News & Opinion

Legal Times/Akin Gump Since its disclosure by The New York Times in late 2005, the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program has generated a host of constitutional questions, chief among them whether the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — whose procedures Congress established as the exclusive means for federal monitoring of electronic communications inside the United States — conflicts with the president’s wartime duty to defend the nation from potential attack. But in the first petition

San Francisco Chronicle Tanya Schevitz,Sabin Russell, Chronicle Staff Writers Wednesday, January 16, 2008 The University of California at San Francisco has refused to release an independent review of its finances, citing objections of the accounting firm that conducted the work. UCSF officials last month said that the independent report, as well as two internal reviews, found “no evidence” of financial irregularities as alleged by former medical school Dean David Kessler after he was fired Dec.

From SCOTUSblog By Lyle Denniston The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the Constitution does not require a state to use a primary election to select state judges. The decision found that New York did not violate the First Amendment by choosing its lowest-level judgeship nominees by a party convention. The result in New York State Board of Elections v. Torres, et al. (06-766) was unanimous, although there were two concurring opinions. The judicial election case

The Los Angeles Times reports today that a federal grand jury in Los Angeles has begun issuing subpoenas in a case involving a Missouri teenager, Megan Meier, who hanged herself after being rejected by a person she thought was a 16-year-old boy, “Josh Evans,” whom she had met on MySpace. According to the Times, Josh Evans was actually Lori Drew, a neighbor who befriended Megan by pretending, online, to be 16-year-old Evans. The LA Times

The Temecula City Council has backed away from a controversial proposal to single out one news organization–the Press Enterprise–for restricted access to city officials. Unhappy with the Press Enterprise’s news coverage, two council members had asked the full council to approve a policy requiring that inquiries from the newspaper be put in writing to council members and administrators, who would respond only in writing. Other news media would remain free, under the proposal, to report