The Guardian uncovered a secret FISA court order commanding Verizon to turn over call metadeta for ALL calls on a daily basis. This includes identifying information about all phone calls, including calls which are purely domestic- everything down to local calls ( Read more... )

NBC has a leaked Justice Dept. memo that talks about drone strikes on Americans. Specifically, it outlines the legal contortions necessary to totally ignore the Constitution and the law and let the president murderize anybody he feels like killing at a given time. Spoiler alert: apparently "imminent" doesn't actually mean "imminent." And ( Read more... )

Lawsuit on application of 2nd Amendment to the states:
In a newly filed lawsuit in federal court in Chicago, two gun rights organizations and four individuals asked that the Second Amendment be extended to block strict gun laws at the state and local level. The Second Amendment right,” the complaint contended, “is incorporated as against the ( Read more... )

I'm going to try to keep this brief, cuz I DO have work to do. ;)

The decision in Kennedy v. Louisiana says that you can't impose the death penalty without death AND intent to kill, thus firmly restricting the use of the death penalty to murder cases. The seminal death penalty case over the past few decades has been Coker v. Georgia which ruled ( Read more... )

If any of you were quietly doubting the "30 released Guantanimo detainees have returned to the battlefield" narrative but didn't know how to prove it was bs: Obsidian Wings to the rescue.

From Seton Hall Law Center's research:
"Extending to the Government the benefit of the doubt as to ambiguous cases, the list of possible Guantánamo recidivists ( Read more... )

Bush's latest illegal signing statement claims he has the right to ignore Congressional appropriations and spend the money however he wants. He didn't like the fact that Congress told him he couldn't spend America's money to establish permanent military bases in Iraq, so he thinks he can just ignore them. This despite the fact that, you know, ( Read more... )