  
• Middle East and North Africa

"After several months of declines since reaching all-time highs in September, new immigration prosecutions in February were up 22% from the previous month. According to timely case-by-case data obtained and analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), these 8,179 cases represent an increase of about 90% from a year ago, and 250% from February 2004. While immigration cases still account for more than half (53%) of all new federal prosecutions, new filings rose in nearly every other category as well, including drugs (up 49%), weapons (up 19%), white collar crime (up 24%) and government regulation (up 42%). Overall, new criminal cases are at the second-highest level recorded, up 27% from January and up 39% from a year ago."

• Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands: Coordinated Federal Decisions and Additional Data Are Needed to Manage Potential Economic Impact of Applying U.S. Immigration Law, GAO-09-426T, May 19, 2009
• DOD Personnel Clearances: Comprehensive Timeliness Reporting, Complete Clearance Documentation, and Quality Measures Are Needed to Further Improve the Clearance Process, GAO-09-400, May 19, 2009
• Foreign Assistance: Measures to Prevent Inadvertent Payments to Terrorists under Palestinian Aid Programs Have Been Strengthened, but Some Weaknesses Remain, GAO-09-622, May 19, 2009
• Information Security: Agencies Make Progress in Implementation of Requirements, but Significant Weaknesses Persist, GAO-09-701T, May 19, 2009
• Seclusions and Restraints: Selected Cases of Death and Abuse at Public and Private Schools and Treatment Centers, GAO-09-719T, May 19, 2009

"EPIC announced a national campaign today to suspend the use of "Whole Body Imaging" -- devices that photograph American air travellers stripped naked in US airports. The campaign responds to a policy reversal by the TSA which would now make the the "virtual strip search" mandatory, instead of voluntary as originally announced. EPIC and others say that there are inadequate safeguards to prevent the misuse of the images. They are asking Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to suspend the program and to allow for public comment. For more information, see EPIC's Backscatter X-ray, Whole Body Imaging page."

Criminal Justice Reform Resources 2008-2009: Ken Strutin's guide focuses on select current reports, surveys, legislative proposals and scholarship regarding criminal justice reform. It is only a small sampling of the increasing volume of publications on vital matters of interest to criminal practitioners and the public. Therefore, only a few themes are covered: criminal justice, discovery, forensics, juvenile justice, prosecutorial misconduct, public defense, sentencing and wrongful conviction.

• Depot Maintenance: Actions Needed to Identify and Establish Core Capability at Military Depots, GAO-09-83, May 14, 2009: "DOD, through its biennial core process, has not comprehensively and accurately assessed whether it has the required core capability to support fielded systems in military depots. Although DOD internally reported that its maintenance workload of 92.7 million hours in 2007 was “well over” the minimum of 70.5 million hours needed to fulfill core requirements at military depots and that the services were complying with their core capability requirements, this assessment did not show capability shortfalls identified by the services in their core computations."
• Aviation Security: TSA Has Completed Key Activities Associated with Implementing Secure Flight, but Additional Actions Are Needed to Mitigate Risks, GAO-09-292, May 13, 2009: "As of April 2009, TSA had generally achieved 9 of the 10 statutory conditions related to the development of the Secure Flight program and had conditionally achieved 1 condition (TSA had defined plans, but had not completed all activities for this condition). Also, TSA’s actions completed and those planned have reduced the risks associated with implementing the program."

Home Office Statistical Bulletin: Statistics on Terrorism Arrests and Outcomes, Great Britain 13 May 2009 - 11 September 2001 to 31 March 2008.

News release: "According to the 2009 National Gang Threat Assessment released by the National Gang Intelligence Center (NGIC) and the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), approximately one million gang members belonging to more than 20,000 gangs were criminally active in the U.S. as of September 2008. The assessment was developed through analysis of available federal, state, and local law enforcement information; 2008 NDIC National Drug Threat Survey (NDTS) data; and verified open source information."

News release: "The Federal Trade Commission has charged a home mortgage lender and its owner with violating federal law by charging Hispanic consumers higher prices for mortgage loans than non-Hispanic white consumers – price disparities that cannot be explained by the applicants’ credit characteristics or underwriting risk. The FTC seeks to bar future violations and obtain redress for consumers...According to the FTC’s complaint, the defendants violated the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) in pricing mortgage loans. They allegedly gave loan officers and branch managers wide discretion to charge, in addition to the risk-based price, “overages” through higher interest rates and higher up-front charges. The defendants allegedly paid loan officers a percentage of the overages as a commission and failed to monitor whether Hispanic consumers were paying higher overages than non-Hispanic white borrowers."

The Federal Bureau of Investigation's Terrorist Watchlist Nomination Practices, Audit Report 09-25, May 2009

LLRX Book Review by Heather A. Phillips - Just and Unjust Warriors: the moral and legal status of soldiers - Heather A. Phillips describes how though a series of eleven well-written and closely reasoned original essays this book question the treatments of many of the foundations of classical just war theory, such as a non-volunteer army, the use of private contractors as soldiers, the harmlessness of those not actively engaged in combat, the symmetry of combatants, proportionality and extreme emergency.

"A total of 1,891 applications to federal and state judges for orders authorizing the interception of wire, oral or electronic communications were reported in 2008. No applications were denied. This is a 14 percent decrease in the total of applications reported, compared to 2007. Fewer states—22 states compared to 24 in 2007—reported wiretap activity and the number of applications approved by state judges, 1,505, was down 14 percent from 2007. Federal judges approved 386 applications, down 16 percent from 2007. Orders for 28 wiretaps were approved for which no wiretaps actually were installed. Additional data on applications for wiretaps for the period January 1 through December 31, 2008, is available online in the 2008 Wiretap Report."

State Department, Washington, DC, April 27, 2009: "On March 31, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Susan Rice announced that the United States will seek a seat this year on the United Nations Human Rights Council with the goal of working to make it a more effective body to promote and protect human rights. As part of the process that will culminate in elections on May 12, each candidate country is asked to produce a pledge outlining its commitment to promoting human rights. This information is circulated among countries and posted on the UN Human Rights Council website. The United States has produced its pledge - Human Rights Commitments and Pledges of the United States of America, which can be read in its entirety here."

News release: "In anticipation of President Obama’s 100th day in office, U.S. Senator Russ Feingold today released a "100 Day Rule of Law Report" to examine the new administration’s efforts to reverse the Bush administration’s eight year assault on the rule of law. Feingold assessed the steps the Obama administration has taken thus far to address recommendations made by forty organizations and experts in connection with a Senate Constitution Subcommittee hearing chaired by Feingold on September 16, 2008, entitled Restoring the Rule of Law. President Obama received high marks for several actions he has taken in his first 100 days in office, including his executive orders to close the facility at Guantanamo Bay, ban torture and increase transparency. However, Feingold’s review finds the Obama administration’s invoking of the state secrets privilege “troubling.”

• Legal Analysis of Religious Exemptions for Photo Identification Requirements, April 13, 2009.
• Federal Advisory Committees: An Overview, April 16, 2009.
• Piracy Off the Horn of Africa, April 21, 2009.
• FY2009 Spring Supplemental Appropriations for Overseas Contingency Operations, April 17, 2009.
• Organized Crime in the United States: Trends and Issues for Congress, April 16, 2009.
• Disconnected Youth: A Look at 16- to 24-Year Olds Who Are Not Working or In School, April 22, 2009. [all via FAS]

New York Review of Books: The Need to Roll Back Presidential Power Grabs, By Arlen Specter, April 16, 2009

Unclassified and Redacted - Inquiry Into the Treatment Of Detainees In U.S. Custody, November 20, 2008 (Released, April 22, 2009) (263 pages, PDF)

F.B.I. and States Vastly Expand DNA Databases, by Solomon Moore: "Law enforcement officials are vastly expanding their collection of DNA to include millions more people who have been arrested or detained but not yet convicted. The move, intended to help solve more crimes, is raising concerns about the privacy of petty offenders and people who are presumed innocent. Until now, the federal government genetically tracked only convicts. But starting this month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation will join 15 states that collect DNA samples from those awaiting trial and will also collect DNA from detained immigrants — the vanguard of a growing class of genetic registrants. the F.B.I., with a DNA database of 6.7 million profiles, expects to accelerate its rate of growth from 80,000 new entries a year to 1.2 million by 2012 — a 17-fold increase. F.B.I. officials say they expect DNA processing backlogs — which now stand at more than 500,000 cases — to increase."

• Statement of President Barack Obama on Release of OLC Memos: "The Department of Justice will today release certain memos issued by the Office of Legal Counsel between 2002 and 2005 as part of an ongoing court case. These memos speak to techniques that were used in the interrogation of terrorism suspects during that period, and their release is required by the rule of law. My judgment on the content of these memos is a matter of record. In one of my very first acts as President, I prohibited the use of these interrogation techniques by the United States because they undermine our moral authority and do not make us safer. Enlisting our values in the protection of our people makes us stronger and more secure. A democracy as resilient as ours must reject the false choice between our security and our ideals, and that is why these methods of interrogation are already a thing of the past."
• ACLU: In response to litigation filed by the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the Justice Department today released four secret memos used by the Bush administration to justify torture. The memos, produced by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), provided the legal framework for the CIA's use of waterboarding and other illegal interrogation methods that violate domestic and international law. The ACLU has called for the Justice Department to appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate torture under the Bush administration."
• The Torture Timeline, By Annie Lowrey, Foreign Policy

• Via FAS: Unclassified - Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment, 7 April 2009. Prepared by the Extremism and Radicalization Branch, Homeland Environment Threat Analysis Division. Coordinated with the FBI.
• Via FOXNews: Unclassified - Leftwing Extremists Likely to Increase Use of Cyber Attacks over the Coming Decade, 26 January 2009, (U) Prepared by the Strategic Analysis Group, Homeland Environment and Threat Analysis Division.

"Today, EPIC filed a Freedom of Information Act request demanding disclosure of records detailing airport scanners that take naked pictures of American travelers. Security experts describe the "whole body imaging" scanners as virtual strip searches. The Transportation Security Administration plans to make the scans mandatory at all airport security checkpoints, despite prior assurances that whole body imaging would be optional. EPIC's request seeks documents concerning the agency's ability to store and transmit detailed images of naked U.S. citizens. For more information, see EPIC's Whole Body Imaging page and EPIC's FOIA Litigation Manual."

Internally Displaced Persons: Guide to Legal Information Resources on the Web - Elisa Mason's guide highlights information resources focused on the arena of human rights and humanitarian law norms that are evolving to address the broadening scope of protection issues that encompass millions of internally displaced around the world.

News release (includes links to declassified documents): "As a special tribunal in Peru pronounced former president Alberto Fujimori guilty of human rights atrocities, the National Security Archive today posted key declassified U.S. documents that were submitted as evidence in the court proceedings. The declassified records contain intelligence gathered by U.S. officials from Peruvian sources on the secret creation of “assassination teams” as part of Fujimori’s counterterrorism operations, the role of the Peruvian security forces in human rights atrocities and Fujimori’s participation in protecting the military from investigation."

"Sexual assault takes many forms—it is any unwanted sexual contact, including rape, attempted rape, and child sexual abuse. It can affect people of any gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or ability. According to the National Violence Against Women Survey, 1 in 6 American women has been the victim of rape or attempted rape [...there were nearly 200,000 incidents of rape or sexual assault
in the United States in 2005]. Perpetrators of sexual assault can be friends, acquaintances, family members, or strangers. Working together, we can raise awareness, change attitudes, and help prevent sexual assault. For more information, visit the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) at www.ovw.usdoj.gov."

• Download OVW's Sexual Assault Awareness Month Poster
  
• National Sexual Violence Resource Center
  
• State Sexual Assault Coalitions
  
• National Sexual Assault Coalition's Resource Sharing Project
  RAINN
  
• The Faces and Voices Project
  
• Sexual Assault National Organizations

ACLU Blog of Rights: "Coinciding with the start of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, the fully revised and updated fourth edition of The Rights of Women was released this week. The latest release in the ACLU Handbook Series, The Rights of Women is a comprehensive guide that explains in detail the rights that women and girls have under U.S. law, and how these laws can be used in the continuing struggle to achieve full gender equality. One chapter is dedicated to the issue of violence against women, including sexual assault."

• Preface
  
• Table of Contents
  
• Sample Chapter

News release: "The American Civil Liberties Union released a comprehensive report today examining widespread abuses that have occurred under the USA Patriot Act, a law that was rushed through Congress just 45 days after September 11. In the almost eight years since the passage of the controversial national security law, the Patriot Act has led to egregious government misconduct."

OECD: "Every year, the 8th of March marks a major day of global celebration for the economic, political and social achievements of women - and offers an occasion to present the work of the Development Centre in the area of gender equality."

News release: "Explosive growth in the number of people on probation or parole has propelled the population of the American corrections system to more than 7.3 million, or 1 in every 31 U.S. adults, according to a report released today by the Pew Center on the States. The vast majority of these offenders live in the community, yet new data in the report finds that nearly 90 percent of state corrections dollars are spent on prisons. One in 31: The Long Reach of American Corrections examines the scale and cost of prison, jail, probation and parole in each of the 50 states, and provides a blueprint for states to cut both crime and spending by reallocating prison expenses to fund stronger supervision of the large number of offenders in the community."

News release: "According to a letter filed by the government in court today, the CIA acknowledged it destroyed 92 tapes of interrogations. The admission comes in an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit seeking records of the treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody abroad. In December 2007, the ACLU filed a motion to hold the CIA in contempt for its destruction of videotapes recording the harsh interrogation of prisoners in violation of a court order requiring the agency to produce or identify all the requested records. That motion is still pending."

Workforce Management: "Employers would be prohibited from making hiring, firing and other personnel decisions on the basis of workers’ genetic predisposition to a disease under rules to be proposed this week by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The proposals, which are open for public comment over the next two months, also would bar employers from deliberately acquiring genetic information from employees and job applicants...In addition, employers would be restricted from disclosing genetic information about workers and applicants. Violators would be subject to compensatory and punitive damages under some circumstances."

• Meeting of February 25, 2009 - on Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Implementation of Title II of the Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act of 2008, Statement of Christopher J. Kuczynski, J.D., LL.M., Assistant Legal Counsel, ADA Policy Division
  
• Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (GINA) - H.R.493, Became Public Law No: 110-233 on May 21, 2008

EPIC: "Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano testified before the House Committees on Homeland Security, and said that DHS plans to connect governmental databases containing personal information, expand the government's employment tracking system, promote passenger screening, use e-passports, employ watchlists and utilize contactless identity verification cards. EPIC has opposed Fusion Centers, the E-Verify program and the use of Backscatter X-Ray devices. EPIC has also objected to the use of RFIDs in passports, in Air Travel and in driver's licences."

News release: "Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has announced three witnesses for a hearing scheduled Wednesday, March 4, on Getting to the Truth Through a Nonpartisan Commission of Inquiry. Leahy has proposed establishing a nonpartisan commission to examine past national security policies. Leahy has invited three witnesses to testify at the hearing: Thomas Pickering, former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Retired Vice Admiral Lee Gunn, and attorney John Farmer."

