Critics of the government's secret no-fly list scored a potentially important victory Monday when a federal appeals court ruled that would-be passengers can ask a judge and jury to decide whether their inclusion on the list violates their rights.

In a 2-1 ruling, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco reinstated a suit by a former Stanford University student who was detained and handcuffed in 2005 as she was about to board a plane to her native Malaysia.

WASHINGTON — A Justice Department plan would loosen restrictions on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to allow agents to open a national security or criminal investigation against someone without any clear basis for suspicion, Democratic lawmakers briefed on the details said Wednesday.

The plan, which could be made public next month, has already generated intense interest and speculation. Little is known about its precise language, but civil liberties advocates say they fear it could give the government even broader license to open terrorism investigations.

President George W. Bush today announced his intention to nominate one individual and designate one individual to serve in his Administration.

The President intends to nominate James X. Dempsey, of California, to be a Member of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board for an initial five-year term expiring 01/29/13

The President intends to designate James A. Williams, of Virginia, to be Acting Administrator of the General Services Administration.

The Justice Department has proposed a new domestic spying measure that would make it easier for state and local police to collect intelligence about Americans, share the sensitive data with federal agencies and retain it for at least 10 years.

The proposed changes would revise the federal government's rules for police intelligence-gathering for the first time since 1993 and would apply to any of the nation's 18,000 state and local police agencies that receive roughly $1.6 billion each year in federal grants.

Small farmers, big ranchers, home farmers, animal and pet owners, and food freedom advocates have come together to legally fight implementation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Animal Identification System (NAIS). The results are encouraging.

Home schoolers in California and their supporters are celebrating a legal decision in which the court handing down the ruling actually reversed itself.

Earlier today (Friday) the California Court of Appeal ruled that the state's education code allows parents to home school their children. That decision means parents do not have to obtain state credentials in order to home school. The court acknowledged that a state prohibition on home schooling would intrude on parents' constitutional right to direct their children's education, and that that any limit on that right would be presumed unconstitutional.

Gary McCaleb, senior counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund, is pleased that the court decided parents have a constitutional right to make educational choices for their children. "Thousands of California families have educated their children through home schooling," he states. "[This decision] protects the rights of families and protects an avenue of education that has proven to benefit children time and time again."

In early March a three-judge panel of the California Court of Appeal determined that parents in the Golden State had no legal right to home school -- a ruling that one Christian attorney said would leave thousands of students subject to criminal sanctions unless reversed.

Mike Farris, chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), says today's ruling was unexpected. "We're very thrilled, not just a little bit, [and] we're surprised as well," he remarks. "To get a court to do a 180-degree reversal is a remarkable thing and we view it as a blessing from God. We're really thankful for it, and there's hundreds of thousands of home-school kids in California who are now able to breathe a sigh of relief."

Farris says groups like the Alliance Defense Fund, Liberty Counsel, HSLDA, and Focus on the Family teamed up and were armed with new information that compelled the court to uphold parents' constitutional right to educate their children at home.

8/6/2008

Vital unresolved anthrax questions and ABC News

Glenn Greenwald

Aug. 01, 2008