ACSBlog: The Blog of the American Constitution Society

The White House

• U.S. Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola recommended to a federal judge that the White House must preserve copies of all its e-mails; Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington contended that the White House has deleted millions of e-mails and sought preservation of backup tapes.
• Former AG Gonzales may face criminal charges brought by the U.S. Inspector General as early as next month because of his alleged role in firing federal prosecutors for allegedly political reasons.

Justices and Law Clerks

• The Legal Times reports that the hiring process for law students applying for federal clerkships is often chaotic.
• Justice Ginsburg gave a speech in Atlanta, where she was reported to have said "divisive issues such as abortion underscore the need for a strong and vigorous minority, especially with the recent rightward tilt of the 9-member court." At the talk she discussed the discrimination she faced early in her career; another article noted Ginsburg played a key role in challenging a sexist law to help a widower obtaining Social Security survivor benefits.

National Security/ Civil Liberties

• A former Guantanamo Bay prosecutor contends "politically motivated officials at the Pentagon pushed for convictions of high-profile detainees ahead of the 2008 elections," pressuring him to pursue "sexy" over "solid" cases
• Valerie Plame, a former CIA officer who was identified by Bush administration officials as a covert intelligence agent subsequent to her husband reporting there was no evidence Iraq tried to obtain uranium from Niger, is blogging about her experiences after appearing last night on the television news magazine 60 Minutes to promote her new book.
• The Washington Post's Dan Eggen reports that legal scholars are criticizing a proposal to grant telecommunications companies immunity for providing customer data to the government in violation of FISA because it would allow the "government to cover up possible wrongdoing and . . .inappropriately interfere[es] in disputes that the courts should decide."
• Tim Golden of the New York Times writes about what happened when Lieutenant Commander Matthew Diaz, deputy staff judge advocate for Joint Task Force Guantánamo whose job included compiling a spreadsheet on abuse allegations registered at Guantanamo, decided to leak a list of Guantanamo Bay detainees after he came to "believe that the Pentagon was misrepresenting how the detainees were treated and the threat some of them posed."

The Courts

• The New York Times' Adam Liptak examines two cases that test how far the government may infringe upon the rights of free expression by aliens.
• Howard Bashman writes on Law.com about a federal lawsuit to abolish California's unpublished appellate court rulings.

Additional News

• Opinio Juris discussed participating in a symposium entitled "International Law and the Constitution: Terms of Engagement," which discussed the relationship between international law and the constitution.
• The National Women's Law Center's Rachel Rebouche wrote an article exploring critical legal issues relating to women that the nominee for Attorney General should address prior to a Senate vote on confirmation.
• Law Students Building a Better Legal Profession ranked large law firms in a number of legal markets based upon gender composition, diversity, billable hours, and pro bono participation.
• Michigan Law Review's companion journal, First Impressions, published an online symposium on the Supreme Court, the Federal Circuit, and Patent Law.