2008 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, February 25, 2009: "As we publish these reports, the Department of State remains mindful of both domestic and international scrutiny of the United States' record. As President Obama recently made clear, "we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." We do not consider views about our performance voiced by others in the international community--whether by other governments or nongovernmental actors--to be interference in our internal affairs, nor should other governments regard expressions about their performance as such. We and all other sovereign nations have international obligations to respect the universal human rights and freedoms of our citizens, and it is the responsibility of others to speak out when they believe those obligations are not being fulfilled."

Follow up to Backgrounder, Database and Executive Order: Closing Guantanamo, the Department of Defense released a Review of Department Compliance With President's Executive Order on Detainee Condition of Confinement: "After considerable deliberation and a comprehensive review, it is our judgment that the conditions of confinement in Guantánamo are in conformity with Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions..."

"The Civil Rights Digital Library (CRDL), a comprehensive civil rights Web site and portal hosted by the University of Georgia, saw an enormous spike in the number of hits during the week of January 19 when the nation celebrated the inauguration of President Barack Obama and the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday. Among CRDL’s many video selections, users could watch a prophetic 1971 clip of civil rights activist Andrew Young predicting the election of an African American president in his lifetime, a 1962 clip of African American students turned away from the public library in Albany, Georgia, and a 1960 clip of African American first-grade girls integrating an elementary school cheered on by African Americans in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) awarded the University of Georgia a National Leadership Grant (NLG) to create the digital library in 2005. The project was selected in part because it provides a portal for many of the nation’s civil rights collections, resulting in much greater public access and the ability to search across many collections as if they were a single collection. It also harvests metadata from the collections, which are physically scattered throughout the country, and has contributed significantly to audio-visual metadata standards." [Institute of Museum and Library Services]

LLRX Book Review by Heather A. Phillips - Americans in Waiting: The Lost Story of Immigration and Citizenship in the United States - Heather A. Phillips discusses author Hiroshi Motomura's insights into changing views on this experience, including the status of immigration as contract, and that of immigration as affiliation.

United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan, Human Rights Unit: Afghanistan - Annual Report on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, 2008. January 2009.

Closing Guantanamo, Greg Bruno, Staff Writer, February 12, 2009. Council on Foreign Relations

• Introduction
  
• The Guantanamo Inmates: Who Are They?
  
• The Guantanamo Inmates: How to Try Them
  
• The Guantanamo Inmates: Where to Send Them
  
• Constitutional and Other Considerations
  
  • See also The Guantánamo Docket - The Detainees: "Of the 779 people who have been detained at the United States military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, 532 have been transferred and 242 remain, according to analysis by The New York Times of documents from the Department of Defense. In addition, five detainees died while in custody. This interactive database includes information about the detainees, thousands of pages of government documents and links to court records and news media reports."
    
  • Executive Order regarding Guantanamo Bay detainees, January 22, 2009 - "Executive Order requires closure of the Guantanamo detention center no later than one year from the date of the Order. Closure of the facility is the ultimate goal but not the first step. The Order establishes a review process with the goal of disposing of the detainees before closing the facility."

News release: "President Obama has directed the National Security and Homeland Security Advisors to conduct an immediate review of the plan, programs, and activities underway throughout the government dedicated to cyber security. This 60-day interagency review will develop a strategic framework to ensure that U.S. Government cyber security initiatives are appropriately integrated, resourced and coordinated with Congress and the private sector. "The national security and economic health of the United States depend on the security, stability, and integrity of our Nation’s cyberspace, both in the public and private sectors. The President is confident that we can protect our nation’s critical cyber infrastructure while at the same time adhering to the rule of law and safeguarding privacy rights and civil liberties," said Assistant to the President for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security John Brennan. Melissa Hathaway, who has served as Cyber coordination Executive to the Director of National Intelligence, will lead the review and will serve as Acting Senior Director for Cyberspace for the National Security and Homeland Security Councils during the review period."

War About Terror - Civil Liberties and National Security After 9/11: A Council on Foreign Relations Working Paper, by Daniel B. Prieto, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Counterterrorism and National Security, February 2009

EEOC: "On January 29, 2009, President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 (“Act”), which supersedes the Supreme Court’s decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Inc., 550 U.S. 618 (2007). Ledbetter had required a compensation discrimination charge to be filed within 180 days of a discriminatory pay-setting decision (or 300 days in jurisdictions that have a local or state law prohibiting the same form of compensation discrimination). The Act restores the pre-Ledbetter position of the EEOC that each paycheck that delivers discriminatory compensation is a wrong actionable under the federal EEO statutes, regardless of when the discrimination began. As noted in the Act, it recognizes the “reality of wage discrimination” and restores “bedrock principles of American law.”

• January 22, 2009 - Proposed Funding for Education in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
• January 16, 2009 - Health Insurance Continuation Coverage Under COBRA
• January 16, 2009 - Economic Stimulus: Issues and Policies
• January 15, 2009 - Closing the Guantanamo Detention Center - Legal Issues: "This report provides an overview of major legal issues likely to arise in the event of executive and/or legislative action to close the Guantanamo detention facility. It discusses legal issues related to the transfer or release of Guantanamo detainees (either to a foreign country or into the United States), the continued detention of such persons in the United States, and the possible removal of persons brought to the United States."
• January 15, 2009 - Congress as a Consumer of Intelligence Information: "Among the issues the 111th Congress may choose to examine are ongoing efforts by the Director of National Intelligence to strike a balance between protecting intelligence sources while providing intelligence analysts and consumers—including those in Congress—more information about the reliability of those sources."

• Review and Disposition of Individuals Detained at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base and Closure of Detention Facilities: "By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, in order to effect the appropriate disposition of individuals currently detained by the Department of Defense at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base (Guantánamo) and promptly to close detention facilities at Guantánamo, consistent with the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States and the interests of justice.."
• Review of Detention Policy Options: "By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, in order to develop policies for the detention, trial, transfer, release, or other disposition of individuals captured or apprehended in connection with armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations that are consistent with the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States and the interests of justice..."
• Ensuring Lawful Interrogations: "By the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, in order to improve the effectiveness of human intelligence gathering, to promote the safe, lawful, and humane treatment of individuals in United States custody and of United States personnel who are detained in armed conflicts, to ensure compliance with the treaty obligations of the United States, including the Geneva Conventions, and to take care that the laws of the United States are faithfully executed..."

The State of the World's Children 2009: Maternal and Newborn Health

News release: "In the first 21 months of operation, the Human Trafficking Reporting System (HTRS) recorded information on more than 1,200 alleged incidents of human trafficking, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced. The HTRS contains data collected by 38 federally funded human trafficking task forces on alleged incidents of human trafficking that occurred between January 1, 2007, and September 30, 2008."

Nextgov: "The FBI released on [January 13, 2009] a detailed study of the advancement of different kinds of biometrics -- from fingerprints to ear scans -- to lay out how the bureau might pursue the identification of individuals in the future."

• State of the Art Biometrics Excellence Roadmap - Technology Assessment: Volume 1 (of 3) Fingerprint, Palm print, Vascular, Standards, October 2008; v1.2.
  
• Technology Assessment for the State of the Art Biometrics Excellence Roadmap - Volume 2 (of 3) Face, Iris, Ear, Voice, and Handwriter Recognition, October 2008; v1.2
  
• State of the Art Biometrics Excellence Roadmap, Certified Products List (CPL) Expansion: The Way Ahead, October 2008, v. 1.2, October 2008

"On January 12, Freedom House released the findings from the latest edition of Freedom in the World, the annual survey of global political rights and civil liberties. According to the survey’s findings, 2008 marked the third consecutive year in which global freedom suffered a decline. This setback was most pronounced in Sub-Saharan Africa and the non-Baltic former Soviet Union, although it affected most other regions of the world. Furthermore, the decline in freedom coincided with the onset of a forceful reaction against democracy by a number of powerful authoritarian regimes, including Russia and China.

"Each year, more than 1 million women and nearly 400,000 men in the United States are victims of stalking. Stalking Awareness Month (January 2009) provides an opportunity to learn about this serious and often violent crime. For more information, visit the Office for Violence Against Women Web site."

Universal Declaration of Human Rights Website - "This site provides access to United Nations documentation related to the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. From 1946-1948 delegates to the United Nations discussed and drafted an international declaration on the subject of human rights that has become a standard of principles for human rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by General Assembly resolution 217A at its 3rd session in Paris on 10 December 1948. This website presents documents in chronological order, arranged according to the various bodies that met to discuss, draft and re-draft the Declaration. There are also brief biographic notes for the members of the Drafting Committee formed by the UN Commission on Human Rights." [via UN Pulse]

"For the past two decades the United States has been transforming distressed public housing communities, with three ambitious goals: replace distressed developments with healthy mixed-income communities; help residents relocate to affordable housing, often in the private market; and empower former public housing families toward economic self-sufficiency. The transformation has focused on deconcentrating poverty, but not on the underlying role of racial segregation in creating these distressed communities. In Public Housing and the Legacy of Segregation, scholars and public housing officials assess whether—and how—public housing policies can simultaneously address the problems of poverty and racial discrimination."

"The Cingranelli-Richards (CIRI) Human Rights Dataset contains standards-based quantitative information on government respect for 15 internationally recognized human rights for 195 countries, annually from 1981-2007. It is designed for use by scholars and students who seek to test theories about the causes and consequences of human rights violations, as well as policy makers and analysts who seek to estimate the human rights effects of a wide variety of institutional changes and public policies including democratization, economic aid, military aid, structural adjustment, and humanitarian intervention."

"The Genocide Prevention Task Force was launched on November 13, 2007 and released its report to the public on December 8, 2008. It was jointly convened by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, The American Academy of Diplomacy, and the U.S. Institute of Peace. It was funded by private foundations. Its goals were: (1) To spotlight genocide prevention as a national priority; and; (2) To develop practical policy recommendations to enhance the capacity of the U.S. government to respond to emerging threats of genocide and mass atrocities."

News release: "More than 7.3 million men and women were under correctional supervision in the nation’s prisons or jails or on probation or parole at yearend 2007, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced today. About 3.2 percent of the U.S. adult population, or one in every 31 adults, was incarcerated or under community supervision at the end of 2007. This percentage has remained stable since reaching more than 3 percent in 1999."

"An estimated 27 million people are victims of human trafficking in the world today, and between 14,500 and 17,000 are trafficked into the United States each year. In order to help lawyers understand the complex issues human trafficking victims face, the American Bar Association has released three new resources for lawyers who have previously represented victims of domestic violence, children and other victims of crime.

• Meeting the Legal Needs of Human Trafficking Victims: An Introduction for Domestic Violence Attorneys & Advocates provides information about identifying trafficking victims and discusses potential cultural issues that may arise; it also addresses protection orders available in the U.S.; outlines visa options for global trafficking victims; and provides additional resources for lawyers.
• Specific considerations relating to youth and children, including running away, peer pressure and reliance on adults are explored in Meeting the Legal Needs of Child Trafficking Victims: An Introduction for Children's Attorneys & Advocates. In addition to outlining legal remedies, the guide also provides information about community-based responses to child trafficking.
• Finally, Human Trafficking Cases: How and Why to Use an Expert Witness, offers considerations in screening expert witnesses, tips on working with witnesses and case examples in which expert witnesses played a role.
Permanent Link

"The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) today released a series of papers [Transition Materials for President Obama] that outline Internet policy proposals for President-elect Obama's Transition Team in the areas of security and civil liberties; preserving free speech on the Internet; keeping the Internet an open platform; protection of consumer privacy; and promoting open government. The 2-3 page memos provide a concise overview of the issues and recommend practical, achievable actions the new administration can take to keep the Internet open, innovative and free. The Internet played an integral part in this election, making it the most participatory in history. CDT believes the Internet can play an equally critical role in other areas, including health care, economic development and education, given the right government policies."

White House Fact Sheet: Transforming Our Armed Forces To Face The Threats Of Today And Tomorrow - Following the attacks of 9/11, President Bush strengthened and reshaped our approach to national security. To harden our defense, President Bush: Created the Department of Homeland Security; Provided national security professionals with vital new tools like the Patriot Act and a program to monitor terrorist communications; Reorganized the intelligence community to better meet the needs of the war on terror; Deployed aggressive financial measures to freeze terrorist assets; and Launched diplomatic initiatives to pressure adversaries and attract new partners to our cause."

"State Responses to Immigration: A Database of All State Legislation is a free, searchable data tool designed to generate information about all immigration-related bills and resolutions introduced in state legislatures. Classified by state, region, subject area, legislative type, and bill status, this is the only database that allows users to find out, for example, the status of enforcement initiatives introduced in their state, compare the number of bills regulating employment, or evaluate the passage rate of health-related bills across the nation.

State Responses to Immigration is a joint project of the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) and a research team at the New York University School of Law (NYU). We encourage you to read about the methodology we employed to gather and classify immigration-related legislation before using the tool.

We have posted the 2007 legislation and will add data for 2008, in addition to 2001-2006 data, in the coming months. Note: The database assigns a bill's status based on its status as of December 31 of the given year."

Google's gatekeepers, by Jeffrey Rosen, IHT: "For the past two years, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, along with other international Internet companies, have been meeting regularly with human rights and civil-liberties advocacy groups to agree on voluntary standards for resisting worldwide censorship requests. At the end of October, the Internet companies and the advocacy groups announced the Global Network Initiative, a series of principles for protecting global free expression and privacy.

Voluntary self-regulation means that, for the foreseeable future, Wong [Nicole Wong, the deputy general counsel of Google] and her colleagues will continue to exercise extraordinary power over global speech online. Which raises a perennial but increasingly urgent question: Can we trust a corporation to be good - even a corporation whose informal motto is "Don't be evil"?"

Stuck in a Revolving Door, Iraqis and Other Asylum Seekers and Migrants at the Greece/Turkey - Entrance to the European Union, November 2008.

News release: "The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers has just adopted the organisation’s budgets for the year 2009. The ordinary budget amounts to € 205 million, based on a zero real growth of member States’ contributions. As the Council of Europe enters its seventh decade in 2009, the Ordinary budget is characterised by three watchwords: focus, consolidation and efficiency, to finance increases in expenditure by the European Court of Human Rights and the Commissioner for Human Rights and adequate funding for priorities in the Programme of Activities."

TRAC news release: "The latest available data from the Justice Department show that in August 2008 the government reported 13,566 new prosecutions. While down slightly (2.3%) from the previous month, this number is still 43% higher than a year ago. The overall growth in federal prosecutions is largely driven by continuing increases in immigration matters, which accounted for 54% of all new cases filed in August in U.S. Federal Court."

News release: "The Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) announced today that the hunger and food insecurity rates in the United States increased in 2007, according to official data. More than 36.2 million people lived in households struggling against hunger in 2007, compared to 35.5 million in 2006 and 33.2 million in 2000. The number of people in the worst-off category – the hungriest Americans – has risen by nearly one third since 2000, from 8.5 million to 11.9 million."

