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A lawyer who has fought government attorneys in courthouses across the nation over the issue of President Barack Obama's eligibility to occupy the White House now wants the dispute moved to the nation's capital, since that's where government lawyers have said there would be proper jurisdiction. Orly Taitz is asking the California judge who earlier dismissed her clients' claims on jurisdictional issues, noting that the proper venue would be Washington, to simply move the case there. "During the October 5 motion hearing pursuant to the motion to dismiss due to lack of jurisdiction, the moving parties, the assistant U.S. attorneys...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed "great regret" in August that the U.S. is not a signatory to the International Criminal Court (ICC). This has fueled speculation that the Obama administration may reverse another Bush policy and sign up for what could lead to the trial of Americans for war crimes in The Hague. The ICC's chief prosecutor, though, has no intention of waiting for Washington to submit to the court's authority. Luis Moreno Ocampo says he already has jurisdiction—at least with respect to Afghanistan. Because Kabul in 2003 ratified the Rome Statute—the ICC's founding treaty—all soldiers on Afghan territory,...

AIPNews - MarylandBob Bailey Members of the "We Surround Them - Frederick MD" stood up in the Hagerstown Hall meeting on August 12 and asked Senator Ben Carden where he has the right to enact health care legislation and how was he going to pay for it. The "We Surround Them - Frederick MD" is a 9-12 organization based in Frederick, Maryland. The link to their organization is http://www.meetup.com/The-Frederick-County-We-Surround-Them-Meetup/ First up from "We Surround Them - Frederick MD" was Joshua Lyons ordering Senator Carden to cease and desist. Senator Carden's answer referred to the General Welfare clause in the Constitution....

BAGHDAD – American troops could face trial before Iraqi courts for major crimes committed off base and when not on missions, under a draft security pact hammered out in months of tortuous negotiations, Iraqi officials familiar with the accord said Wednesday. The draft also calls for U.S. troops to leave Iraqi cities by the end of June and withdraw from the country entirely by Dec. 31, 2011, unless the Baghdad government asks some of them to stay for training or security support, the officials said. It would also give the Iraqis a greater role in U.S. military operations and full...

WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson says the government is crafting a plan to rescue banks from bad debts that are at the heart of Wall Street's worst financial crisis in decades. Paulson said late Thursday the plan will need congressional approval. He and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke briefed lawmakers on the options they are considering.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 25, 2007 – A military appeals court ruled yesterday that a military trial judge has the authority to determine jurisdiction in a military commission, a ruling that paves the way for proceedings to continue against suspected terrorists at U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Court of Military Commission Review made the ruling in response to an appeal filed by the prosecution in the case of Canadian detainee Omar Khadr, who was charged in April with murder, support to terrorism and conspiracy under the Military Commissions Act of 2006. On June 4, the military trial judge in Khadr’s...

Filming your neighbour having sex is legal As long as you are not caught in the act it is legal to film your neighbours naked, or even having sex. That is the conclusion reached by prosecutor Bo Birgersson, who has just dropped the charges against a 20 year old man accused of filming 20 of his neighbours in various states of undress. "It is not possible to be molested without one's knowledge. And even if you find out after the act that somebody has been peeping at you it is not enough to bring about a conviction," Birgersson told Sydsvenskan....

Before there was YouTube's crush of do-it-yourself video online, Josh Wolf was busy taking media into his own hands. As one of the Internet's earliest videobloggers, Wolf thrust himself onto the front lines of citizen journalism, uploading his politically spiked, home-grown content onto www.joshwolf.net. While bypassing old media gatekeepers — like editors and programming schedules — Wolf, 24, gained unprecedented access to the Web's global stage, but he also fast won notoriety for his attempts to democratize the media. Last year, Wolf earned the wrath of Al Gore's youth cable channel, Current TV, when he criticized the new station's hiring...

The best explanation for the Supreme Court's holding that a military tribunal lacks jurisdiction to try suspected terrorist Salim Ahmed Hamdan is not to be found in the Constitution or the cases interpreting it, or in the Court's interpretation of congressional legislation, but in extrajudicial factors. The Court lacked jurisdiction to hear Hamdan's appeal, but once assuming jurisdiction, it ruled incorrectly that the Geneva Conventions apply to his case. The Court strained, in the first instance, to inject itself in this matter, despite the clear intent of Congress to deprive it of jurisdiction, and it strained to grant Hamdan, a...

