Snowden’s email provider Lavabit loses federal appealReuters / Lavabit.com A federal appeals panel on Wednesday dismissed what attorneys for the Lavabit email service said was “immense public concern” surrounding the government’s request for the site’s encryption keys, and instead upheld a lower court’s earlier ruling.

Ron Paul’s nonprofit refuses to disclose list of donors to the IRSRon Paul (Reuters/Robert Galbraith) The United States Federal Reserve is usually the government office finding itself most often in the crosshairs of former Texas congressman Ron Paul, but now the longtime lawmaker is setting his sights on another agency: the Internal Revenue Service.

​Defense alleges FBI spying in 9/11 hearing at GuantanamoDefense lawyers for the 9/11 trial defendants at Guantanamo Bay have levied new allegations of spying by the US government in the case, claiming the FBI propositioned a defense team security officer to be a confidential informant.

AT&T hacker ‘weev’ to walk free after appeals court agrees to vacate convictionA federal appeals court has vacated the conviction against a controversial computer hacker who has spent the last 13 months in prison after going public with a security flaw that brought embarrassment to companies Apple and AT&T.

Florida ‘arbitrarily and unfairly’ prosecuting children as adults – Human Rights WatchFlorida has been unfairly and arbitrarily trying children as adults, according to a new Human Rights Watch report. The research slams Florida for funneling thousands of children into the state’s adult justice system more than any other US state. “Florida’s direct file law is not effectively serving public safety…

NYC court unable to find impartial jury to decide Occupy Wall Street trialAn Occupy Wall Street protester facing seven years in prison for an alleged 2012 assault may wait even longer to hear her fate as New Yorkers have proven to be so divided on the issue that finding impartial jurors has so far been nearly impossible.

NSA monitors WiFi on US planes ‘in violation’ of privacy lawsAFP Photo / Mehdi Fedouach Companies that provide WiFi on US domestic flights are handing over their data to the NSA, adapting their technology to allow security services new powers to spy on passengers. In doing so, they may be in violation of privacy laws.

Judge rips State Dept’s handling of Blackwater shootings in IraqA US federal judge has rebuked the State Department for delaying the prosecution of US security contractors charged with shooting unarmed Iraqi civilians in 2007. The guards, formerly employed by the Blackwater private security company that policed US military zones, are accused of shooting 14 Iraqi civilians without justification and in violation of deadly-force rules that pertained to American security contractors in Iraq at the time.

Ohio newspaper suing federal government after two journalists were detained by the militaryThe Toledo Blade newspaper in Ohio has filed a lawsuit against the United States government after two journalists employed by the outlet were detained by the military for photographing a tank plant owned by defense contractor General Dynamics.

Defense lawyers: Did FBI pressure push Boston bomber over the edge? (+video)Lawyers for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, say contact with the FBI may have been a ‘precipitating event’ to the bombings last April.

Constitutional collateral damage: Lawsuit over American drone deaths tossed out by US judgeAFP Photo/US Air Force Serious issues regarding constitutional law rose to the surface on Friday as a US federal judge dismissed a court case against the US government by families of three Americans killed in US drone strikes in Yemen.

Manning attorney denounces unfair trial, files clemency papersWikiLeaks source Chelsea Manning did not receive a fair trial, the attorney who represented her in last year’s court-martial wrote on Wednesday, and her counsel has taken the next steps in seeking clemency from the United States military. Trial attorney David E.

GA law would give private companies unprecedented influence over probation systemGeorgia lawmakers have passed a controversial bill that, if passed, will boost the influence of for-profit firms by giving these companies some jurisdiction over state residents who are on probation.

Official: NSA did warrantless searches of Americans’ dataClapper did not disclose the number of times the NSA had searched for Americans’ communications without a warrant as part of a program authorized under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. The program targets foreigners abroad for surveillance but captures potentially large volumes of the communications of Americans in contact with those foreigners.

NSA, CIA, FBI sued for refusing to disclose Mandela recordsTransparency activist Ryan Shapiro is suing three government agencies for failing to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests he filed in an attempt to uncover details about any role the United States played in the 1962 arrest of Nelson Mandela.

Colorado approves retroactive reversal of marijuana convictionsThe Colorado Court of Appeals has ruled that residents there convicted of marijuana possession before recreational weed was legalized may be eligible to have those decisions overturned. As of January 1, 2014, adults from Colorado are legally allowed to buy up to one ounce of marijuana under the state Constitution’s recently passed Amendment 64.

FBI’s secret GPS tracking memos to stay secretReuters / Stephane Mahe Two secret Justice Department memos regarding the use of location tracking technology are going to stay confidential as a result of a ruling by a US federal district court. The memos in question were originally drafted to outline the guidelines governing the use of GPS and other location-tracking devices.

​White House withholding over 9,000 docs in CIA torture probeReuters / Jim Young For the last five years, the White House has withheld over 9,000 top-secret documents from a Senate investigation of the CIA’s former detention and torture program. The report comes one day after the CIA was accused of interfering in the probe.

ACLU appeals legality of NSA’s mass phone metadata collectionReuters / Susana Vera Civil rights attorneys at the American Civil Liberties Union have filed an appeal with a federal court asking the judge to outlaw the National Security Agency’s collection of phone metadata after another court deemed the method of surveillance legal.

Texan exonerated from death row goes after prosecutorAfter surviving 18 years in prison and avoiding execution twice for murders he was eventually exonerated of, Anthony Graves of Texas is now going after the prosecutor who originally convicted him. Flanked by state lawmakers on Wednesday, Graves announced the Texas State Bar has officially decided to investigate former Burleson County District Attorney Charles Sebesta, 73, for alleged professional misconduct regarding the case in question.