• Prevalence of Household-Level Food Insecurity and Very Low Food Security by State 2005-2007 (Average)
  
• Prevalence of Household-Level Food Insecurity and Very Low Food Security by State 2005-2007 (Average) and 2002-2004 (Average)

News release: "Detainees released from U.S. detention in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba and Afghanistan live shattered lives as a result of U.S. policies in the “war on terror,” according to a new report by human rights experts at the University of California, Berkeley done in partnership with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR). The report, Guantánamo and Its Aftermath: U.S. Detention and Interrogation Practices and Their Impact on Detainees, based on a two-year study, reveals in graphic detail the cumulative effect of Bush Administration policies on the lives of 62 released detainees. Many of the prisoners were sold into captivity and subjected to brutal treatment in U.S. prison camps. Once in Guantánamo, prisoners were denied access to civilian courts to challenge the legality of their detention. Almost two-thirds of the former detainees interviewed reported having psychological problems since leaving Guantánamo."

"Today a diverse coalition of leading Internet companies, major human rights and free press organizations, investors and academics launched the Global Network Initiative to protect and advance freedom of expression and privacy in information and communications technologies. CDT and Business for Social Responsibility co-facilitated an 18-month effort by these groups to craft the key documents underlying this effort. The documents provide guidance for companies, NGOs, investors, academics and others working together to resist efforts by governments that seek to enlist companies in acts of censorship and surveillance that violate international standards. The documents also provide specific implementation commitments and outline a framework for accountability and learning."

News release: "Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation released statistics which indicated that 7,624 criminal incidents involving 9,006 offenses were reported in 2007 as a result of bias toward a particular race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity/national origin, or physical or mental disability. Hate Crime Statistics, 2007, published by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program, includes data from hate crime reports submitted by law enforcement agencies throughout the nation."

ACLU: Using data provided by the U.S. Census Bureau, the ACLU has determined that nearly 2/3 of the entire US population (197.4 million people) live within 100 miles of the US land and coastal borders. The government is assuming extraordinary powers to stop and search individuals within this zone. This is not just about the border: This Constitution-Free Zone includes most of the nation's largest metropolitan areas."

DHS Issues Supplemental Final Rule with Guidance For Employers Who Receive Social Security 'No-Match' Letters: "Secretary Chertoff announced the issuance of the No-Match Supplemental Final Rule, which provides guidance to help businesses comply with legal requirements intended to reduce illegal employment of unauthorized workers, in his quarterly State of the Border address. The Secretary also outlined comprehensive efforts to secure the border, enforce national immigration laws, improve temporary worker programs, and legal migration."

Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) in the Executive Office of the President, Biometrics in Government POST - 9/11, released September 2008: This report summarizes the research, applications and operation of the U.S. government's biometric systems since 2001.

News release: "The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) today announced the issuance of the Secure Flight Final Rule, which shifts pre-departure watch list matching responsibilities from individual aircraft operators to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and carries out a key recommendation of the 9/11 Commission. By bringing watch list matching responsibilities in-house, TSA can better remedy possible misidentifications when a traveler's name is similar to one found on a watch list."

News release: "Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) issued a subpoena Tuesday compelling Attorney General Michael Mukasey to provide testimony and related documents to the Senate Judiciary Committee about legal analysis and advice from the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) related to the Bush administration’s terrorism policies, including detention and interrogation policies and practices."

Follow up to September 17, 2008 posting, Congress Passes ADA Amendments Act, this America.gov article, Protections for America’s Disabled Workers Expanded Under New Law: "A new law restores workplace protections for the disabled that had eroded as a result of several Supreme Court decisions issued since the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed in 1990. The ADA Amendments Act of 2008, passed by Congress and signed by President Bush on September 25, clarifies and broadens the definition of disability and expands the population eligible for protection under the ADA. The ADA prohibits discrimination against people with physical and mental disabilities in such areas as employment, public accommodations and transportation. It mandates that employers make "reasonable accommodations" for disabled individuals unless those accommodations impose an "undue hardship" on the employer."

News release: "All U.S. agencies with counterterrorism programs that collect or "mine" personal data -- such as phone, medical, and travel records or Web sites visited -- should be required to systematically evaluate the programs' effectiveness, lawfulness, and impacts on privacy, says a new report from the National Research Council. Both classified and unclassified programs should be evaluated before they are set in motion and regularly thereafter for as long as they are in use, says the report. It offers a framework agencies can use to assess programs, including existing ones. The report also says that Congress should re-examine existing law to assess how privacy can be protected in such programs, and should consider restricting how personal data are used. And it recommends that any individuals harmed by violations of privacy be given a meaningful form of redress."

"Joint Statement of Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller on the Issuance of the Attorney General Guidelines for Domestic FBI Operations: "Since the 9/11 attacks, the FBI and the Department of Justice more broadly have set priorities for and reorganized their activities to prevent future terrorist acts against the American people. In furtherance of those efforts, the Department has taken steps to provide the FBI with the authority and the flexibility it needs to protect the Nation from terrorist threats, including revising the Attorney General guidelines that govern the domestic operations of the FBI. To provide enhanced support and guidance for the FBI in its core missions, the Attorney General is issuing a new, consolidated set of guidelines for domestic FBI operations. These guidelines provide more uniform, clearer, and simpler rules for the FBI's operations. The guidelines are designed to allow the FBI to become, among other things, a more flexible and adept collector of intelligence, as recommended by major national advisory bodies and studies, including the 9/11 Commission, the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, and the Congressional Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities. Among other improvements, the guidelines move us forward in protecting national security through enhanced intelligence collection and analysis."

• Attorney General Consolidated Guidelines for FBI Operations (October 3, 2008)
  
• The Attorney General's Guidelines for Domestic FBI Operations, September 29, 2008
  
• Fact Sheet

Follow up to September 14, 2008 posting, Felony Disenfranchisement Laws in the United States, this news today from the ACLU: "A report released today by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law reveals widespread misunderstanding among state elections officials of laws governing the right to vote of citizens with felony convictions. A second ACLU report, also released today, finds that voter registration forms in states across the country fail to clearly explain the eligibility of voters with criminal records. Both reports highlight widespread problems that endanger the voting rights of hundreds of thousands of eligible voters nationally in a presidential election year."

• De Facto Disenfranchisement
  
• Voting With a Criminal Record: How Registration Forms Frustrate Democracy

Federal Justice Statistics, 2005, 9/30/08: "Immigration and drug arrests comprised more than half of the 140,200 federal suspects arrested and booked by the U.S. Marshals in 2005, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced today. Material witness (20 percent), immigration (15 percent) and weapons (11 percent) arrests increased at the fastest annual rate from 1995 to 2005. In 2005, immigration (27 percent) was the most prevalent arrest offense followed by drug (24 percent) and supervision violations (17 percent). Forty percent of all suspects arrested by the U.S. Marshals Service were arrested in 1 of 5 federal judicial districts along the U.S.-Mexico border, including Arizona, New Mexico, the Southern and Western Districts of Texas, and the Southern District of California. Nearly 1 in 4 (23 percent) of all suspects arrested in 2005 were arrested in the Southern and Western Districts of Texas."

Follow up to previous postings on the government's domestic surveillance program, today news that "The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a lawsuit [full complaint in Jewel v. NSA] against the National Security Agency (NSA) and other government agencies today on behalf of AT&T customers to stop the illegal, unconstitutional, and ongoing dragnet surveillance of their communications and communications records. The five individual plaintiffs are also suing President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheney's chief of staff David Addington, former Attorney General and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and other individuals who ordered or participated in the warrantless domestic surveillance."

House Committee on the Judiciary - Oversight Hearing on: The Federal Bureau of Investigation, September 16, 2008

Commentary: New FBI Anti-Terror Guidelines - Beth Wellington's commentary focuses on congressional and public response to the guidelines, related public surveillance actions, and on ramifications to civil liberties now and in future.

Criminal Law Resources: DNA Post-Conviction Resources - Ken Strutin's article includes a collection of recent and representative web-based materials concerning DNA technology developments and legal research on the impact of wrongful convictions and DNA exonerations on the justice system.

Brennan Center for Justice: "Tailored for college students, the Legal Guide to Student Voting is an easy-to-use clickable map designed to arm students with the correct information necessary to cut through confusing and misleading registration and voting laws. The Guide also dispells common myths about the registration process that can discourage student voters—particularly those living away from home—from participating, as recently chronicled in the NY Times."

The Sentencing Project, Felony Disenfranchisement Laws in the United States: "Since the founding of the country, most states in the U.S. have enacted laws disenfranchising convicted felons and ex-felons. In the last 30 years, due to the dramatic expansion of the criminal justice system, these laws have significantly affected the political voice of many American communities. The momentum toward reform of these policies has been based on a reconsideration of their wisdom in meeting legitimate correctional objectives and the interests of full democratic participation."

September 12, 2008 - Disenfranchisement News - New York: Voting Rights Education Hits the Road - Nevada: Automatically Eligible, but You Have to Know the Rules - North Carolina: Campaigning off the Beaten Path- Tennessee: NAACP Offers Restoration

New York Times: States Restore Voting Rights for Ex-Convicts: "Felony disenfranchisement — often a holdover from exclusionary Jim Crow-era laws like poll taxes and ballot box literacy tests — affects about 5.3 million former and current felons in the United States, according to voting rights groups. But voter registration and advocacy groups say that recent overhauls of these Reconstruction-era laws have loosened enough in some states to make it worth the time to lobby statehouses for more liberal voting restoration processes, and to try to track down former felons in indigent neighborhoods."

"The American Civil Liberties Union and ACLU of Mississippi filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the state's denial of voting rights to citizens with felony convictions. Although the Mississippi Constitution permits people who have been convicted of a crime to vote for president and vice president, election administrators are denying that right in practice. In today's filings, the ACLU asked the court to allow these citizens to register to vote in time to cast ballots for president and vice president this November."

• New York Times: "The Justice Department made public on Friday a plan to expand the tools the Federal Bureau of Investigation can use to investigate suspicions of terrorism inside the United States, even without any direct evidence of wrongdoing. Justice Department officials said the plan, which is likely to be completed by the end of the month despite criticism from civil rights advocates, is intended to allow F.B.I. agents to be more aggressive and pre-emptive in assessing possible threats to national security."
• Transcript of Background Briefing with Department of Justice Officials on Consolidated Attorney General Guidelines
• ACLU: "Following a briefing today at the Department of Justice (DOJ), the American Civil Liberties Union reiterated its deep concern over new guidelines that would govern FBI investigations. The new guidelines would lower standards for beginning "assessments" (precursors to investigations), conducting surveillance and gathering evidence, and would replace existing guidelines for five types of existing guidelines: general criminal, national security, foreign intelligence, civil disorders and demonstrations.
  
  The rewritten guidelines have been drafted in a way to give the FBI the ability to begin surveillance without factual evidence, stating that a generalized "threat" is enough to use certain techniques. Also under the new guidelines, a person's race or ethnic background could be used as a factor in opening an investigation, a move the ACLU believes will institute racial profiling as a matter of policy. The guidelines would also give the FBI the ability to use intrusive investigative techniques in advance of public demonstrations. These techniques would allow agents to conduct pre-textual (undercover) interviews, use informants and conduct physical surveillance in connection with First Amendment protected activities.
  
  

DOJ Fact Sheet: Justice Department Counter-Terrorism Efforts Since 9/11, September 11, 2008

News release: "The Justice Department today announced that on Sept. 9, 2008, it will monitor the primary elections in New York (Manhattan), Kings (Brooklyn), and Queens Counties, N.Y., to ensure compliance with federal voting rights statutes, and specifically the minority language provisions of the Voting Rights Act."

News release: "Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Grace Chung Becker, and other senior officials of the Department of Justice (DOJ) met today with leaders of dozens of civil rights groups, as well as national organizations representing state and local officials, secretaries of state and attorneys general offices from across the country, to review plans to protect voting rights in the upcoming federal election."

ACLU news release: "A federal judge [U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York] has ordered the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) to turn over three memos that authorized the extremely harsh treatment of prisoners in CIA custody or explain by October 3 why these memos can lawfully be withheld. The American Civil Liberties Union called for the immediate release of the May 2005 OLC memos as part of its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit requesting information on the treatment and interrogation of detainees in U.S. custody overseas...In another development in the same case, the ACLU obtained Department of Defense (DOD) documents about the treatment of detainees in Iraq. The documents, from the military's Criminal Investigation Division, are from two investigations."

Bureau of Justice Statistics: Civil Rights Complaints in U.S. District Courts, 1990 - 2006

CDT: "In comments filed with the Department of Homeland Security today, CDT highlighted privacy concerns implicated by DHS' new system of databases to record personal information and border crossing history. CDT called on DHS to reduce the 15-year period for retaining records of the date, time and place an American re-enters the United States at the land borders, and to limit the vast array of "routine uses" for which that data can be shared with other government agencies, foreign governments, and the public. In related comments, CDT urged DHS to work with states and other issuers of new "enhanced drivers licenses" to provide the department with access only to personal information about drivers crossing the border rather than information about all those holding EDLs, and to ensure that states do not create their own records of drivers' border crossing activities."

• CDT Comments on Border Crossing Information System of Records [PDF] August 25, 2008
  
• CDT Comments on Non-Federal Entity Data System of Records [PDF] August 25, 2008

Surveillance made easy, NewScientist.com news service, Laura Margottini: "This data allows investigators to identify suspects, examine their contacts, establish relationships between conspirators and place them in a specific location at a certain time."

So said the UK Home Office last week as it announced plans to give law-enforcement agencies, local councils and other public bodies access to the details of people's text messages, emails and internet activity. The move followed its announcement in May that it was considering creating a massive central database to store all this data, as a tool to help the security services tackle crime and terrorism."

Related links:
• UK House of Commons, Communications Data Bill: "The purpose of the Bill is to: allow communications data capabilities for the prevention and detection of crime and protection of national security to keep up with changing technology through providing for the collection and retention of such data, including data not required for the business purposes of communications service providers; and to ensure strict safeguards continue to strike the proper balance between privacy and protecting the public.
• Siemens - Lawful Interception (Monitoring Center, Intelligence Platform) - "Authorized groups need to have direct access to communications between suspects, whether it is individuals, groups or organizations. Only then can they take appropriate action, detect, prevent and anticipate crimes and guarantee peace and security."

"President Bush...announced his intention to nominate CDT Vice President for Public Policy James X. Dempsey to serve a five year term on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an independent agency within the executive branch that will review the civil liberties impact of anti-terrorism policies and programs, providing advice on policy development and implementation and oversight of government actions relating to terrorism. In legislation adopted last year, Congress reconstituted the Board and made it independent of the White House. The position, which is subject to Senate confirmation, is part-time, so Dempsey, if confirmed, will continue in his position with CDT."

Met's Crime Mapping Test Website: "The purpose of this site is to help show where crime is occurring at a local neighbourhood level. It has been developed by the MPS in conjunction with the Metropolitan Police Authority and the Mayor of London. This is a live test site (known technically within the industry as a 'beta'). It is intended to test the functionality of crime mapping, with a view to adding further features in the near future, based on your feedback. Please note, that whilst every effort is made to record the details of crime and its location as accurately as possible, there are occasions when victims are unable to provide the actual location of a crime. In these instances, the site will not be able to display all the crime reported to the police."

