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Court won't allow challenge to surveillance law
Top Court Watch |
2013/02/28 23:43
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A sharply-divided Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out an attempt by U.S. citizens to challenge the expansion of a surveillance law used to monitor conversations of foreign spies and terrorist suspects.
With a 5-4 vote, the high court ruled that a group of American lawyers, journalists and organizations can't sue to challenge the 2008 expansion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) because they can't prove that the government will monitor their conversations along with those of potential foreign terrorist and intelligence targets.
Justices "have been reluctant to endorse standing theories that require guesswork," said Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote for the court's majority.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, was enacted in 1978. It allows the government to monitor conversations of foreign spies and terrorist suspects abroad for intelligence purposes. The 2008 FISA amendments allow the government to obtain from a secret court broad, yearlong intercept orders, raising the prospect that phone calls and emails between those foreign targets and innocent Americans in this country would be swept under the umbrella of surveillance.
Without proof that the law would directly affect them, Americans can't sue, Alito said in the ruling.
Despite their documented fears and the expense of activities that some Americans have taken to be sure they don't get caught up in government monitoring, they "have set forth no specific facts demonstrating that the communications of their foreign contacts will be targeted," he added. |
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Accused UK police killer changes plea to guilty
Legal Blog News |
2013/02/15 14:54
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A 29-year-old man accused of murdering two unarmed British police officers in a gun and grenade attack dramatically changed his plea to guilty Tuesday, midway through his trial.
Dale Cregan had denied killing Fiona Bone and Nicola Hughes, but on Tuesday admitted the murders, replying "guilty" as a court clerk read out the charges.
The two officers were killed as they responded to a burglary call near Manchester, northwest England, in September.
Prosecutors said Cregan — who had made the false emergency call — waited for police to arrive, then opened fire with a Glock pistol.
He fired 24 shots at Bone, hitting her between five and eight times. Hughes was shot eight times, including three times in the head as she lay on the ground.
As he fled, Cregan lobbed a military fragmentation grenade into the yard of the house where the police officers lay, prosecutors said. |
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Labor lawyer: Kansas union bill will silence workers
Topics in Legal News |
2013/02/12 10:43
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A labor attorney and the Kansas Senate president sparred Tuesday over whether public employees have a right to have money deducted from their paychecks for union-backed political activities.
Rebecca Proctor and Senate President Susan Wagle clashed during a Senate Commerce Committee meeting over a bill that would bar automatic, voluntary deductions from teachers and government workers' paychecks to support union-backed political activities, such as campaign contributions. The measure passed the House on Thursday.
Wagle said many Kansas residents don't agree with public unions' or teachers' positions on issues and the state should not be involved in channeling money to support those views. Supporters of the bill say union members often feel bullied or coerced to make the automatic contributions for fear of alienation or retribution in the workplace.
Proctor said public workers have a right to use their pay as they wish. She also said she believed the bill could go so far as to prevent unions from advocating for particular values or issues that are not partisan but are ideological, such as testifying before the Legislature on worker safety or education. |
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Wilchins Cosentino & Friend LLP - Wellesley, Massachusetts
Law Firm Press Release |
2013/02/05 07:16
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Wilchins Cosentino & Friend LLP, formerly associated as Seegel Lipshutz & Wilchins, is committed to providing the best possible legal experience available. Wilchins Cosentino & Friend LLP is organized into six major practice areas – Private Client, Litigation, Family Law, Real Estate, Corporate and Financial Services Litigation. Within those practice areas, we offer a wide range of services that help our clients reach their business and personal goals.
Our attorneys are dedicated to providing sophisticated legal services to our clients promptly, efficiently and economically. We serve a wide spectrum of clients, including major corporations, financial institutions, individual entrepreneurs, closely held private companies, not-for-profit corporations, families and individuals. We strive to learn as much as possible about each client’s business and the industry in which each client operates.
Wellesley Office Park
20 William Street, Suite 130
Wellesley, MA 02481
Wilchins Cosentino & Friend LLP, formerly associated as Seegel Lipshutz & Wilchins, is committed to providing the best possible legal experience available.
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Jury: Oregon car-bomb suspect guilty of terrorism
Top Court Watch |
2013/02/01 15:16
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Three hours before they handed down a sentence that could put an Oregon man in prison for life, deliberating jurors sent a note to a trial judge with a question.
Did the man whose fate they were deciding need to have envisioned the specific crime for which he was accused? Or did he merely need to be inclined toward some kind of terroristic act?
Their question more broadly reflects the central debate at the heart of the trial of Mohamed Mohamud, a 21-year-old Somali-American found guilty on Thursday of attempting to bomb a Portland Christmas tree-lighting in November 2010.
Prosecutors were met by a claim of entrapment by Mohamud's defense team, and needed to convince jurors that he was predisposed to terrorism by the time an FBI informant began discussing radical jihad with him over emails.
The judge, Garr King, told jurors Thursday that Mohamud only had to be likely to commit the offense or one like it, and he did not specifically have to be thinking about a bomb at the specific time and place at which he and two undercover FBI agents decided to plant one.
The bomb was a fake, supplied by the agents posing as jihadis.
Jurors were given starkly different portraits of the man who was 17 when the FBI began to focus on him. In the prosecution's description, Mohamud was a powder keg in search of a spark, an angry teenager with the right combination of anti-Western sentiment and a plausible cover story as an Oregon college student. |
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