The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco Feb. 2 vacated and remanded the 22-year sentence for so-called "millennium bomber" Ahmed Ressam, finding that a district court's failure to follow sentencing guidelines resulted in an inappropriately lenient term. Ressam, a supposedly al-Qaeda-trained terrorist, was sentenced in 2005 upon conviction of plotting to blow up Los Angeles International Airport on New Year's Eve 1999. The court found that guidelines require a minimum 65-year term. The prosecution offered Ressam a reduced term in exchange for cooperation against other terrorist suspects, but Ressam failed to properly collaborate with government officials. (Jurist, Feb. 3)

A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in Denver upheld an injunction against some points of an Oklahoma anti-immigrant law, but did permit the state to enact a provision whereby businesses would have to check their employment roster against a state list of eligible workers through a pilot program. The Oklahoma Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act of 2007 also requires that firing a US citizen or "legal" immigrant, while simultaneously employing an undocumented immigrant, be recognized as an unfair trade practice, giving the fired employee cause for legal action. The panel found that federal law preempted this provision, but split on whether mandatory electronic verification of employee status conflicts with voluntary use of a federal database.

US federal magistrate G. Mallon Faircloth in Columbus, Ga., surprised observers on Jan. 25 by sentencing three activists to six-month prison terms for trespassing on the US Army's Fort Benning base; the maximum sentence for the offense. Nancy Gwin of Syracuse, NY, Father Louie Vitale of Oakland, Calif., and Ken Hayes of Austin, Tex., were arrested on Nov. 22 as part of an annual protest outside the base against the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly the US Army School of the Americas (SOA), which has trained many of the hemisphere's worst human rights violators. A fourth defendant, Michael Walli of Washington, DC, refused to appear for the trial, and Judge Faircloth issued a warrant for his arrest. Walli had told the court during his November arraignment that he would not pay any bail and that he would not voluntarily return for the trial. "I walk out and it's goodbye," he told the judge.

The details surrounding the deaths of several individuals inside US immigration detention centers were intentionally concealed, the New York Times reported Jan. 9. The Times, along with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), gathered information through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) pertaining to more than 100 deaths that have occurred in the detention facilities since 2003. The Times discovered that government officials made deliberate attempts to conceal information from the media and the public, despite the Obama administration's promises to increase the transparency of such organizations. As a result, investigations have been conducted by the US Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility and the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). According to the Times, the internal investigations provide further support that the culture of secrecy has continued in the current administration.

Civil rights groups Jan. 4 opposed stricter screening procedures for passengers entering the US from 14 countries, calling the measures unconstitutional. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) called on the US government to "adhere to longstanding standards of individualized suspicion and enact security measures that are the least threatening to civil liberties and are proven to be effective."

Since February, combat veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, acting in an ostensibly civilian and volunteer capacity, have been advising police in Salinas, Calif., on "counterinsurgency strategy" in the wake of deadly violence by mostly Central American street gangs in the city. "This is our surge," said Mayor Dennis Donohue, who solicited the assistance from the elite Naval Postgraduate School, 20 miles away in Monterey. "When the public heard about this, they thought we were going to send the Navy SEALs into Salinas."

Specious terrorism busts in which a close reading of news accounts reveals that the supposed plot actually originated with police or FBI infiltrators continue to be alarmingly common, despite the change of administration in Washington. The headlines continue to imply that there was a real threat in these cases, while the actual text indicates otherwise. Here's the latest example, with the phrases that let slip the bogus nature of the pseudo-plot in bold. From AP, Oct. 26:

More than 1,100 agents from the FBI and local police agencies conducted pre-dawn raids on 47 residences across South Los Angeles Oct. 22, arresting 74 suspected members of the Rolling 40s street gang. "They have a vise grip on the neighborhood, and we are going to release that grip this morning," Deputy Chief Kirk Albanese of the Los Angeles Police Department said of the gang. More than 30 of those detained face federal charges that could carry sentences from 20 years to life. The sweep was the culmination of an 18-month investigation. The FBI said more than 500 people have been arrested since May in 10 Southern California anti-gang sweeps. (AP, Oct. 22)