News release: "The Campaign Legal Center today launched the Voters' Rights Protection Project, to provide generic drafts of potential court filings to individuals, organizations, and political parties who must resort to the courts to protect the fundamental rights of citizens to vote. In a letter today to both major parties and copies to the respective presidential campaigns (full text below), the Legal Center announced the project and said it would make the legal templates publicly available. Information announcing the project is also being sent to national, state, and local party committees, as well as third party organizations and numerous community and grassroots organizations from coast to coast."

Human Rights Watch - Courting History - The Landmark International Criminal Court’s First Years, July 2008: "This 244-page report examines the ICC’s accomplishments and shortcomings since it began operations in 2003. The court was created to bring justice to the victims of gross human rights violations; so far the court has issued arrest warrants against suspects in four countries, though none have yet been tried."

"In a July 31 amicus brief filed in a federal court in Pennsylvania, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, joined by CDT, ACLU and the ACLU of Pennsylvania, argued that cell phone location information is protected by the Fourth Amendment. The brief argues that a court should require the government to obtain a warrant based on probable cause in order to gain access to cell site location information stored by a cell phone company."

DOJ: Special Report to Congress on Implementation of Section 1001 of the USA PATRIOT Act, August 2008: "Section 1001 of the USA PATRIOT Act (Patriot Act), Public Law 107-56, directs the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ or Department) to undertake a series of actions related to claims of civil rights or civil liberties violations allegedly committed by DOJ employees. It also requires the OIG to provide semiannual reports to Congress on the implementation of the OIG’s responsibilities under Section 1001. This report – the thirteenth since enactment of the legislation in October 2001 – summarizes the OIG’s Section 1001-related activities from January 1, 2008, through June 30, 2008."

News release: "U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) announced that a number of the largest American internet companies [Microsoft, Google, Yahoo], human rights organizations and other stakeholders have reached agreement on a voluntary code of conduct that would govern internet companies operating in countries where internet freedom is restricted, like China."

• Executive Order: Further Amendments to Executive Order 12333, United States Intelligence Activities -

  "1.1 Goals. The United States intelligence effort shall provide the President, the National Security Council, and the Homeland Security Council with the necessary information on which to base decisions concerning the development and conduct of foreign, defense, and economic policies, and the protection of United States national interests from foreign security threats. All departments and agencies shall cooperate fully to fulfill this goal.

• Background Briefing by Senior Administration Officials on the Revision of Executive Order 12333

  "I would say at the outset that this is an exceptionally complex executive order...It's a foundational document for the intelligence community...It has a daily and significant impact on the activities of the intelligence community and the relationships in that important community. At the highest level, of course, the aim here is to create a more effective intelligence community, where these 16 agencies can be better integrated, work more collaboratively with one another, and also share more information freely."

• Executive Order 12333: United States Intelligence Activities (as amended)
• Statement by the Press Secretary
• Fact Sheet: A Lasting Framework for United States Intelligence Activities
• Statement by the Director of National Intelligence, Mr. Mike McConnell, on Executive Order 12333

News release: "The Global Internet Freedom Consortium (GIFC) announced today that their anti-censorship software tools are ready to help journalists and tourists during the Olympics, to circumvent China's Internet blockade. The software, which is available free of charge, can be downloaded onto a hard drive or USB drive to safely and effectively overcome the Internet censorship in China.

In the run-up to Olympics, Beijing tightened control over media and Internet. Overseas web sites that have keywords on Beijing's blacklist are blocked and cannot be visited from China without any "anti-censorship" tools. The decision to block access to these websites is in contravention to Beijing's earlier promises to grant unrestricted Internet access to foreign reporters during the Games, and will seriously impede reporters' ability to do their work in Beijing. Although web restrictions were relaxed to some degree on Friday, it is unclear how long these conditions will last.

In order to overcome these Internet restrictions and gain free access to the Internet in China, the GIFC recommends that journalists and tourists download the free software packages by its partners. All Internet traffic through the tools is encrypted and can successfully bypass the Internet blockades in repressive nations around the world."

Management of the Office of Justice Programs’ Grant Programs for Trafficking Victims, Audit Report 08-26, July 2008 (144 pages, PDF)

Commentary: Immunity for Telecom Eavesdropping - Beth Wellington's commentary tracks the legislative path of retroactive immunity for telecom eavesdropping. Published July 30, 2008.

• DOD Financial Management: Adjudication of Butterbaugh Claims for the Restoration of Annual Leave or Pay, GAO-08-948R, July 28, 2008
• Financial Management: DOD's Ability to Prevent, Identify, Investigate, and Report on Antideficiency Act Violations, GAO-08-941R, July 28, 2008
• Human Rights: U.S. Government's Efforts to Address Alleged Abuse of Household Workers by Foreign Diplomats with Immunity Could Be Strengthened, GAO-08-892, July 29, 2008
• Information Security: Federal Agency Efforts to Encrypt Sensitive Information Are Under Way, but Work Remains, GAO-08-525, June 27, 2008
• Medicare Part D: Complaint Rates Are Declining, but Operational and Oversight Challenges Remain, GAO-08-719, June 27, 2008
• Surface Transportation Programs: Proposals Highlight Key Issues and Challenges in Restructuring the Programs, GAO-08-843R, July 29, 2008
• Tax Compliance: Businesses Owe Billions in Federal Payroll Taxes, GAO-08-617, July 25, 2008
• Tax Compliance: Businesses Owe Billions in Federal Payroll Taxes, GAO-08-1034T, July 29, 2008
• Bankruptcy Reform: Dollar Costs Associated with the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, GAO-08-697, June 27, 2008

Blume, John H., Johnson, Sheri Lynn and Sundby, Scott E.,Competent Capital Representation: The Necessity of Knowing and Heeding What Jurors Tell Us About Mitigation. Hofstra Law Review, Vol. 36, No. 3, 2008

"This article appears in the Hofstra Law Review symposium issue on the Supplementary Guidelines for the Mitigation Function of Defense Teams in Death Penalty cases. The complete text of the issue, which also contains the Guidelines themselves, is available online at www.law.hofstra.edu/DeathPenalty

Capital defense counsel have a duty at every stage of the case to take advantage of all appropriate opportunities to argue why death is not a suitable punishment for their particular client. But that duty can hardly be discharged effectively if the arguments are made in ignorance of available information concerning how persuasive they are likely to be to their audience.

Heeding that simple proposition we present lessons from the work of the Capital Jury Project, an ongoing empirical research effort built upon extended interviews with people who have actually sat on capital juries. We find that the standards for mitigation investigations contained in the ABA's Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases reprinted in 31 Hofstra L. Rev. 913 (2003) and in the Supplementary Guidelines that are the subject of this issue are on firm empirical ground, both in their specific aspects and in their overall approach of encouraging counsel to be creative in building a coherent mitigation theory that is advanced consistently throughout the proceedings.

We then describe particular defense themes and approaches that Project data show are likely to resonate favorably with jurors as well as the most potent prosecution arguments for death and how they might be most effectively rebutted. We conclude by describing the current research findings on the demographic and attitudinal characteristics of those jurors most likely to vote for life, and offering pointers on how to best ameliorate the scandalous but well-documented reality that many jurors simply do not understand the task they are being called upon to perform."

• Refugees and Asylees: 2007 (PDF, 6 pages): "This report presents information on the number and characteristics of persons admitted as refugees or granted asylum to the United States in fiscal year 2007.
• Data on Refugees and Asylees: "Access data on persons admitted as refugees or granted asylum in fiscal year 2007 by several characteristics."

"The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals today upheld a lower court ruling striking down the controversial Child Online Protection Act (COPA) that required Web operators to restrict access to large amounts of constitutionally protected speech. COPA placed severe restrictions on a wide range of legal, socially valuable speech, including content relating to sexual identity, health and art. CDT, which has filed friend-of-the-court briefs opposing COPA and supporting parental empowerment technology, applauds the ruling. July 22, 2008.

• CDT Statement on Ruling July 22, 2008
  
• 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Decision in COPA [PDF] July 22, 2008
  
• CDT Policy Post on COPA March 23, 2007
  
• Related postings on COPA and articles from LLRX.com

• Criminal Justice Resources: Sex Offender Residency Restrictions - Ken Strutin's guide collects recent court decisions, research papers and reports that have addressed the efficacy of exclusionary zoning laws and the impact of these restrictions on sex offenders reentering their communities. Published July 20, 2008
• E-Discovery Update: Lessons From An E-Discovery Disaster - Conrad J. Jacoby examines the recent case of Southern New England Telephone Company (“SNET”) v. Global NAPS, Inc. as an example of how stonewalling and committing perjury, especially with respect to electronic discovery matters that can be independently validated, remains a poor litigation strategy. Published July 20, 2008

On June 20, 2008 the House passed H.R. 6304, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. Today the Senate passed the bill. Related commentary and articles as follows:

• ACLU: Senate Passes Unconstitutional Spying Bill And Grants Sweeping Immunity To Phone Companies
  
• New York Times: Senate Approves Bill to Broaden Wiretap Powers
  
• WSJ Law Blog: "As the WSJ reports, the bill renews the legal backing for the federal government’s warrantless surveillance program, allowing the National Security Agency to listen in to Americans’ phone calls to people abroad and read emails sent to people overseas. It would also provide effective legal immunity for the telephone companies who agreed to government requests to access their customers’ phones and emails."
  
• Closing Statement Of Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee, On Senate Consideration Of The FISA Amendments: "The bill, if adopted without amendment, seems intended to result in the dismissal of ongoing cases against the telecommunications carriers that participated in the warrantless wiretapping program, without allowing a court ever to review whether the program itself was legal. "

DHS OIG: ICE Policies Related to Detainee Deaths and the Oversight of Immigration Detention Facilities, June 2008: "Immigration and Customs Enforcement houses a daily average of 28,700 detainees in 353 facilities nationwide. Various types of detention facilities, such as service processing centers, contract detention facilities, and state and local jails, are used to house these individuals. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention standards are used to inform facilities on expectations regarding medical care, detainee access to legal materials, and other areas related to facility management. Between January 1, 2005, and May 31, 2007, 33 immigration detainees died."

2008 Data Mining Letter Report (PDF, 46 pages): "This is the third report by the Privacy Office to Congress on data mining. This letter report identifies the data mining activities deployed or under development within DHS, as defined by the Data Mining Reporting Act, and describes the framework the Department will use to report on such activities in the future pursuant to Section 804 of the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007, entitled, The Federal Agency Data Mining Reporting Act of 2007 (Data Mining Reporting Act)."

Follow up to previous postings on the Arolsen Holocaust Archives in Germany, this report from AP: Scholars make finds in Nazi archive: "...15 scholars concluded a two-week probe Thursday of an untapped repository of millions of Nazi records, and hailed it as a rich vein of raw material that will deepen the study of the Holocaust."

Bryn Nelson, MSNBC, Giving biometrics a hand: "An electronic palm reader is helping one of the largest healthcare systems in the U.S. and several banks in Japan divine the true identities of their patients and customers. The key? A near-infrared camera that captures each person’s unique palm vein pattern, or template."

Laptop Searches and Other Violations of Privacy Faced by Americans Returning from Overseas Travel, Senate Judiciary Committee
Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights, June 25, 2008.

• June 16, 2008 - Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA): What Is It, and How Might One Be Utilized In Iraq?
• June 16, 2008 - Boumediene v. Bush: Guantanamo Detainees' Right to Habeas Corpus
• June 11, 2008 - Telework Legislation Pending in the 110th Congress: A Side-by-Side Comparison of Provisions
• June 10, 2008 - Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-76: Implications for the Future
• June 10, 2008 - Potential Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress
• June 09, 2008 - U.S.-Russian Civilian Nuclear Cooperation Agreement: Issues for Congress
• May 28, 2008 - Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty: Background and Current Developments
• June 5, 2008 - Coast Guard Deepwater Program: Background, Oversight Issues, and Options for Congress
• June 6, 2008 - The Strategic Petroleum Reserve: History, Perspectives, and Issues

News release: "Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman John “Jay” Rockefeller (WV), Senate Intelligence Committee Vice-Chair Kit Bond (MO), House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (MD), and House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (MO) announced today that a bipartisan compromise has been agreed to that will modernize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The FISA Amendments Act, H.R. 6304 (114 pages, PDF), will increase the nation’s security by strengthening the ability of the intelligence community to conduct lawful surveillance of terrorists, as well as protect constitutional rights by requiring warrants before the government can surveil any American."

"The World Information Access 2008 Report presents important trends in the distribution of information and communication technologies around the world. The 2008 WIA Report explores information access by looking at trends in the blogger arrests worldwide, diversity in the ownership of media assets in the 15 largest media markets in the Muslim world, and the ideological diversity of political content online in 74 countries with large Muslim populations." Howard, Philip N, and World Information Access Project. World Information Access Report - 2008. 3. Seattle: University of Washington, 2008.

SCOTUSblog: "The opinion by Justice Kennedy in Boumediene v. Bush (06-1195) and Al-Odah v. United States (06-1196) is available here. Justice Souter issued a concurring opinion joined by Justices Ginsburg and Breyer. The Chief Justice wrote a dissent joined by Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito. Justice Scalia filed a dissent, joined by the Chief Justice and Justics Thomas and Alito."

The Crime Victims’ Rights Act of 2004 and the Federal Courts, Jefri Wood
Federal Judicial Center, June 2, 2008. "A newly published paper available on the Federal Judicial Center's web site provides an overview of key provisions of the Crime Victims' Rights Act."

UK House of Commons, Home Affairs Committee, A Surveillance Society? Fifth Report of Session 2007–08 Volume I Report, together with formal minutes Ordered by The House of Commons to be printed 20 May 2008.

House of Commons Home Affairs Committee - A Surveillance Society? Fifth Report of Session 2007–08, Volume II, Oral and written evidence, Ordered by The House of Commons to be printed 20 May 2008.

Statement of Glenn A. Fine Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary concerning hearing on Coercive Interrogation Techniques: Do They Work, Are They Reliable, and What Did the FBI Know About Them?, June 10, 2008.

EPIC: "President Bush has signed Executive Order 12989 which gives the Department of Homeland Security authority to review employment eligibility for all federal employees and federal contractors. The decision to expand E-Verify comes after Congress rejected the President's verification proposal and a federal court struck down the agency's attempt to establish similar authority by regulation. EPIC testified in Congress in 2007 against the "Employment Eligibility Verification System." Meanwhile, the Transportation Security Administration, a division of Homeland Security, will now require travelers to present identity documents or to be "cooperative."

"Violence against women, including domestic violence, is the result of an imbalance of power in society. It is a human rights violation and a major obstacle to overcoming inequality between women and men. Despite positive developments in law, policies and practices, it still occurs in every Council of Europe member state at all levels of society. To find a way out of this situation, the Heads of State and Government of the Council of Europe member states decided to launch a Campaign to Combat Violence against Women, including Domestic Violence."