A federal judge in Brooklyn ruled yesterday that the government has wide latitude under immigration law to detain noncitizens on the basis of religion, race or national origin, and to hold them indefinitely without explanation. The ruling came in a class-action lawsuit by Muslim immigrants detained after 9/11, and it dismissed several key claims the detainees had made against the government. But the judge, John Gleeson of United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, allowed the lawsuit to continue on other claims, mostly that the conditions of confinement were abusive and unconstitutional. Judge Gleeson's decision requires...

Two uniformed men strolled into the main room of the Little Falls library in Bethesda one day last week and demanded the attention of all patrons using the computers. Then they made their announcement: The viewing of Internet pornography was forbidden. The men looked stern and wore baseball caps emblazoned with the words "Homeland Security." The bizarre scene unfolded Feb. 9, leaving some residents confused and forcing county officials to explain how employees assigned to protect county buildings against terrorists came to see it as their job to police the viewing of pornography. After the two men made their announcement,...

The disciplinary arm of the N.C. State Bar dropped charges of felonious misconduct against two former Union County prosecutors Friday because of a 1999 clerical error at the state Supreme Court. The State Bar had charged Kenneth Honeycutt and Scott Brewer with lying, cheating and withholding evidence in a 1996 death penalty case. The ruling Friday marks the second time that Honeycutt and Brewer won on procedural grounds before the bar's Disciplinary Hearing Commission, which sits as judge and jury in disciplinary cases. . . . Prosecutors around the state are concerned that the case is damaging their reputation and...

May 5, 2005 Ratzinger advocated breaking up the Latin Patriarchate ...Joseph Ratzinger, for example, pointed out the need to disentangle the confusion between the patriarchal and primatial roles of the bishop of Rome and to break up the Latin patriarchate, replacing it with a number of “patriarchal areas,” that is, regions with an autonomy similar to that of the ancient patriarchates, but under the direction of the episcopal conferences. In an essay entitled “Primacy and Episcopacy,” Ratzinger developed the theme at greater length: The image of a centralized state which the Catholic church presented right up to the council does...

This Reason article is printed from: http://www.reason.com/hod/gh121704.shtmlClick on the back button on your browser to return to previous page December 17, 2004 Making A Federal Case Out of Almost Everything It's time to rediscover constitutional limits Gene Healy "Don't make a federal case out of it," we used to tell people who blew things out of proportion. But that phrase is quickly losing its bite as the federal government expands its jurisdiction to every area of American life. Responding to the Barry Bonds-Jason Giambi steroid scandal, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) recently threatened to bring the federal hammer down on Major...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

A great constitutionalist, J. Reuben Clark, once observed that the checks and balances designed into the Constitution of the United States constituted its "marvelous genius" and was the result of "divine inspiration." If then, the United States Constitution was the result of marvelous genius and divine inspiration, why is it that there are so many proposals to alter the document with amendments? For example, in recent years we have seen calls for constitutional amendments to deal with: AbortionTerm limitsBalanced budgetsFlag burningForced busingSchool prayerAnd others And now, just recently, calls for a Constitutional Amendment that would ban gay marriages and define...

Hi, all. I was just wondering if any military people could tell me about the UCMJ in relation to the Constitution. For people subject to it, which one has more authority, the UCMJ or the Constitution. I mean, I always thought the Const. was the law of the land, but then I read about Article 88, and wouldn't that limit the 1st Amendment? So I figured that the military was just different and that you had to make some sacrifices, and then I hear that the UCMJ doesn't surpass the Constitution. I'm kinda confused and I really don't have the...

US top court to decide Guantanamo cases Mon 10 November, 2003 19:37 RELATED ARTICLES Guantanamo prisoners' advocates hail Supreme Court By James Vicini WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court say it will decide whether foreign nationals can use American courts to challenge their incarceration at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the first cases it will hear on the Bush administration's war on terror. The justices agreed on Monday to rule on whether U.S. courts have the power to consider challenges by a group of Afghan war detainees to their continued confinement without access to families or...

7. And that all men may be restrained from invading others' rights, and from doing hurt to one another, and the law of Nature be observed, which willeth the peace and preservation of all mankind, the execution of the law of Nature is in that state put into every man's hands, whereby every one has a right to punish the transgressors of that law to such a degree as may hinder its violation. For the law of Nature would, as all other laws that concern men in this world, be in vain if there were nobody that in the state...

<p>Capturing Abul Abbas this week in Iraq may be the easiest part in bringing to justice one of the best-known Middle East terrorists. Figuring out what to do with him is a mess, involving sticky domestic and international issues and political and legal problems.</p>