The ACLU contends that the U.S. is using other countries to detain U.S. citizens without charges or access to lawyers, in a suit the organization plans to file today. The suit holds the U.S. responsible for the imprisonment of Naji Hamdan, an American Muslim, in the United Arab Emirates. The FBI has admitted to interviewing people being held by other countries, but denies involvement in Hamdan’s arrest. (McClatchy)
The U.S. Postal Service has hired an outside investigator to determine whether mortgage giant Countrywide Financial waived fees on a $322,700 mortgage issued to Postmaster General John Potter. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) also received “VIP” loans from the company. All three have said they were unaware they were receiving discounts. Countrywide, which was bought out by Bank of America in January, had been a large issuer of subprime loans. (AP)
The House Energy and Commerce Committee will investigate allegations by agency scientists that Food and Drug Administration managers ignored warnings and approved medical devices that are unsafe or ineffective. The letter does not specify which products were thought to be wrongly approved. (New York Times)
As the Bush administration winds down, requests for presidential pardons have ramped up. A record 555 people submitted applications in the year ending Sept. 30; another 103 requests rolled into the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney in October alone. There has been widespread speculation that the president might use his power to pardon convicted administration officials like Scooter Libby, who was sentenced to prison for lying during the investigation of the Valerie Plame leaks. Bush commuted the sentence last year. (Newsweek)
Aafia Siddiqui, a former MIT student arrested in July in Afghanistan for her alleged connections to Al-Qaeda, is too mentally unstable to stand trial, a judge ruled Monday. Human rights groups have said that the U.S. held Siddiqui in one of its secret overseas prisons, where it subjected her to abusive interrogation. (ABC)
Gulf War Illness, a condition linked to exposure toxic chemicals and a drug meant to protect against nerve gas, affects about one fourth of Gulf War veterans, according to a report presented Monday to the Sec. of Veterans Affairs. Symptoms include chronic head, stomach, and back pain, as well as memory loss; it has been connected to high rates of Lou Gehrig’s disease. The drug given to soldiers at the time is no longer in use. (CNN)
The Justice Department must release documents relating to Steven Hatfill, named by investigators as an early “person of interest” in the anthrax case. Hatfill has since been exonerated. In yesterday’s ruling, Justice Royce Lamberth sided with the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, who had brought suit to require the Justice Department to make the records public. (Washington Post)
Two Obama advisers told the Associated Press that it is unlikely that the president-elect will prosecute government employees for torture. During the campaign, Obama was an outspoken critic of torture; since being elected he has promised to close Guantanamo. (AP)
And speaking of Guantanamo, the base’s senior military judge, who had been overseeing the trial of 9/11 defendants, announced his retirement yesterday, a decision that military lawyers and the ACLU agreed would disrupt the process–though whether it would speed up trial or delay it remained in dispute. The judge, Ralph H. Kohlmann, had been scheduled to step down in April 2009. (Washington Post)