DOJ OIG: The Federal Bureau of Investigation's Security Check Procedures for Immigration Applications and Petitions (Redacted for Public Release), Audit Report 08-24, June 2008.

White House: National Security Presidential Directive 59 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 24, June 5, 2008

OIG Testimony - Statement of Glenn A. Fine, Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight concerning “The Role of the FBI at Guantanamo Bay,” June 4, 2008.

"FBI agents in Guantanamo and other military zones were faced with interrogators from other agencies who used more aggressive interrogation techniques. The FBI ultimately decided that it would not participate in joint interrogations of detainees with other agencies in which techniques not allowed by the FBI were used. Our investigation found that the vast majority of the FBI agents deployed in Guantanamo and the other military zones continued to adhere to FBI policies and separated themselves from other agencies’ interrogators who were using non-FBI-approved techniques. In only a few instances did FBI agents use techniques that would not normally be permitted in the United States or participate in interrogations during which such techniques were used by others."

"The 2008 Trafficking in Persons Report on 170 countries is the most comprehensive worldwide report on the efforts of governments to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons. Its findings will raise global awareness and spur countries to take effective actions to counter trafficking in persons. The annual Trafficking in Persons Report serves as the primary diplomatic tool through which the U.S. Government encourages partnership and increased determination in the fight against forced labor, sexual exploitation, and modern-day slavery."

Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons Fact Sheets

News release: "The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced today the Interim Final Rule for the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA), a new online system that is part of the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) and is required by the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007."

• Fact Sheet: Electronic System for Travel Authorization
  
• Frequently Asked Questions: Electronic System for Travel Authorization
  
• Interim Final Rule

"Amnesty International's Report 2008, shows that sixty years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations, people are still tortured or ill-treated in at least 81 countries, face unfair trials in at least 54 countries and are not allowed to speak freely in at least 77 countries."

Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT): Global Internet Freedom Should Be Top Human Rights and Foreign Policy Priority - "The Congress and Administration should make global Internet freedom a top human rights and foreign policy priority, CDT said today in testimony submitted to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law. The government should closely monitor and report on global Internet freedom and factor progress in this area into criteria for development assistance and conditions for trade agreements. CDT also called for greater cooperation between the U.S. government and the technology industry to better manage human rights risks associated with offering Internet services in repressive countries."

DOJ OIG, Unclassified: Review of the FBI's Involvement In and Observations of Detainee Interrogations in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, and Iraq

"EPIC filed a "friend of the court" brief (pdf) in the United States Supreme Court, urging the Justices to ensure the accuracy of police databases. The brief was filed on behalf of 27 legal scholars and technical experts and 13 privacy and civil liberty groups. In Herring v. US, the Court will be asked to determine whether an arrest based on inaccurate information in a criminal justice database should be upheld. EPIC explained how government databases are becoming increasingly unreliable, according to the government's own studies and urged the Court to “ensure an accuracy obligation on law enforcement agents who rely on criminal justice information systems.” The amici warned that, “to permit a good faith reliance on data that is inaccurate, incomplete, or out of date will actually exacerbate the problem and increase the likelihood of unfair treatment in the criminal justice system.” See EPIC page on Herring v. US

Life After Lockup: Improving Reentry From Jail to the Community: "This Bureau of Justice Assistance monograph presents an overview of U.S. jails and the people who cycle through them, examines ways that jurisdictions can address jail reentry, and profiles numerous and diverse reentry efforts from around the country. (NCJ 220095)"

"At a REAL ID Workshop at the Berkman Center, EPIC today released a new report on the Department of Homeland Security’s national identification proposal, the REAL ID system. "May 11, 2008 is the statutory deadline for implementation of the REAL ID system. Yet on this date, not one State is in compliance with the federal law creating a national identification system. In fact, 19 States have passed resolutions or laws rejecting the national ID program. The Department of Homeland Security has faced so many obstacles with the REAL ID system that the agency now plans an implementation deadline of 2017." See EPIC page on National ID Cards and the REAL ID Act, and EPIC Comments on the Draft Regulations."

CDT Policy Post 14.5: National Security Letters: "Widespread errors in the use of National Security Letters requires legislative action, says a Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) paper released today. The documents are used by the FBI when seeking records containing sensitive personal information. Successive Inspector General reports have uncovered abuses and mistakes by the FBI in issuing the NSLs. The CDT Policy Post says that FBI self-policing doesn't work. CDT believes there should be a more exacting standard for issuing NSLs and that prior judicial authorization should be required when sensitive personal information is sought."

News release: "The FBI has withdrawn an unconstitutional national security letter (NSL) issued to the Internet Archive after a legal challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). As the result of a settlement agreement, the FBI withdrew the NSL and agreed to the unsealing of the case, finally allowing the Archive's founder to speak out for the first time about his battle against the record demand...The NSL was served on the Archive -- a digital library recognized by the state of California -- and its attorneys in November of 2007. The letter asked for personal information about one of the Archive's users, including the individual's name, address, and any electronic communication transactional records pertaining to the user. Kahle, who is also a member of EFF's Board of Directors, decided to fight the NSL because it exceeded the FBI's limited authority to issue such demands to libraries."

• For the newly unsealed documents (still partially redacted)
  
• For more information about this case
  
• Related postings on National Security Letters

US Courts news release: "In fiscal year 2007, it cost $24,922 to keep someone incarcerated in a Federal Bureau of Prisons facility for 12 months, and $22,871 to keep an inmate incarcerated in a community correction center.

For the same 12-month period ending September 30, 2007, it cost $3,621.64 for a federal offender to be supervised by probation officers.

Those figures translate in daily costs of $68.28 for a Bureau of Prisons facility, $62.66 for a community correction center, and $9.92 for supervised release.

For criminal defendants who had not yet been tried, the daily cost of pretrial detention services was $64.40 and the cost of supervision by pretrial services officers was $5.85."

News release: "The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour has warmly welcomed the news that Ecuador on Thursday became the 20th country to ratify the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, with the result that the Convention and its Optional Protocol will now come into force one month later, on 3 May...The 50-article Convention fights discrimination in relation to a wide range of rights that are often not accorded to persons with disabilities, either deliberately or through neglect. These include the rights to education, health, work, adequate living conditions, freedom of movement, freedom from exploitation and equal recognition before the law. The Convention also addresses the need for persons with disabilities to have access to public transport, buildings and other facilities and recognizes their capacity to make decisions for themselves. Its Optional Protocol allows them to petition an international expert body."

• United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights resource page on Disability
  
• UN Human Rights Bodies - Mechanisms for the protection and promotion of human rights

US Courts: "The number of intercepted wire, oral or electronic communications — also known as wiretaps — authorized by federal and state courts in 2007 was 20 percent higher than in 2006. Courts issued 2,208 such orders in 2007, compared to 1,839 in 2006, according to The 2007 Wiretap Report.

The complete report contains information on interceptions concluded between January 1, 2007 and December 31, 2007. A summary of the authorized intercepts reported for calendar years 1997-2007 is available in Table 7."

EPIC: "According to the 2007 FISA report, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved 2,370 application to conduct electronic surveillance and physical searches in the United States in 2007, up from 2,176 applications approved in 2006. For the first time, the report includes information regarding the total number of requests made by the Department of Justice with National Security Letter authority for information concerning U.S. persons. in 2006, the government made approximately 12,583 NSL requests for information concerning 4,790 U.S. persons. The 2007 NSL statistics are expected later this year."

News release: "Chinese lawyers who take cases seen by the government as politically sensitive or potentially embarrassing face severe abuses ranging from harassment to disbarment and physical assaults, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today...The 142-page report, Walking on Thin Ice: Control, Intimidation and Harassment of Lawyers in China, details consistent patterns of abuses against legal practitioners. These include intimidation, harassment, suspension of professional licenses, disbarment, physical assaults, and even arrest and prosecution when lawyers take politically sensitive cases, seek redress for abuses of power and wrongdoings by party or government agents, or challenge local power-holders."

UK Guardian: "Airline passengers are to be screened with facial recognition technology rather than checks by passport officers, in an attempt to improve security and ease congestion..From summer, unmanned clearance gates will be phased in to scan passengers' faces and match the image to the record on the computer chip in their biometric passports. Border security officials believe the machines can do a better job than humans of screening passports and preventing identity fraud. The pilot project will be open to UK and EU citizens holding new biometric passports."

• UK Home Office: Consultation on the Delivery of the National Identity Scheme - "The purpose of this consultation is to help the Government to proceed with the implementation of National Identity Scheme, including the introduction of identity cards linked to a National Identity Register."
  
• Download the Consultation document
  
• Download the National identity Scheme Delivery Plan 2008

News release: "The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced today a notice of proposed rulemaking that will establish biometric exit procedures at all U.S air and sea ports of departure. The majority of non-U.S. citizens are already required to submit digital fingerprints and a digital photograph for admission into the country. The US-VISIT Exit proposal would require non-U.S. citizens who provide biometric identifiers for admission to also provide digital fingerprints when departing the country from any air or sea ports of departure."

Statement of Glenn A. Fine, Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice before the House Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties concerning “The FBI’s Use of National Security Letters and Section 215 Orders for Business Records”, April 15, 2008.

"The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group of the Human Rights Council has begun its first session, which runs from 7 to 18 April. At the end of the session, the UPR Working Group will issue reports on each of the 16 countries reviewed, containing, inter alia, an objective and transparent assessment of the human rights situation of the country, including positive developments and challenges; recommendations on best practices; provision of technical assistance, in consultation with, and with the consent of the State under review; and voluntary commitments and pledges made by the country concerned."

March 14, 2003 Memorandum for William J. Haynes IT, General Counsel of the Department of Defense Re: Military Interrogation of Alien Unlawful Combatants Held Outside the United States, Declassified under authority of Executive Order 1958 By Acting General Counsel, Department of Defense By Daniel Dell J.'Orto UNCLASSIFIED 31 March 2008. (81 pages, PDF)

Federal Compensation Programs: Perspectives on Four Programs for Individuals Injured by Exposure to Harmful Substances, by Anne-Marie F. Lasowski, acting director, education, workforce, and income security issues, before a joint hearing of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, and the Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law, House Committee on the Judiciary. GAO-08-628T, April 1, 2008.

BBC News: How the open net closed its doors - "Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering challenges the long-standing assumption that the internet is an unfettered space where citizens from around the world can freely communicate and mobilise. In fact, the book makes it clear that the scope, scale and sophistication of net censorship are growing."

RL34404 - Border Searches of Laptops and Other Electronic Storage Devices, March 05, 2008

PR Newswire: "Just two days after a new Washington Post national poll found that 59 percent of the American public supports restrictions identical to Washington, DC's gun laws -- which ban handgun possession and require that legally possessed rifles and shotguns be either disassembled or secured with a trigger lock -- the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled tomorrow to hear oral arguments in a case challenging DC's handgun ban, District of Columbia v. Heller. Reiterating the findings contained in its amicus brief filed in the case, the Violence Policy Center (VPC) warned that increasingly lethal handguns being marketed by the gun industry -- ranging from high-capacity semiautomatic handguns to next-generation assault pistols based on AK-47 and AR-15 assault rifles -- make the handgun ban today even more of a necessity to protect first responders and citizens in the nation's capital than when it was first enacted in 1976."

Department of Justice Office of Inspector General: A Review of the FBI’s Use of National Security Letters: Assessment of Corrective Actions and Examination of NSL Usage in 2006, March 2008, Unclassified, (187 pages, PDF)

Department of Justice Office of Inspector General: A Review of the FBI’s Use of Section 215 Orders for Business Records in 2006, March 2008, Unclassified (99 pages, PDF)

News release: "The political transition in strife-torn Afghanistan continues to face a number of serious challenges, including terrorism and a booming drug industry, according to a new United Nations report, which urges an integrated approach among all international partners to stabilize the fledgling democracy...The report notes that 36 out of the country’s 376 districts, including most districts in the east, southeast and south, remain largely inaccessible to Afghan officials and aid workers."

Follow up to previous postings on TSA's Total Information Awareness surveillance program, this news release today from the ACLU: "...According to the new Wall Street Journal report [subscription req'd], the NSA was engaging in broad domestic spying operations that involve collecting and analyzing the personal information of Americans in ways that are "essentially the same" as TIA. The elements that reportedly make up the new spying encompass a variety of mass surveillance and data mining programs about which the ACLU has previously warned..."

"Reporters Without Borders calls on Internet users to come and protest in virtual versions of countries that are Internet enemies...There are 15 countries in this year’s Reporters Without Borders list of “Internet Enemies” - Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Zimbabwe. There were only 13 in 2007. The two new additions to the traditional censors are both to be found in sub-Saharan Africa: Zimbabwe and Ethiopia...There is also a supplementary list of 11 “countries under watch.” They are Bahrain, Eritrea, Gambia, Jordan, Libya, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, United Arab Emirates and Yemen."

News release, Secretary Rice, March 11, 2008: "I am pleased today [to announce] the publication of the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2007. In every region of the world, men and women are working peacefully, and often at great risk to themselves and their families, to secure human rights and fundamental freedoms, to follow their consciences and speak their minds without fear, to choose those who would govern them and to hold their leaders accountable and to achieve equal justice under the law."

House Democratic Majority Leader/AP: "Locked in a standoff with the White House, House Democrats on Tuesday maintained their refusal to shield from civil lawsuits telecommunications companies that helped the government eavesdrop on their customers without a secret court's permission. But they offered the companies an olive branch: the chance to use classified government documents to defend themselves in court. House Democratic leaders unveiled a bill that they hoped would bridge the gap between the electronic surveillance bill passed by the Senate last month and a rival version the House approved last fall. Both bills are attempts to update the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the law that dictates when the government needs court permission to conduct electronic eavesdropping inside the United States. The law has taken on particular importance in the global effort to thwart terrorists since the 2001 attacks on the United States.

• Director of National Intelligence, March 11, 2008: "We understand that the leadership of the House of Representatives intends to introduce a new bill related to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA). Based on initial summaries of what the proposal contains, we are concerned that the proposal would not provide the Intelligence Community the critical tools needed to protect the country. The Senate already has passed a bipartisan bill that would give our intelligence professionals the tools they need to keep America safe. The bipartisan bill was carefully crafted to ensure important intelligence operations were not harmed by new legislation."


• ACLU - New FISA Compromise Is an Improvement, Still Raises Concerns: "While we still have concerns about aspects of the new House FISA bill, the American Civil Liberties Union is encouraged by the new draft – particularly the language on state secrets, which would allow the cases to go forward while allowing the telecommunications companies to assert any defenses. We commend House leadership for keeping the courthouse door open. And in particular, we applaud the House for refusing to adopt the overreaching FISA Amendments Act, which would give the executive branch carte blanche to wiretap on US soil and grant complete retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that facilitated years of illegal surveillance. We are also heartened by the role retained by the FISA court in overseeing the program as well as the two-year sunset on the legislation."

