Interrogation Secrecy: The CIA is arguing to U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein of the Southern District of New York that it should be able to keep secret certain documents related to interrogations, The Washington Post reports. CIA Director Leon Panetta said in an affidavit that the CIA shouldn't have to release them just because the Justice Department released other interrogation documents from the Office of Legal Counsel.
Human Rights Torts: Royal Dutch Shell has agreed to pay $15.5 million to settle a case accusing it of taking part in human rights abuses in the Niger Delta in the early 1990s, The New York Times reports. The company called the settlement a “humanitarian gesture.” The suit was brought under the Alien Tort Claims Act, which the Times says has been increasingly used for lawsuits asserting human rights violations occurring overseas. The New York Law Journal also has the story here.
Sovereign Immunity Restored: Iraq's current government cannot be sued for the actions of Saddam Hussein's regime, the U.S. Supreme Court said Monday, and The Associated Press reports via Law.com that the Court threw out lawsuits filed by Americans who were held by the government of the now-deceased dictator. In 2001, U.S. District Judge Louis Oberdorfer in Washington found that two men had been tortured after being illegally detained in Baghdad. The judge awarded Beaty $4.2 million and awarded Barloon $2.9 million.
Count Him Out, For Now: The Wall Street Journal reports that Senate Republicans are blocking the nomination of Robert Groves to be the Census Bureau's director. The dispute comes less than a year before the 2010 nationwide head count. Groves has already said he would not use statistical sampling for the census, ruling out a practice that would likely affect the count of minorities and the poor.
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