November 19, 2008 :: Denver Lessing :: No Comment Yet
US vice president Dick Cheney has been indicted by a Texas grand jury for crimes related to an alleged prison-profiteering scheme, including but not limited to charges of “at least misdemeanor assaults”, due to his investments in certain firms. Former US attorney general Alberto Gonzales was also indicted, along with 5 other individuals. The indictment is connected to the dealings of an investment company, involving privatized federal prisons in Texas.
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November 10, 2008 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
President-elect Barack Obama has been welcomed by Pres. Bush as the two confer on the work of governing, the process of transition, the inner workings of the residence and security issues. It is Obama’s 8th trip to the White House, his first to the Oval Office itself. Reuters reports that Bush and Obama “were expected to discuss the global financial crisis, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other challenges the Republican president will bequeath to his Democratic successor”.
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August 7, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
The government of US pres. George W. Bush has staked its legacy in the “war on terror” on a series of military tribunals, in which it intends to bring to judgment a number of accused terrorist suspects held at the US naval facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. After a series of setbacks, including rulings against proposed prosecution procedures on Constitutional grounds, and the granting of access for detainees to federal appeals courts, the first “military commissions” judgment was handed down yesterday, showing some of the cracks in the process.
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August 4, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
The new book, The Dark Side, by Jane Mayer, goes to the roots of the Bush administration’s bold modifications to long-standing security policy, including an apparent devotion to the use of extreme interrogation methods, classed by both law and judicial precedent as torture, to extract information from detainees, despite such actions negating the possibility of any established form of prosecution based on such evidence.
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July 2, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
A 3-judge panel on the DC-circuit Court of Appeals has ruled against the evidentiary grounds on which the Pentagon has held Huzaifa Parhat, a Uighur Muslim from western China, for 6 years as an enemy combatant. The government argued it had grounds to hold Parhat because the charges they allege against him had been repeated in three secret documents; evidence supporting the claims has not been made public.
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June 15, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
The US Supreme Court has taken its fourth serious action in limiting the expanded war powers claimed by the administration of Pres. George W. Bush. Observers who favor the president’s views have sought to accuse the court of “liberal” behavior, but 7 of the 9 justices were appointed by Republican presidents. In fact, the Court has moved to scale back revolutionary expansions of legal authority claimed by the executive branch. And, the four rebukes to White House claims in this time of war, are a historic intensification of the Court’s role in protecting the Constitution’s basic principles.
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June 13, 2008 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
The United States Supreme Court has ruled 5 to 4 that individuals held in detention at the US naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, can appeal their detention in US civilian courts. The ruling cites the intended permanence of Constitutional safeguards and their relevance to all US government prosecutions. Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy explains “The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times”.
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March 11, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
11 March :: NY Times reports “The House Judiciary Committee filed a lawsuit on Monday seeking to force the White House chief of staff and the former White House counsel to cooperate with the committee’s investigation into the firing of a group of federal prosecutors”; Bolten, Miers have been protected by Bush-appointed AG Mukasey, who [...]
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February 5, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
5 February :: Quiet in Chad capital N’Djamena, after France announces it will intervene to protect Déby gov’t, rebels pull back; at least one Darfur rebel group also said it would fight to protect Déby’s gov’t, as it considers Déby an ally in its fight against the Sudan regime of Omar al-Bashir… CIA Director Michael [...]
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