"Women have made great strides in the fight for equality, but gender bias continues to create huge barriers for many—especially immigrants, women of color, women with low incomes, and victims of domestic violence. Women's History Month draws attention to the women who have fought for the rights we have today, and at the same time highlights the ongoing struggles for women's equality, such as ensuring economic and educational opportunities for all women, ending violence against women, and addressing the harms to women and girls caught up in the criminal justice system. Since 1972 the ACLU Women's Rights Project has been working to systematically end discrimination against women and girls and to challenge the obstacles that prevent women and girls from participating fully in all aspects of society."

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime: Good Practices for the Protection of Witnesses in Criminal Proceedings Involving Organized Crime, January 2008.

Follow up to December 11, 2007 posting Retroactivity Approved for Crack Cocaine Guideline, from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts : "As of March 3, 2008, more than 21,000 inmates serving time for federal crimes involving crack cocaine will be eligible to have their sentences reduced. Federal courts already are preparing to rule on requests from inmates, some imprisoned since 1992...The USSC, an independent agency within the federal Judiciary, amended the Guidelines to lower the base offense level for crack cocaine by two levels. For example, the penalty for a first-time offender found with 10 grams of crack would be reduced by two levels, from a range of 63—78 months in prison to a range of 51—63 months."

Secrecy News: "The Office of the Director of National Intelligence provided an overview of U.S. intelligence data mining development programs in...Data Mining Report,” ODNI Report to Congress, February 15, 2008. Data mining is used by intelligence agencies to search through databases in order to discern patterns of activity that could indicate a threat to national security."

"This Registry of USG Recommended Biometric Standards (Registry) supplements the NSTC Policy for Enabling the Development, Adoption and Use of Biometric Standards. This Registry is based upon interagency consensus on biometric standards required to enable the interoperability of various Federal biometric applications, and to guide Federal agencies as they develop and implement related biometric programs. Version 1.0 of this Registry document is being presented to the public for review, with comments due by March 10, 2008. The Subcommittee will review all comments received, make necessary adjustments, and finalize the Registry through normal NSTC approval processes. The Subcommittee will continuously review the content of this document, and release updated versions as required to assist agencies in the implementation and reinforcement process of biometric standards to meet agency-specific mission needs."

DHS press releases, February 1, 2008: "The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced today that it has begun collecting additional fingerprints from international visitors arriving at Chicago O'Hare International Airport (O'Hare), Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (Hartsfield), and George Bush Houston Intercontinental Airport (Bush Intercontinental). The change is part of the department's upgrade from two- to 10-fingerprint collection to enhance security and facilitate legitimate travel by more accurately and efficiently establishing and verifying visitors' identities."

FindLaw: U.S. v. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, et al. (Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Feb. 11, 2008) - "The U.S. Department of Defense announced that six high-value detainees held in Guantanamo Bay were charged, under the Military Commissions Act, with planning and executing the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Specific charges include violations of the laws of war, attacking civilians, attacking civilian objects, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, destroying of property in violation of the laws of war, terrorism, and material support to terrorism."

• Update on Detainee Military Commissions - Brigadier General Thomas W. Hartmann, Legal Adviser to the Convening Authority, Department of Defense, Office of Military Commissions, Foreign Press Center Briefing, Washington, DC, February 11, 2008


• DOD Transcript, Sept. 11 Co-Conspirators Charged, February 11, 2008


• CIA Director's Statement on 9/11 War Crimes Charges

Press release: "Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who also sits on the panel, sent a letter Thursday urging Attorney General Michael Mukasey to clarify testimony given to the Committee during last week’s Department of Justice oversight hearing. In the letter, they ask the Attorney General to explain the scope of the Department’s investigation into the CIA’s destruction of videotapes showing the use of harsh interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, of al Qaeda terrorist suspects."

"A joint project of the Center for Democracy & Technology and the Progress & Freedom Foundation tracks more than 30 pieces of federal legislation that seek to protect children online, some of which pose serious threats to free speech. The reports released today summarize and categorize child online safety bills introduced in the 110th Congress, analyze free speech implications of key bills, and provide recommendations to Congress on how it can promote child online safety without impinging on First Amendment rights. February 06, 2008."

News.com: "Real ID's scope is surprisingly broad. Jurors could potentially be denied entrance to federal courthouses. So could prospective students visiting the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis or the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Tours of federal buildings such as the Pentagon and the Treasury Department could be affected, as could public hearings, conferences, and even concerts. And some Americans could be denied entrance to the U.S. Capitol building, the iconic heart of the nation's democracy...Starting May 11, unless your home state agrees to comply with the federal Real ID Act or unless it asks for an extension, you might have trouble getting into federal buildings. Click a state [interactive map include in this article] to see what that state has told us about whether or not its ID cards will meet Real ID requirements."

In a statement to the House of Commons, the PM said that the Government would look at ways of using intercept evidence as advised by the Chilcot Report. Guidelines would be drawn up to ensure that the interests of national security were never compromised, he said. The PM said:

"The use of intercept in evidence characterises a centraldilemma we face as a free society - that of preserving our liberties and the rule of law, while at the same time keeping our nation safe and secure. [The Chilcot Report - see text below] concludes that it should be possible to find a way to use some intercept material as evidence, provided - and only provided - that certain key conditions can be met. These conditions relate to the most vital imperative of all - that of safeguarding our national security. The Government accepts this recommendation - and takes the accompanying conditions very seriously."

What are Human Rights? Human Rights as Membership Rights in the Global Order, By Mathias Risse, Working Paper Number: RWP08-006. Submitted: 02/01/2008. Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.

REAL ID: What Should Congress Do Now? - CDT Analysis of the REAL ID Act and the Department of Homeland Security’s Final Regulations, February 1, 2008.

Second Annual Report to Congress, January 30, 2008 (36 pages, PDF): "As the efforts of the current Board come to a close, the Members wish to acknowledge and thank the many thousands of dedicated men and women in the Federal government whose responsibility it is to protect the homeland against terrorism consistent with the Constitution. We have been privileged to observe their training on the importance of privacy and civil liberties and witness their work first hand. The development of a privacy and civil liberties oversight infrastructure within the Federal government, as envisioned by IRTPA, is important. But nothing can substitute for the uncompromising daily commitment these individuals make to their jobs and Constitutional principles."

EPIC: "In a report that will appear in IEEE Security & Privacy, leading experts in computer security warn that legislation now under consideration in the Senate could make the United States vulnerable to attack. The paper Risking Communications security: Potential hazards of the Protect America Act warns that warrantless wiretapping creates creates serious security risks, including "danger of exploitation of the system by unauthorized users, danger of criminal misuse by trusted insiders, and danger of misuse by government agents."

"The Office for Victims of Crime has released the 2008 Resource Guide for National Crime Victims' Rights Week, April 13–19, 2008. Developed to help communities promote awareness of victim issues, this online guide includes camera-ready art files, public awareness posters, the 2008 theme DVD and screensaver, and more. The 2008 theme is "Justice for Victims. Justice for All." (NCJ 220102)

CDT Comments to DHS on Developing CCTV Best Practices, January 18, 2008: "As the December 17-18, 2007 workshop on Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) made clear, there are many good CCTV “best practices” that have been developed by organizations such as The Constitution Project, ACLU, the American Bar Association, the governments of Canada and the United Kingdom, and even the U.S. Park Police. CDT supports these efforts but believes an equally important question is, how can the public be assured that video surveillance “best practices” are being implemented in localities where federal homeland security funds are spent?"

"In comments filed [January 15, 2008]with the Department of Homeland Security, EPIC detailed its "Framework for Protecting Privacy & Civil Liberties If CCTV Systems Are Contemplated." EPIC explained that it "does not support the creation nor the expansion of video surveillance systems, because their limited benefits do not outweigh their enormous monetary and social costs." EPIC's guidelines explain that (1) alternatives to CCTV are preferred; (2) there must be a demonstrated need for the system; (3) the public and privacy and security experts must be consulted before the system is created; (4) Fair Information Practices Privacy Act of 1974, the 1980 OECD Privacy Guidelines and the Video Voyeurism Act. See EPIC's page on Video Surveillance."

U.S. Office of Special Counsel - No FEAR Act Report: Equal Employment Opportunity Data Fiscal Year 2007

Press release, January 11, 2009: "One of the biggest concerns we’ve had for the last several years, one we continue to have at the Department of Homeland Security, is how do we promote a secure form of identification across America? And Congress has spoken to this by passing the REAL ID Act several years ago, which provides that we have the obligation to set uniform security standards for the issuance of state driver’s licenses. When we went back and investigated the 9/11 attacks, one of the things which we found, and which the 9/11 Commission found, was that all but one of the hijackers carried a government-issued identification form – mostly driver’s licenses. And this government-issued ID helped the hijackers board airplanes, or remain in the country illegally. That’s why the 9/11 Commission recommended that we enhance the security of our driver’s licenses as a counterterrorism measure. And that’s why Congress set higher standards for driver’s licenses in the REAL ID Act. That’s also why the American people overwhelmingly support more security for driver’s licenses."

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Management of Confidential Case Funds and Telecommunication Costs, Audit Report 08-03, January 2008, For Public Release.

"Individuals from an ever widening range of groups in Iran are subject to arrest on security grounds for political activism and peaceful dissent against the government. Those arrested are frequently detained in facilities operating outside the regular prison administration, most notoriously in Section 209 of Tehran’s Evin Prison, where they may be subjected to torture and abusive interrogation. After weeks or months the authorities frequently release those held on conditional bail or a suspended prison sentence, using the ever-present threat of a return to jail to intimidate them against further activism or open dissent."

Fact Sheet: U.S.-Libya Science and Technology Cooperation: Bilateral Framework Science and Technology Cooperation Agreements

"On 10 December, Human Rights Day, the Secretary-General launched a year-long campaign in which all parts of the United Nations family take part in the lead up to the 60th birthday of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) on Human Rights Day 2008. The UDHR continues to hold the world record as the most translated document. With more than 360 language versions to help them, UN organizations around the globe will use the year to focus on helping people everywhere to learn about their human rights. The UDHR was the first international recognition that all human beings have fundamental rights and freedoms and it continues to be a living and relevant document today."

"...the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA) provides that United States citizens and nonimmigrant aliens may enter the United States only with passports or such alternative documents as the Secretary of Homeland Security may designate as satisfactorily establishing identity and citizenship... The vicinity RFID electronic chip contains only one item of information--a unique identifying number that has meaning only inside the secure CBP computer system. No other form of personally identifiable information, such as name, date of birth, SSN, place of birth etc., will be electronically stored on the passport card or transmitted through RFID. All personal information will be contained in DHS systems and will only be accessible by authorized personnel through secure networks. Upon receipt of the passport card number, the border crosser's personal information will be downloaded from the CBP system and provided to the CBP officer. The CBP officer will then interview the individual, verify their identities, and determine the appropriate action to take. The WHTI passport card approach was not designed to be an automated system, and the use of vicinity RFID technology in this final rule reflects this reality. Rather, the RFID-based approach allows the CBP officers to do their jobs better and faster." [Federal Register: December 31, 2007 (Volume 72, Number 249)][Rules and Regulations][Page 74169-74173]

"Each year since 1997, the US-based Electronic Privacy Information Center and the UK-based Privacy International have undertaken what has now become the most comprehensive survey of global privacy ever published. The Privacy & Human Rights Report surveys developments in 70 countries, assessing the state of surveillance and privacy protection. The most recent report published in 2007 is probably the most comprehensive single volume report published in the human rights field. The report runs over 1,100 pages and includes 6,000 footnotes. More than 200 experts from around the world have provided materials and commentary. The participants range from eminent privacy scholars to high-level officials charged with safeguarding constitutional freedoms in their countries. Academics, human rights advocates, journalists and researchers provided reports, insight, documents and advice. In 2006 Privacy International took the decision to use this annual report as the basis for a ranking assessment of the state of privacy in all EU countries together with eleven non-EU benchmark countries."

"The Department of Homeland Security released grant guidance and application kits for two grant programs totaling more than $35 million to help states prepare to implement REAL ID provisions that require a standard format for state-issued driver's licenses. The REAL ID Demonstration Grant Program will provide $31.3 million in grants to the states to check motor vehicle records in other states to ensure drivers don't have multiple licenses, and to verify immigration status against federal records. It will help standardize methods by which states may seamlessly verify an applicant's information with another state and deploy verification capabilities that can be used by all states, while protecting personal identification information."

"The State of the World's Children 2007 (160 pages, PDF) examines the discrimination and disempowerment women face throughout their lives - and outlines what must be done to eliminate gender discrimination and empower women and girls. It looks at the status of women today, discusses how gender equality will move all the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) forward, and shows how investment in women's rights will ultimately produce a double dividend: advancing the rights of both women and children."

White House: "S. 888, the Genocide Accountability Act of 2007, which expands criminal liability for participation in acts of genocide committed outside of the United States to persons not covered by current criminal law..."

New York Times, Hoover Planned Mass Jailings in 1950: "A newly declassified document shows that J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had a plan to suspend habeas corpus and imprison some 12,000 Americans he suspected of disloyalty. Hoover sent his plan to the White House on July 7, 1950, 12 days after the Korean War began. It envisioned putting suspect Americans in military prisons. Hoover wanted President Harry S. Truman to proclaim the mass arrests necessary to “protect the country against treason, espionage and sabotage.” The F.B.I would “apprehend all individuals potentially dangerous” to national security, Hoover’s proposal said. The arrests would be carried out under “a master warrant attached to a list of names” provided by the bureau."

Washington Post: "The FBI is embarking on a $1 billion effort to build the world's largest computer database of peoples' physical characteristics, a project that would give the government unprecedented abilities to identify individuals in the United States and abroad. Digital images of faces, fingerprints and palm patterns are already flowing into FBI systems in a climate-controlled, secure basement here. Next month, the FBI intends to award a 10-year contract that would significantly expand the amount and kinds of biometric information it receives. And in the coming years, law enforcement authorities around the world will be able to rely on iris patterns, face-shape data, scars and perhaps even the unique ways people walk and talk, to solve crimes and identify criminals and terrorists. The FBI will also retain, upon request by employers, the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks so the employers can be notified if employees have brushes with the law."

Press release: "[December 17, 2007] House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) sent a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey reiterating the Chairman's request to have a Department of Justice representative testify at Thursday's hearing on the Applicability of Federal Criminal Laws to the Interrogation of Detainees. Congressional leaders have already criticized the Department's refusal to provide any information about the CIA's destruction of interrogation videotapes and attempts to delay legislative inquiries into the matter. As Chairman Conyers' letter points out, the pending Justice Department investigation "should not be used as a shield against proper and necessary oversight."

"The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has received a second set of records from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) detailing behind-the-scenes briefings for lawmakers working to make substantial changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). EFF requested release of the records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) earlier this year...Last month, a federal judge ordered ODNI to release all documents by December 10. The first batch of records, made public on November 30, detailed contentious negotiations between Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and members of Congress that resulted in the passage of the Protect America Act...The second set of records contains more correspondence between McConnell and members of Congress, as well as heavily redacted versions of classified testimony delivered to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and an FAQ detailing how the National Security Agency performs electronic surveillance. Withheld records include ODNI presentation slides used to brief Congress on foreign intelligence issues, and other classified documents."

