The Supreme Court handed corporate America a major victory this week when it sharply reduced the amount of money Exxon Mobil has to pay in punitive damages for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. An Alaskan jury had initially ruled Exxon should pay five billion dollars in punitive damages but in 2006, the [...]
One gets the impression that there are some people in Washington who believe that Israel or the U.S. can bomb Iran’s nuclear reactors, fly home, and it will be mission complete. It makes you wonder if perhaps there is a virus going around that is gradually making people stupid. If we or Israel attack Iran, [...]
Mark Klein, the retired AT&T engineer who stepped forward with the technical documents at the heart of the anti-wiretapping case against AT&T, is furious at the Senate’s vote on Wednesday night to hold a vote on a bill intended to put an end to that lawsuit and more than 30 others. [Wednesday]‘s vote by Congress [...]
The comments made in the You Tube video are very similar to the death threats made by Michael Reagan to Mark Dice. This individual was arrested while Reagan was not even suspended from his radio show. It took just a few weeks for Andre Moore to go from YouTube to the slammer. Members of the [...]
The spying bill that’s now being debated in the Senate does more than just update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — and let companies like AT&T off the hook for snooping on your phone calls and e-mails. The legislation, oddly enough, also offers a new definition for “weapons of mass destruction.” It’s an improvement over [...]
House Democrats who flipped their votes to support retroactive immunity for telecom companies in last week’s FISA bill took thousands of dollars more from phone companies than Democrats who consistently voted against legislation with an immunity provision, according to an analysis by MAPLight.org. In March, the House passed an amendment that rejected retroactive immunity. But [...]
The British government is developing a plan to track current and former prisoners by means of microchips implanted under the skin, drawing intense criticism from probation officers and civil rights groups. As a way to reduce prison crowding, many British prisoners are currently released under electronic monitoring, carried out by means of an ankle bracelet [...]
By DAVE DAVIES Philadelphia Daily News daviesd@phillynews.com 215-854-2595 Four young residents of a North Philadelphia house who circulated petitions questioning police-surveillance cameras were rousted from their home Friday and detained 12 hours without charges while police searched their house. Daniel Moffat, 28, a co-owner of the house, said police had no warrant when they entered. [...]
A dozen people around the country filed suit in U.S. District Court in Idaho this week demanding the return of all the copper, silver, gold, and platinum coins — more than seven tons of metal in all — that the FBI and Secret Service seized in November during raids of a mint in Idaho and [...]
“Never appease political bullies, President Bush admonished at the Israeli Knesset,” MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann opened. “Oddly, House Democrats chose to ignore him on the subject of dealing with him.” Constitutional expert Jonathan Turley sees a “very frightening bill” in a proposed “compromise,” currently in the House, that would update the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act [...]
It could be a long time before Omar Khan goes to college: as long as 38 years, according to Orange County prosecutors, who have arrested and charged the 18-year-old student with breaking into his prestigious high school and hacking into computers to change his test grades from Fs to As. If convicted on all 69 [...]
Providence RI, Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) march on Jackies Galaxy, a local restaurant chain supplied by HWH/Dragonland in NYC, a supplier notorious for slave labor conditions and a lack of basic labor rights. A few blocks before finishing the march North Providence police brutally tackled two of the marches after they moved to [...]
The clash between the European Central Bank and the US Federal Reserve over monetary strategy is causing serious strains in the global financial system and could lead to a replay of Europe’s exchange rate crisis in the 1990s, a team of bankers has warned. “We see striking similarities between the transatlantic tensions that built up [...]
Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano signed a bill today that prohibits the implementation of the REAL ID in Arizona. SB2677 received a Final vote of approval in the House last week by an overwhelming margin of 51 to 1. Napolitano’s signature was uncertain until today when she signed the bill into law. The bill prohibits implementation [...]
A half-dozen military helicopters flew low over parts of Denver Monday night as part of a security drill organized by the U.S. Department of Justice. Denver police said they were aware of the operation, but could provide no details. The secret drills coincided with preparations for the Democratic National Convention, which will take place in [...]
