Terrorism

Mass Disaster, Quarantines and Courtroom Respirators Part of NY ‘Doomsday’ Legal Manual

What laws authorize mass evacuations in the event of a terrorist attack? How should courts deal with medical shortages during a biological or chemical disaster? When should lawyers and judges don respirators to avoid contagious diseases? Those are among the questions addressed in a new “doomsday legal manual” published this…

Feb 15, 2011 3:52 PM CST

DOJ Budget Adds Lawyers, Beefs Up National Security Funding

The U.S. Justice Department’s proposed budget for fiscal 2012 includes proposals to beef up national security with five more lawyers and 71 law enforcement agents. The $28.2 billion budget proposal represents a 1.7 percent increase in budget authority, according to The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times and a press…

Feb 15, 2011 2:53 PM CST

Report Shows Fort Hood Massacre Could Have Been Prevented By FBI and Army, Senator Says

A November 2009 massacre at the U.S. Army’s Fort Hood military base in Texas “could have and should have been prevented” by the Army and the FBI, said Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) at a news conference today about a Senate committee’s new investigatory report on the tragedy. According the report…

Feb 3, 2011 9:25 PM CST

Judge’s ‘Sickening Feeling’ and Racism Remarks Allowed, Kozinski Says

A magistrate judge’s remarks about “institutionalized racism” and the potential for intolerance after the Sept. 11 attacks don’t violate the judicial conduct code, according to the chief judge for the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The opinion by Judge Alex Kozinski doesn’t name the judge, but it’s…

Feb 3, 2011 5:28 PM CST

US Citizen ‘Jihad Jane’ Pleads Guilty in Alleged Plot to Kill Swede Over Cartoon of Prophet Muhammad

An American woman who has called herself Jihad Jane has now pleaded guilty in federal court in Philadelphia concerning her role in an alleged plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist. In a bizarre scenario that largely took place on the Internet, prosecutors say Colleen LaRose, 47, conspired with jihadist fighters,…

Feb 2, 2011 10:58 AM CST

Federal Judge Tosses Suit by Lawyers Who Feared Illegal Surveillance

A federal judge has tossed a lawsuit challenging the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretap program because the plaintiffs—a liberal legal group and five of its lawyers—don’t have standing. U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker of San Francisco ruled that fear of being wiretapped, without actual proof, is not an injury in fact…

Feb 1, 2011 4:43 PM CST

Plane that Landed on NJ Highway Was Owned by Justice Department

A plane that made an emergency landing on a New Jersey highway on Monday was being used for local homeland security training. The plane, owned by the Justice Department, was being used by the Bergen County prosecutor’s office, according to the Associated Press and the Hackensack Chronicle. No one was…

Feb 1, 2011 12:54 PM CST

Suspect in Shooting of Giffords and Judge Roll Web-Searched Assassins Before Massacre, Officials Say

Suspected in what officials consider a political assassination, Jared Loughner was looking for information about lethal injections and assassinations prior to shooting U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 18 other individuals&mdash including federal distritc Judge John Roll&mdash in Tucson, Ariz., earlier this month. “He was looking at websites related to lethal…

Jan 26, 2011 11:02 PM CST

UK Judge OKs Extradition of Terrorism Suspect Wanted for Alleged NY Subway Bomb Plot

A terrorism suspect who argued he could face torture or mistreatment if he is sent to the United States for trial has lost a bid to avoid extradition. A British court today approved the extradition of Pakistani national Abid Naseer, who is wanted here for his alleged role in a…

Jan 21, 2011 3:54 PM CST

Judge Dismisses Case Against Inmate Accused of Threatening Prosecutors

A Pennsylvania state court judge has dismissed criminal charges against an inmate accused of harassing and threatening the prosecutors who put him behind bars on a parole violation concerning an earlier stalking conviction. Although Judge William Furber Jr. believed that David Thomas Petko, 48, did in fact make the comments…

Jan 20, 2011 6:31 PM CST

Yale Law Grad Credits ‘Stolen’ Law School Chair for Literary Success

Looking at the chairs in the Yale Law School dining hall, Brandt Goldstein had to admit that the banged-up wood-and-leather chair left in the apartment he rented during his second year there was stolen property. But it became an old friend as he realized, even before he earned his juris…

Jan 18, 2011 5:06 PM CST

Stunned Federal Judges in Ariz. Mourn Slain Chief, Wonder How to Deal with Increased Workload

Stunned by the news that their chief judge had been gunned down over the weekend in a Tucson, Ariz., shopping mall shooting spree that left six dead and 14 injured, including the congresswoman who was the apparent target, the District of Arizona’s 16 remaining federal judges nonetheless returned to work…

Jan 11, 2011 12:49 AM CST

English-Language al-Qaida Magazine Provides Bomb-Making Recipes for Terrorists, WaPo Says

An English-language magazine published on the Internet by al-Qaida allegedly provided encouragement and bomb-making instructions that helped inspire nine men arrested on terrorism charges in the United Kingdom last week. Its first issue, in July, featured the article “Making a bomb in the kitchen of your mom,” the Washington Post…

Dec 29, 2010 9:00 PM CST

Feds Must Pay Islamic Charity Lawyers and Their Counsel $2.5M in Warrantless Wiretap Case

The chief federal district court judge in San Francisco has ordered the federal government to pay more than $2.5 million, primarily in attorney’s fees, concerning its warrantless wiretap, under an executive surveillance program authorized by President George W. Bush, of two Washington, D.C., lawyers for a now-shuttered Islamic charity in…

Dec 22, 2010 8:11 PM CST

2nd Circuit Upholds FISA in Appeal by Sailor Who Leaked Classified Information

A federal appeals court has upheld the law that creates a special court to consider wiretap applications in foreign intelligence cases. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law in an appeal by a sailor convicted of leaking details of ship movements to a website operator that supported…

Dec 22, 2010 12:00 PM CST