Trafficking in human beings: Internet recruitment. Misuse of the Internet for the recruitment of victims of trafficking in human beings, prepared by Athanassia P. Sykiotou, Lecturer in Criminology, Faculty of Law, Democritus University of Thrace (Greece). Directorate General of Human Rights and Legal Affairs Council of Europe 2007. (150 pages, PDF)

Follow up to Conyers, House Judiciary Members Question CIA, DOJ on Destroyed Interrogation Tapes, from the New York Times: Inquiry Begins Into Tapes’ Destruction: "The Justice Department and the Central Intelligence Agency’s internal watchdog on Saturday began a joint preliminary inquiry into the spy agency’s destruction of hundreds of hours of videotapes showing interrogations of top operatives of Al Qaeda. The announcement comes amid new questions about which officials inside the C.I.A. were involved in the decision to destroy the videotapes, which showed severe interrogation methods used on two Qaeda suspects, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. The agency operative who ordered the destruction of the tapes in November 2005 was Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., then the chief of the C.I.A.’s national clandestine service, known as the Directorate of Operations until 2005. On Saturday, a government official who had spoken recently with Mr. Rodriguez on the matter said that Mr. Rodriguez told him that he had received approval from lawyers inside the clandestine service to destroy the tapes."

Follow up to December 6, 2007 posting, Report: CIA Destroyed Videos of Interrogations, this press release: "Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) and Reps. Robert Scott, William Delahunt and Jerrold Nadler sent letters to Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Gen. Michael Hayden and Attorney General Michael Mukasey requesting details about today's reports that the CIA destroyed videotapes of interrogation activities. In particular, the members ask whether the Justice Department knew about the tapes and their destruction and whether Justice will now investigate the matter. The letters are linked...below."

A Report of the California Alliance to Combat Trafficking and Slavery (CA ACTS) Task Force

New York Times: "The Central Intelligence Agency in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody, a step it took in the midst of Congressional and legal scrutiny about its secret detention program, according to current and former government officials...The destruction of the tapes raises questions about whether agency officials withheld information from Congress, the courts and the Sept. 11 commission about aspects of the program."

Legislative Text of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Substitution Act of 2007, S. 2402, introduced by Arlen Specter, December 3, 2007.

U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, filed November 23. 2007, ACLU v DHS: Proposed Order Granting Defendants’ Motion to Stay Proceeding Pending New Rulemaking.

Pretrial Release of Felony Defendants in State Courts, November 2007: "Presents findings on the pretrial release phase of the criminal justice process using data collected from a representative sample of felony cases filed in the 75 largest U.S. counties in May during even-numbered years from 1990 to 2004. It includes trends on pretrial release rates and the types of release used. Pretrial release rates are compared by arrest offense, demographic characteristics, and criminal history. Characteristics of released and detained defendants are also presented. Rates of pretrial misconduct including failure to appear and rearrest are presented by type of release, demographic characteristics, and criminal history."

"Liberty (The National Council for Civil Liberties) is one of the UK’s leading civil liberties and human rights organisations. Liberty works to promote human rights and protect civil liberties through a combination of test case litigation, lobbying, campaigning and research."

"Hundreds of defendants sitting in prisons nationwide have been convicted with the help of an FBI forensic tool that was discarded more than two years ago. But the FBI lab has yet to take steps to alert the affected defendants or courts, even as the window for appealing convictions is closing, a joint investigation by The Washington Post and "60 Minutes" has found."

AP: "Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information...Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation...said Kerr ignores the distinction between sacrificing protection from an intrusive government and voluntarily disclosing information in exchange for a service."

• Military Personnel: Federal Agencies Have Taken Actions to Address Servicemembers' Employment Rights, but a Single Entity Needs to Maintain Visibility to Improve Focus on Overall Program Results, GAO-08-254T, November 08, 2007
• Terrorist Watch List Screening: Recommendations to Promote a Comprehensive and Coordinated Approach to Terrorist-Related Screening, GAO-08-253T, November 08, 2007.
  • Related posting: Complaints Mount as Errors in Terror Watch List Grow
  Permanent Link

Press release: "In a letter sent Wednesday to White House Counsel Fred Fielding, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) again requested legal memoranda outlining the White House’s justifications and policies on torture and interrogation. Such documents have long been requested but not provided. The New York Times recently reported on two secret 2005 memoranda that reversed government policy to allow combinations of extreme techniques, and this week in a court filing the Government conceded there were three such memoranda."

Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearing, The Role of Local Law Enforcement in Countering Violent Islamist Extremism, October 30, 2007.

• Cultural Challenges in Cross Border Mediation, by Vikrant Singh Negi
• Persuading Judges in Writing: Tips for Lawyers (And how technology can help), by Troy Simpson
• Competitive Intelligence on a Shoestring, by Susan Armstrong and Sabrina I. Pacifici
• E-Discovery Update: Discovery of Employee-Owned Computer Equipment, by Conrad J. Jacoby
• The Government Domain: Journalists and Government Information: SLA-DGI/GODORT Joint Meeting, by Peggy Garvin
• FOIA Facts - FOIA Litigation: When A Loss Isn't Always A Loss, by Scott A. Hodes
• LLRX Book Review by Heather A. Phillips - Nation of Secrets and Presidential Secrecy and the Law
• CongressLine by GalleryWatch.com: Lobbying and Ethics Rules, by Paul Jenks
• After Hours: Recommended Reading, by Kathy Biehl
• Rule the Web, by Julia Wotipka
• Commentary: Congress Looks Again at FISA, by Beth Wellington

American Bar Assocation Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project releases the Pennsylvania Death Penalty Report, October 28, 2007. Related documents are as follows:

• Executive Summary of the Pennsylvania Death Penalty Report


• Full Pennsylvania Death Penalty Assessment Report


• Pennsylvania Death Penalty Assessment Guide


• Pennsylvania Death Penalty Assesment Team Biographies


• Fact Sheet: Problems with Pennsylvania's Death Penalty System and Recommendations for Reform


• Compliance Charts: Pennsylvania's Compliance with ABA Recommendations


• Frequently Asked Questions

Senate Intelligence Committee, S. Rpt. 110-209, Report to Accompany FISA Amendments Act of 2007.

Follow up to previous postings on the nomination of Michael B. Mukasey to be Attorney General, today's press release provides additional documents: Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) Friday released written questions and correspondence submitted for the record to Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey. Consistent with standard committee practice, Senators were given a week to submit written follow-up questions to the nominee. The written queries focus on topics addressed in the two days of Judge Mukasey’s confirmation hearings -- including torture policy and the warrantless wiretapping program – as well as other subjects."

Press release, October 18, 2007: "Senator Jay Rockefeller and Senator Kit Bond, Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee...announced that the Senate Intelligence Committee passed legislation to modernize FISA. The bill, which passed by a strong bipartisan vote, will improve the recently enacted Protect America Act that aimed to fix collection problems related to foreign intelligence surveillance."

Press release: "Three telecommunications companies have provided responses to inquiries by the Committee on Energy and Commerce about their involvement with the National Security Agency warrantless wiretapping program. On October 2, Rep. John D. Dingell (D-MI), Chairman of the Committee, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, and Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, sent letters to AT&T, Verizon and Qwest, requesting that the telecommunications companies provide details on the reported efforts by government agencies to obtain information about customers’ telephone and Internet use."

Press release: "New documents uncovered as a result of an American Civil Liberties Union and New York Civil Liberties Union lawsuit reveal that the Department of Defense secretly issued hundreds of national security letters (NSLs) to obtain private and sensitive records of people within the United States without court approval. A comprehensive analysis of 455 NSLs issued after 9/11 shows that the Defense Department seems to have collaborated with the FBI to circumvent the law, may have overstepped its legal authority to obtain financial and credit records, provided misleading information to Congress, and silenced NSL recipients from speaking out about the records requests, according to the ACLU...All of the Defense Department documents obtained by the ACLU are available here."

Press release: "Project Vote releases a report today, Representational Bias in the 2006 Electorate, by Douglas Hess that finds a continuing problem with the U.S. electorate: those who are registered and vote are not representative of the overall U.S. population eligible to vote. The proportion of the U.S. population that registers to vote and that does vote is highly skewed towards Whites, the educated and the wealthy. Furthermore, young eligible Americans, particularly young minority males, and those who have recently moved, are disproportionately represented among those who do not participate in the U.S. electorate."

Follow up to October 9, 2007 posting, Conyers, Reyes Introduce FISA Revision Legislation, today's press release: "The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence voted 12-7 today to send the RESTORE Act (H.R. 3773) to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives for consideration."

Press release: "Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) and Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) introduced The Responsible Electronic Surveillance that is Overseen, Reviewed, and Effective Act of 2007 – the RESTORE Act,in an effort to address concerns about civil liberty protections in the hastily-enacted Protect America Act that was signed into law in early August. The RESTORE ACT restores court oversight of intelligence gathering by requiring that electronic surveillance programs be approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court, mandating that FISA warrants be obtained when the government wants to undertake surveillance of persons in the US, and authorizing continued oversight of programs by the Court, Congress, and independent auditors."

US Courts: "The Judicial Conference has expressed concerns about proposed regulations issued by the Department of Justice for states seeking to qualify for expedited federal habeas corpus review procedures in capital cases. Concerns about the certification-implementation regulations proposed June 6, 2007, were aired in an August 1 letter from the Conference to DOJ. In 1996, Congress enacted Chapter 154 of the U.S. Code’s Title 28 as part of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA). Chapter 154 provides for expedited procedures in federal capital habeas corpus cases when a state is able to establish that it has provided qualified, competent, adequately resourced, and adequately compensated counsel in state post-conviction proceedings to inmates facing a capital sentence...In its letter, the Conference urged DOJ to revise the proposed regulations to provide definitions of “standards of competency,” “competent counsel,” “compensation of appointed counsel,” and “reasonable litigation expenses.” The Conference noted that “[s]uch definitions are needed to provide guidance, criteria, or other notice of what a state must do to satisfy the statutory or regulatory requirements."

Press release: "Today the National Security Archive publishes a collection [links to 41 documents accompany this release] of documents concerning U.S. policy with regard to acknowledging the "fact of" U.S. satellite reconnaissance operations – particularly satellite photoreconnaissance. It was 29 years ago today that President Jimmy Carter, in a speech at the Kennedy Space Center, acknowledged that the U.S. was operating photoreconnaissance satellites...The documents published include memos stating the positions of various individuals and institutions on the issue in both the Nixon and Carter administrations, assessments of the risks and benefits of declassification, an assessment of the reactions to President Carter’s disclosure, and presidential directives from the Carter, Reagan and Clinton administrations specifying the classification associated with the "fact of" different types of satellite reconnaissance."

Press release: "In celebration of International Right to Know Day the National Security Archive's Mexico Project is launching a new Web site dedicated to its Transparency and Freedom of Information Program. The Web site features a new publication on the week-long media initiative Mexico Abierto, which launched its first edition during the week of March 11-17 of this year. With our partners at the Consejo Ciudadano del Premio Nacional de Periodismo, we are now preparing for the second edition that will be celebrated in March 2008. The Web site also includes a multi-media section with pictures, news publications and video clips of forums and delegations in Mexico. The Archive's Mexico Project has been actively involved in the movement for freedom of information rights in Mexico since 2001--a struggle which achieved its first success with the enactment of a landmark freedom of information statute in June 2002. The project supports the work of citizens' groups promoting greater transparency, openness and accountability in government. To this end, the Archive works closely with scholars, lawyers, freedom of information activists, NGOs, human rights groups and the press to design strategies for advancing the people's right to know in Mexico."

Press release: "A new First Report from the First Amendment Center examines the Federal Communications Commission's efforts to regulate indecency on the air. The FCC's Regulation of Indecency (115 pages, PDF), by Lili Levi, a law professor at the University of Miami School of Law, analyzes crucial cases involving broadcasts of speech or images deemed offensive enough to draw regulatory attention."

EFF: "Today, Judge Ann Aiken of the Oregon Federal District Court ruled that two provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), "50 U.S.C. §§ 1804 and 1823, as amended by the Patriot Act, are unconstitutional because they violate the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution."

Hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on “Strengthening FISA: Does the Protect America Act Protect Americans' Civil Liberties and Enhance Security?” Tuesday, September 25, 2007. [Link to witness statements]

U.S. Courts: "This package of First Amendment cases provides examples of the six pillars of the First Amendment considered the foundation of the Constitution. Each freedom – religion, speech, press, assembly, petition, and association – is illustrated by a high-profile case that has an impact on today's teens. These cases are presented in a way that prepares students to explore the issues in a variety of formats in a courtroom – as a civil discussion, an Oxford style debate, a Supreme Court oral argument, or a Supreme Court case conference after oral arguments."

Newsweek, Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball, Sept. 20, 2007 - "The nation’s biggest telecommunications companies, working closely with the White House, have mounted a secretive lobbying campaign to get Congress to quickly approve a measure wiping out all private lawsuits against them for assisting the U.S. intelligence community’s warrantless surveillance programs. The campaign—which involves some of Washington's most prominent lobbying and law firms—has taken on new urgency in recent weeks because of fears that a U.S. appellate court in San Francisco is poised to rule that the lawsuits should be allowed to proceed. If that happens, the telecom companies say, they may be forced to terminate their cooperation with the U.S. intelligence community—or risk potentially crippling damage awards for allegedly turning over personal information about their customers to the government without a judicial warrant."

House Judiciary Committee Hearing on Warrantless Surveillance and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act: The Role of Checks and Balances in Protecting Americans’ Privacy Rights (Part II). Statements of Mike McConnell, Director of National Intelligence and Kenneth Wainstein, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, United States Department of Justice.

"Today the National Security Archive publishes a collection of documents concerning the organization and operations of the Pentagon's Counterintelligence Field Activity and the TALON/CORNERSTONE database it has maintained. As the Defense Department announced on August 21, today that database will be terminated while work on new procedures for reporting of threats to the Defense Department and its facilities continues. In the interim, threat reports will be transmitted to the FBI. The declassified documents published today include the key Department of Defense directive on the collection of information about Americans, as well as documents on the organization and missions of CIFA, an evaluation of charges of mismanagement by CIFA executives, and examples of data collected about protest activities as part of the Threat And Local Observation Notice (TALON) system. Central to the collection are the documents that show the internal and public response by the Defense Department to questions raised about the propriety of the data base - specifically, its collection and retention of data on political protests. Also, included is a DoD Inspector General report on the operation of the TALON system, identifying a number of problems in operation of the system."

"The General Assembly [September 13, 2007] adopted a landmark declaration outlining the rights of the world’s estimated 370 million indigenous people and outlawing discrimination against them – a move that followed more than two decades of debate. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples has been approved after 143 Member States voted in favour, 11 abstained and four – Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States – voted against the text. A non-binding text, the Declaration sets out the individual and collective rights of indigenous peoples, as well as their rights to culture, identity, language, employment, health, education and other issues."

