The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) have filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for information on the legal basis for a strike that occurred in Yemen on December 17, 2009. While allegedly targeting a “terrorist,” the strike also killed 41 civilians, including women and 22 children. A cover up has been in effect ever since.

A distressing story on rape in the United States military featured stories of women who had been diagnosed with personality disorders for reporting they were sexually assaulted. The story published by CNN found all branches of the armed forces tend to dismiss allegations of sexual assault, which in some instances result in the women being called “lying whores” or something similar.

A 29-year-old Muslim man was sentenced to seventeen and a half years in prison on federal criminal charges of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and providing or attempting to provide material support to terrorists. The “material support” the man was alleged to have given consisted of watching videos on “jihad,” sharing his views on suicide bombings in conversations, translating texts that were already available on the Internet and seeking information on those believed to have attacked America on September 11, 2001.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the ACLU of Michigan reports the Michigan Department of Corrections has decided to no longer routinely subject women to body cavity searches at the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional facility. The facility had been forcing women to spread their vaginas for searches after shifts in prison jobs, after receiving medical care and after being visited by family, religious workers, lawyers or any other person who might want to see them in prison.

A consortium of civil liberties, religious and health organizations, and experts including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) are challenging a strip-search procedure prisoners in Michigan’s Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility (WHV) are forced to submit to that is nothing less than sexual sadism by the state. In the prison that operates under the umbrella of the Michigan Department of Corrections, women are forced to remove their clothing and spread the lips of their vaginas so that a guard can peer inside. Female prisoners are forced to do this after they meet with family members, religious workers, their lawyers, or anyone else who may visit them in prison.

Pakistani lawyer Shahzad Akbar, who sued the United States government over family members of civilian victims of US drone attacks, was invited to participate in an upcoming International Drone Summit in Washington, DC, on April 28, but, the peace group CODEPINK reports the US is refusing to grant him a visa. This continues of a pattern since the Bush Administration of denying visas to anyone who might question the legality and consequences of US military policies.

The military commissions system, a system that many civil liberties groups consider to be a second-class system of justice, will be used to prosecute Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others, who are accused of being involved in the September 11th attacks. The Defense Department also may give Mohammed and the four others the death penalty if they are convicted.

As widely reported yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-to-4 decision that officials could strip-search individuals being admitted to jail, even if they had committed minor offenses. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in the decision that he was not willing to “second-guess the judgments of correction officials.” The holding may become limited, but its potential implications are disturbing.

Author Tim Weiner masterfully tells the story of J. Edgar Hoover’s rise to prominence in the FBI and the trouble experienced after Hoover-era and Watergate scandals were exposed. Then he charts the evolution of the FBI under director Robert Mueller and expresses great confidence that Mueller will go down in history as the best director ever. But there is another side to Mueller’s tenure at the FBI.

Public records from local and state law enforcement agencies reveal a significant number of law enforcement agencies in the United States use cell phone tracking even if they do not have a warrant or probable cause to engage in such surveillance. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which requested and obtained the records, finds the [...]