NSA Surveillance: Technology companies want U.S. officials to ease the secrecy surrounding national security investigations and lift long-standing gag orders covering the nature and extent of information collected about Internet users, the Washington Post reports.
Privacy Suits: Dozens of consumer lawsuits were filed in early 2006 against the government and telecommunications companies targeting the very same provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that are at the center of the latest public outcry. Nearly all the suits were tossed. The one remaining is tied up in litigation over the U.S. Justice Department's insistence that airing the case in court would jeopardize national security, the Associated Press reports.
The Original Wiretap Scandal: Some previously sealed information related to the Watergate scandal will be made public, Zoe Tillman reports in the BLT. A Washington federal judge yesterday ordered some documents related to the criminal case against G. Gordon Liddy to be released, but denied a request to unseal all of the records at issue—including the substance of an illegally obtained wiretap.
Background Checks: The government has accused two major U.S. companies of using criminal background checks to indirectly screen out African-American workers for hiring or firing, Businessweek reports.
Unpaid Interns: In a ruling with potentially broad implications, a federal district court judge in Manhattan ruled on Tuesday that Fox Searchlight Pictures had violated federal and New York minimum wage laws by not paying production interns, The New York Times reports. Employment experts estimate that undergraduates work in more than one million internships a year.
Cleveland Kidnapper: The man accused of imprisoning three young women in his house in Cleveland for a decade is expected to plead not guilty today to more than 300 criminal counts including rape, kidnapping and murder, Reuters reports.
Day in Court: On Wednesday, James "Whitey" Bulger finally stands trial, charged in the murder of 19 people. The federal trial in Boston is expected to take as long as three months and has the potential to reveal sensational details about the mob and FBI corruption, CNN reports.
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