A Maryland judge ruled on August 14 that the public has a right to information provided to the state’s Department of Transportation by railroad companies about dangerous trains carrying crude oil. Judge Lawrence Fletcher-Hill rejected CSX and Norfolk Southern’s arguments that the information needed to be kept secret because it contained “confidential commercial information,” “trade secrets,” or information which could be useful to terrorists.

The Justice Department has requested a federal appeals court revisit and reverse its decision to revive a lawsuit against former Justice Department officials, who allegedly violated the rights of Arab or Muslim immigrants when they were detained in the immediate months after the September 11th terrorist attacks.

The modern work environment was already becoming more than a bit Orwellian, with employees being electronically spied on by their bosses to ensure productivity, but now the corporate push for total information awareness of workers is hitting new levels of creepiness. According to a report in Bloomberg, companies are now using biosurveillance technologies to monitor workers.

Last month, an Israeli judicial panel sentenced Dirar Abu Sisi, a 46-year-old civil engineer, to 21 years in prison for aiding Hamas’ rocket program. This plea deal capped a four-year ordeal that began with Abu Sisi’s unprecedented kidnapping on a train bound for Kiev in the dead of a Ukrainian winter in February 2011.

The conduct of jail doctors working on behalf of medical contractor Advanced Correctional Healthcare is at the center of an ongoing federal civil rights lawsuit facing Dearborn County. Despite the fact that ACH touts its staff as being “correctional trained,” an examination of the records of their Doctors Nadir Al-Shami and Ronald

J.B. Lenoir’s “Alabama Blues” is a rather well-known blues protest song. It stands out because, by the 1960s, it was increasingly rare for blues musicians to sing about poverty, despair, and social injustice. And, fifty years since the tune was recorded under the supervision of Chicago blues master Willie Dixon, its lyrics still carry a deep resonance.

Days before Chelsea Manning is supposed to appear before a disciplinary board, the United States military has denied her access to the prison legal library. Manning, a whistleblower who is serving a 35-year sentence for providing over a half million documents to WikiLeaks, has been accused by officers at Fort Leavenworth

The ACLU of Illinois announced a “landmark” agreement with the Chicago Police Department and City of Chicago over stop and frisks earlier this month. However, soon after, there were multiple activist groups, which were upset with the ACLU because they believed the settlement undermined their efforts. In particular, local groups

In Philadelphia, musical artists Janelle Monáe and Jidenna led a rally and march on North Broad Street on August 12. The demonstrations were in support of the movement for black lives, and they were intended to complement the release of a new Black Lives Matter-inspired protest anthem. The anthem is called

Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois announced a “landmark” agreement with the Chicago Police Department and the City of Chicago on stop and frisks by police officers. However, in the days following, it became evident that activists from the local movement for police accountability were upset because they believed