The highest appeals court in Italy upheld verdicts against twenty-three Americans, all of whom are CIA agents except one. They were found guilty of kidnapping an Egyptian cleric known as Abu Omar in 2003. Omar was flown to Egypt and tortured. Though they each were given sentences of seven years or more, none of the [...]

The United States State Department has told India that it must respect Internet freedom, as the country threatens legal action against social media like Facebook, Google and Twitter that do not remove “inflammatory” content.” As a BBC report describes, recently there have been “clashes between indigenous tribals and Muslim settlers.” Northeastern migrants “fled other Indian cities [...]

A district court judge has denied an effort by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to force the United States State Department to release all portions of twenty-three diplomatic cables, which the organization sought through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Eleven cables requested had been released by the State Department in part. The [...]

The defense for Pfc. Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of releasing classified information to WikiLeaks, has filed a relief motion calling on the military judge to temporarily suspend court martial proceedings and order the prosecution to state how it has taken steps to disclose known evidence that might negate or reduce Manning’s degree of guilt [...]

Those who have been following reporting here at Firedoglake closely may know that I have been at Fort Meade for the past couple of days covering the court martial of Pfc. Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of releasing classified information to WikiLeaks. This morning I appeared on Democracy Now! and was interviewed by the show’s [...]

Three State Department witnesses testified on how the department responded to the crisis the department experienced when WikiLeaks began to release over 250,000 US State Embassy cables. The testimony was heard in the court martial of Pfc. Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of releasing classified information to WikiLeaks. They were called by Manning’s defense to [...]

The State Department has taken action against one of its employees, which the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) believes is in retaliation for criticism of the State Department’s reconstruction efforts in Iraq. The ACLU sent a letter that highlights the adverse measures taken against State Department employee, Peter Van Buren, because he published a tell-all [...]

A well-known peace group, CODEPINK, the legal advocacy organizations, Reprieve and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and others will be gathering in Washington, DC, this weekend for the first international summit on drones. The summit will bring together lawyers, journalists, activists, human rights advocates and robotics technology experts, who will all be speaking about [...]

Legal proceedings in the case of Pfc. Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of releasing classified information to WikiLeaks, resumed yesterday, with the defense arguing in the military court at Fort Meade that all charges should be dropped with prejudice. David Coombs, Manning’s lead defense attorney, argued the government did not understand basic military rules for [...]

The US Supreme Court unanimously decided that foreign political organizations and multinational corporations cannot be sued for the torture or extrajudicial killing of persons abroad under an anti-torture law passed in 1992. The law only gives people the right to sue “an individual,” “who acted under the authority of a foreign nation,” according to the [...]