Tag Archives: justice

Getting the Juvenile-Justice System to Grow Up

If it’s not the biggest scandal in American legal history, many are calling it at least the darkest day for the country’s troubled juvenile-justice system. For more than four years earlier this decade, two senior county juvenile-court judges in northeastern Pennsylvania took kickbacks of $2.6 million in exchange for packing thousands of kids off to privately owned detention centers

‘Era of open government’ behind information policy reversal

To expand openness and transparency, the Obama administration has rescinded a Bush administration standard on withholding government documents, Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday. All Obama administration departments and agencies will release documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act unless doing so is forbidden by law or would harm a government interest, Holder said.

U.S. reverses policy, drops ‘enemy combatant’ term

In a dramatic break with the Bush administration, the Justice Department on Friday announced it is doing away with the designation of "enemy combatant," which allowed the United States to hold suspected terrorists at length without criminal charges. In a court filing in Washington, the Justice Department said it is developing a new standard for the government’s authority to hold detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba.

Taliban poised at the gates of Kabul

A top Taliban commander has told CNN his insurgents are poised and ready to attack Kabul and could strike virtually anywhere in the city. It would be tempting to put this down to Taliban propaganda except one of Kabul’s top cops is saying the same thing. “We are working on a security strategy for the city and if we don’t get it right, they [the Taliban] can attack at any minute, at any hour, any time,” says Commander Mohammed Daud Amin, in charge of securing the Kabul district that includes the Presidential Palace and many government ministries.

In pictures: The Lahore attack on Sri Lankan cricket team

Prince, in an e-mail to employees and independent contractors, said Danielle Esposito will become chief operating officer and executive vice president. Esposito has worked for the firm and its partners for nearly 10 years. Blackwater/Xe’s president, Gary Jackson, is also retiring, Prince said

Obama releases internal Bush Justice Department memos

The Obama administration Monday released nine previously secret internal Justice Department memos and opinions defining the legal limits of government power in combating terrorism. The Bush administration had refused to make the documents public, rejecting demands from congressional Democrats