Via EFF - "How National Security Letters Violate Our Privacy: The 26-minute video, also available on DVD, explores the repercussions of the FBI's power to demand hundreds of thousands of Americans' private records without any oversight by a court or Congress. Two former Department of Justice (DOJ) officials, Lisa Graves [bio] and Bruce Fein [bio], share their views on how the expanded, unchecked power threatens Americans' privacy and diverts resources from genuine threats. George Christian of Library Connection gives his unique perspective as an NSL recipient who challenged the letter he received and the accompanying, permanent gag order. Christian and three of his colleagues are the only people, out of thousands of NSL recipients, who can legally talk about that experience. The video opens a window onto one of several controversial post-9/11 expansions of executive branch powers. BORDC hopes local showings of the video will open a dialogue nationwide about whether the power needs to be curbed to protect U.S. residents' constitutional rights."

Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Confronting the Terrorist Threat to the Homeland: Six Years After 9/11, September 10, 2007.

Witnesses Testimony

House Committee on Homeland Security, Turning Spy Satellites on the Homeland: the Privacy and Civil Liberties Implications of the National Applications Office [Links to Witness Statements] Thursday, September 06, 2007

Press release: "The Congressional Anti-Semitism Task Force will provide insights into the depth and effects of anti-Semitism worldwide..."The Task Force's primary role is to bring to light specific cases of anti-Semitism and educate Members of Congress, world leaders and citizens about the horrors that these cases pose on society. The task force, the initiative of Human Rights Caucus co-chairman Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), will be chaired by U.S. Reps. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) and Ron Klein (D-Fla.)."

Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, Audit Division: Follow-Up Audit of the Terrorist Screening Center, Audit Report 07-41, September 2007, Redacated for Public Release, (106 pages, PDF)

ACLU press release: "A federal court today struck down the amended Patriot Act's National Security Letter (NSL) provision. The law has permitted the FBI to issue NSLs demanding private information about people within the United States without court approval, and to gag those who receive NSLs from discussing them. The court found that the gag power was unconstitutional and that because the statute prevented courts from engaging in meaningful judicial review of gags, it violated the First Amendment and the principle of separation of powers."

Remarks of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales Announcing His Resignation, Washington, DC - August 27, 2007

Washington Post: Terror Suspect List Yields Few Arrests - 20,000 Detentions in '06 Rile Critics: "The government's terrorist screening database flagged Americans and foreigners as suspected terrorists almost 20,000 times last year. But only a small fraction of those questioned were arrested or denied entry into the United States, raising concerns among critics about privacy and the list's effectiveness...The database is maintained by the Terrorist Screening Center, a joint operation between the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. Rick Kopel, the TSC's deputy director, called it "one of the best things the government has been able to accomplish since 9/11."

The Wall Street Journal today reported that House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff stating the intention to conduct careful oversight over the fall 2007 launch of the National Applications Office (NAO). This program's use of "spy satellites for domestic homeland security and law enforcement purposes" has raised civil liberties and privacy issues.

Transcript: Debate on the foreign intelligence surveillance act, by Chris Roberts, El Paso Times: The following is the transcript of a question and answer session with National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell, published August 22, 2007.

Proclamation by the President: Constitution Day and Citizenship Day, Constitution Week, 2007 - "On Constitution Day and Citizenship Day and during Constitution Week, we celebrate the anniversary of our Nation's Constitution and honor the Framers who created the landmark document that continues to guide our Nation.

In the summer of 1787, delegates convened in Philadelphia to create "a more perfect Union" and craft the document that is the foundation of our country. With great diligence, they worked to develop a framework that would balance authority and inherent freedoms, Federal interests and State powers, individual rights and national unity. On September 17th of the same year, the delegates signed the Constitution of the United States.

Today, every American shares in this legacy of liberty, and we are grateful for the courage, conviction, and sacrifice of all those who have helped preserve and uphold the principles of a free society. As we remember the enduring importance of the Constitution, we also recognize our responsibility as citizens to respect and defend the values of our founding and participate in the unfolding story of freedom."

Press release: "DoD’s Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA) will close the TALON Reporting System effective Sept. 17, 2007, and maintain a record copy of the collected data in accordance with intelligence oversight requirements. To ensure there is a mechanism in place to document and assess potential threats to DoD resources, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Americas’ Security Affairs will propose a system to streamline such threat reporting and better meet the Defense department’s needs."

Follow up to previous posting on the government's domestic surveillance program, today's Statement of Senator Patrick Leahy, Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee, On The Bush Administration’s Failure To Comply With Subpoenas For Warrantless Wiretapping Documents, August 20, 2007: "Today was the deadline for the Administration to comply with the Judiciary Committee’s subpoenas for documents related to the legal justifications for and President’s authorization of the warrantless wiretapping program. The Administration failed to adequately comply, despite our granting an extension of more than a month past the original return date. The Administration has produced no documents, no adequate basis for noncompliance, no privilege claims, and no complete privilege log."

Related news and government documents:

EPIC: "The biometrics program manager in Iraq this week expressed concern that the database containing biometrics and secret files on thousand of Iraqis could "become a hit list if it gets in the wrong hands." According to Lt. Col. Velliquette, the Iraqi system has approximately 750,000 records in its database. Earlier, EPIC, Privacy International, and Human Rights Watch wrote to the US Defense Secretary to warn that the system will lead to reprisals and further killings. For more information, see Transcript of "The Role of Biometrics in Counterinsurgency," blogs at Harpers and Wired, and the EPIC Iraq Biometric Identification System page."

Press release: "The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) National Applications Office (NAO) is the executive agent to facilitate the use of intelligence community technological assets for civil, homeland security and law enforcement purposes within the United States. The office will begin initial operation by fall 2007 and will build on the long-standing work of the Civil Applications Committee, which was created in 1974 to facilitate the use of the capabilities of the intelligence community for civil, non-defense uses in the United States...As a principal interface between the Intelligence Community and the Civil Applications, Homeland Security and Law Enforcement Domains, the National Applications Office will provide more robust access to needed remote sensing information to appropriate customers.."

WSJ: "The U.S.'s top intelligence official has greatly expanded the range of federal and local authorities who can get access to information from the nation's vast network of spy satellites in the U.S. The decision, made three months ago by Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell, places for the first time some of the U.S.'s most powerful intelligence-gathering tools at the disposal of domestic security officials. The move was authorized in a May 25 memo sent to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff asking his department to facilitate access to the spy network on behalf of civilian agencies and law enforcement."

LA Times: "The Justice Department is putting the final touches on regulations that could give Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales important new sway over death penalty cases in California and other states, including the power to shorten the time that death row inmates have to appeal convictions to federal courts. The rules implement a little-noticed provision in last year's reauthorization of the Patriot Act that gives the attorney general the power to decide whether individual states are providing adequate counsel for defendants in death penalty cases. The authority has been held by federal judges."

The Law Library of Congress is pleased to announce the following new resource: Webcast: A Panel Discussion - "Torture, Detainees, & the U.S. Military" [via Emily Carr/Law Library of Congress]
TITLE: A Panel Discussion: "Torture, Detainees, and the U.S. Military"
SPEAKERS: Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, United States Army; Brigadier General James C. Walker, United States Marine Corps; Ms. Jacki Northam, National Public Radio Correspondent; Professor Gary Solis, Law Library Scholar in Residence; Mr. Lee A. Casey, Baker Hostetler
EVENT DATE: July 11, 2007
RUNNING TIME: 1:31:03
DESCRIPTION: On July 11, 2007, The Law Library of Congress hosted its first program in its new multimedia room. Law Library Scholar in Residence, Gary Solis, moderated the panel discussion touching upon several current topics of national interest and concern: Guantanamo; "high value" detainees; military commissions; fair trials; and allegations of torture by agents of the U.S., including military personnel. With their extensive personal involvement in combatant operations, expertise in legal issues relating to prisoner torture and mistreatment, and their association with legislative concerns, the panelists provided tremendous insight to these timely subjects. The discussion was followed by a questions and answer session with the audience."

Explain Independence of the Judiciary in Words that People Can Understand - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer tells ABA opening assembly, August 11, 2007 - Video / Audio

Understanding Privacy -- and the Real Threats to It, August 4, 2007 (20 pages, PDF), by Jim Harper, the editor of Privacilla.org and director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute.

Press release: "In a trend that could substantially benefit Internet users, the largest Internet search companies are beginning to aggressively compete with one another to offer stronger privacy protections, according to a report published today by the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT). Until recently, most of the major Internet search engines kept detailed -- and potentially personally identifiable -- records of their customers' searches for as long as they deemed them useful, which generally meant indefinitely. In a string of recent announcements, the companies announced steps they were taking to delete old user data, strip the personally identifiable information out of stored search records, and, in one case, give users the option to have all of their search records deleted. CDT's Search Privacy Practices report details and compares the revamped privacy policies of the five largest search providers and offers recommendations for both the industry and lawmakers for how to strengthen privacy protections even further."

Follow-up to August 6, 2007 posting - Questions and Answers on the Protect America Act of 2007 - today's related press release on the bill President Bush signed into law on August 5, 2007: "U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) yesterday asked for and received a letter from Admiral Mike McConnell [text of which is included in this release], Director of National Intelligence, detailing assurances he made to Senators on Friday evening that temporary modifications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act will not infringe on the rights of Americans."

Follow-up to August 5, 2007 posting - Bill to Amend Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Ready for President's Signature - today's FAQ: How far does the new wiretap law go? by Declan McCullagh - "Over strong objections from civil liberties groups and many Democrats, legislators voted over the weekend to temporarily rewrite a 1978 wiretapping law that the Bush administration claimed was hindering antiterrorism investigations."

Related government documents:

Report to Congress on Implementation of Section 1001 of the USA PATRIOT Act (as required by Section 1001(3) of Public Law 107-56), Special Report, August 3, 2007- Office of the Inspector General [PDF or HTML]

U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission Hearing on Access to Information in the People's Republic of China, July 31, 2007.

House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law - Oversight Hearing on Privacy in the Hands of the Government: The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board and the Privacy Officer for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, July 27, 2007. [links to witness statements]

Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at West Point Report: An Assessment of 516 Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) Unclassified Summaries, July 25, 2007

Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation hearing, Protecting Children on the Internet, July 24, 2007.

AP: "CityWatcher.com, a provider of surveillance equipment, attracted little notice itself - until a year ago, when two of its employees had glass-encapsulated microchips with miniature antennas embedded in their forearms. The "chipping" of two workers with RFIDs - radio frequency identification tags as long as two grains of rice, as thick as a toothpick - was merely a way of restricting access to vaults that held sensitive data and images for police departments, a layer of security beyond key cards and clearance codes, the company said."

Executive Order: Interpretation of the Geneva Conventions Common Article 3 as Applied to a Program of Detention and Interrogation Operated by the Central Intelligence Agency, July 20, 2007.

Press release: "Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Assistant Attorney General for National Security Kenneth L. Wainstein and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III today announced a series of comprehensive measures to significantly enhance national security oversight and compliance at the Justice Department and FBI. Among the primary components of this oversight effort, which has been in the works for months, are the proposed launch of two offices to conduct reviews, compliance activities, and training. The first is a dedicated Oversight Section within the Justice Department’s National Security Division. The second is a proposed Office of Integrity and Compliance at the FBI. The oversight and compliance programs run by these offices will be at the forefront of the Justice Department’s ongoing efforts to ensure that national security investigations are conducted in a manner consistent with the nation’s laws, regulations, and policies, including those designed to protect the privacy interests and civil liberties of U.S. citizens."

Press release: "The Pew Internet & American Life Project has released a new report on China's internet user population. There are now an estimated 137 million internet users in China, second in number only to the United States, where estimates of the current internet population range from 165 million to 210 million. The growth rate of China's internet user population has been outpacing that of the U.S., and China is projected to overtake the U.S. in the total number of users within a few years. The influx of tens of millions of new online participants each year can be expected to have far-reaching consequences for the Chinese population, for China itself and for the larger world. At the very least, the internet will offer ever greater numbers of Chinese a much more sophisticated information and communications world than the one they currently inhabit. And because the Chinese share a single written language, despite the multiplicity of spoken tongues, it could have a unifying effect on the country's widely dispersed citizenry. An expanding internet population might also increase domestic tensions that could spill over into China's relations with the U.S. and other countries while the difference between Chinese and Western approaches to the internet could create additional sore points over human rights and problems with restrictions on non-Chinese companies."

The governance of Britain - the Government's draft legislative programme, July 11, 2007 (67 pages, PDF)

Press release: "The United States has faced an unprecedented rise in government secrecy over the last six years, according to a report released today by OpenTheGovernment.org and People For the American Way Foundation. Government Secrecy: Decisions Without Democracy 2007 (52 pages, PDF) documents how executive power has dramatically expanded while executive accountability has diminished."

Press release: "The New York Civil Liberties Union today called on the City of New York to ensure that any new surveillance plan for New York City is subject to public input and external oversight mechanisms and includes significant privacy protections to prevent abuse. The NYCLU's call came in response to today's disclosure that the NYPD will be implementing a multi-million dollar web of cameras and roadblocks that will be modeled on London's "Ring of Steel" system and will track the movements of the thousands of cars and people who enter Lower Manhattan every day."

Press release: "Imposing new regulations on RFID technology is premature, according to Playing Tag: An RFID Primer, a new report released today by the Pacific Research Institute (PRI), a California-based free-market think tank. “A relatively new technology like RFID tends to spark fear in people, but fear should not drive government regulation,” said K. Lloyd Billingsley, editorial director at PRI and author of Playing Tag. “Lawmakers should weigh the pros and cons of this technology, before imposing a regulatory regime that would inhibit the positive benefits of RFID.” Radio frequency identification tags track inventory for retail businesses and the military. Future benefits of RFID extend into medicine, agriculture, and security. An RFID tag can act as the modern equivalent of a medical bracelet for patients, monitor the body temperature of animals to alert farmers of disease, or detect fraudulent passports."

Follow up to previous postings on domestic surveillance programs, news today that 6th Circuit found none of the plaintiff's had standing against the NSA with regard to the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP). See the ACLU press release: "In a 2-1 decision, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals today dismissed a legal challenge to the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program. The challenge was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of prominent journalists, scholars, attorneys and national nonprofit organizations who say that the unchecked surveillance program is disrupting their ability to communicate effectively with sources and clients."

Follow up to June 24, 2007 posting, Skelton/Conyers Introduce Habeas Reform Legislation, see these additional related government documents:

Press release: "Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), in consultation with Ranking Member Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), issued subpoenas Wednesday for documents relating to the authorization and legal justification for the Administration's warrantless wiretapping program. Chairman Leahy issued subpoenas to the Department of Justice, the Office of the White House, the Office of the Vice President and the National Security Council for documents relating to the Committee’s inquiry into the warrantless electronic surveillance program. The subpoenas seek documents related to authorization and reauthorization of the program or programs; the legal analysis or opinions about the surveillance; orders, decisions, or opinions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) concerning the surveillance; agreements between the Executive Branch and telecommunications or other companies regarding liability for assisting with or participating in the surveillance; and documents concerning the shutting down of an investigation of the Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) relating to the surveillance."