Attorney General Eric Holder signaled Thursday that the Justice Department will work more closely with state and federal prosecutors to crack down on financial fraud, in response to the recent increase in white-collar crime convictions. To prevent future Madoff-like crimes, Holder said that the Justice Department must work with local and federal officials and consider instituting a task force to investigate fraud and other white-collar crime. (Wall Street Journal)
Three prisoners at Bagram military air force base in Afghanistan can challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts, a federal judge ruled Thursday. The Justice Department granted this right to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay last month, but said the decision did not apply to so-called enemy combatants in other military prisons. Judge John Bates’ ruling applies to three detainees from Yemen and Tunisia, who were captured and brought to the military prison. In his ruling, Bates criticized the prisoners’ arrest, saying it was unfair to arrest people and bring them to “a theater of war, where the Constitution arguably may not reach.” (New York Times)
Approximately six percent of lobbyist disclosure reports in Congress incorrectly stated lobbying related activity based on guidelines of the Lobbyist Disclosure Act in 2008, a Government Accountability Office report announced Thursday. This finding was based on a random audit of 100 lobbying disclosure reports filed between January and September of 2008, which found that fourteen percent of lobbying firms showed discrepancies between internal reports and the reports sent to Congress. Since six percent of firms could not explain the differences, the GAO concluded that these firms “erroneously report the amount of income or expenses for lobbing activity.” (National Journal)
The ACLU of Southern California and the National Immigration Law Center filed a federal lawsuit accusing federal authorities of violating immigrant detainees’ constitutional rights by holding them for prolonged periods in a facility unfit for use in Los Angeles. The lawsuit says that the facility, which was initially meant to be a short term detention center, is “regularly overcrowded, causing violence, safety hazards and humiliation.” Though representatives of the detention center said that they try their best to keep detainees for just twelve hours, the plaintiffs citied numerous instances in which immigrants were held for weeks. (LA Times)
The Justice Department delayed a decision on whether to release 2005 Bush administration legal decisions which allegedly condone the use of harsh interrogation methods used by the CIA. The lawsuit requesting the release of the documents was filed by the ACLU, but the group agreed to the delay when Justice Department officials said they would also consider releasing a 2002 memorandum along with the Bush memos in approximately two weeks. (New York Times)
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration paid $681,379 over 27 months to a Randy Kimlin, a consultant from the director Edwin Foulke’s home state without receiving any tangible results, an audit by the Department of Labor found Thursday. The OSHA’s hiring practices have been under special investigation since the Washington Post first disclosed Kimlin’s pay in December. But the audit report added that due to “violations and irregularities,” the government should demand an immediate refund on the funds paid to South Carolina chemical company executive Kimlin. (Washington Post)
