Apparently someone is thinking in Washington: The U.S. government sued to block AT&T Inc.’s proposed $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA Inc., saying the deal would “substantially lessen competition” in the wireless market. The Justice Department complaint was filed today in federal court inWashington. The U.S. is seeking a declaration that Dallas-based AT&T’s takeover of […]
I guess not: A top House Republican is planning to propose that Internet service providers be required to store information about their customers to aid police in criminal investigations, CNET has learned. But a recent draft has one huge exception: wireless companies aren’t included. That appears to be the result of lobbying from wireless providers, […]
This is a huge story and one that could make or break the Obama presidency: As promised, a federal judge has issued an injunction blocking the military from enforcing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Judge Virginia Philips last month found the policy unconstitutional in her ruling on a lawsuit brought by the Log Cabin Republicans and […]
The whole investigation into the handling of the late Ted Stevens prosecution took a really interesting turn this weekend: One of the prosecutors who handled the corruption trial of Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens committed suicide over the weekend, according to his lawyer. Justice Department prosecutor Nicholas Marsh and five others have been the subject of […]
It’s about time: Federal prosecutors said Friday they are investigating whether there was “willful criminal activity” by the company that operates the West Virginia coal mine where 29 workers died in an accident last month. The U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of West Virginia said in a letter that investigators are looking into […]
A wingnut whackjob gets his day in court: An Arkansas man was sentenced to 10 years in prison Thursday for plotting to kill dozens of blacks, including then-Sen. Barack Obama, federal authorities said. Paul Schlesselman pleaded guilty in January and was sentenced in an Arkansas federal court Thursday. Federal officials said Schlesselman had threatened to […]
Just received a breaking news alert from the Washington Post regarding this: The FBI illegally collected more than 2,000 U.S. telephone call records between 2002 and 2006 by invoking terrorism emergencies that did not exist or simply persuading phone companies to provide records, according to internal bureau memos and interviews. FBI officials issued approvals after […]
Just in time for the next election cycle: The Senate Ethics Committee has begun issuing subpoenas to those caught up in the sex and lobbying scandal surrounding Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) and his former aides, Doug and Cindy Hampton. Several people close to the scandal said they received document subpoenas on Thursday from the committee […]
CBS had posted this update earlier today: Update 1:59pm E.T.: A Justice Department official familiar with this subpoena just told me that the attorney general’s office never saw it and that it had not been submitted to the department’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. for review. If that’s correct, it suggests that U.S. Attorney Tim Morrison […]
Just a couple of months ago the LGBT community was in an uproar over the Obama administration’s defense of DOMA. Now that is changing: The Obama administration distanced itself Monday from legal arguments it had made earlier this summer, taking pains to remove and renounce language that had outraged advocates in the gay community in […]