Nota Bene

Yahoo! Tech reports:

Miffed that, if you return home from travel overseas, U.S. Customs can decide to search, and even seize, all the files on your computer, your camera, and even your cell phone? So is Senator Russ Feingold, who opened Congressional hearings on the matter last week with a scathing indictment on the practice.

In Feingold’s published opening remarks *** he begins by saying that most Americans are probably not even aware that the practice is now commonplace here. In fact, it’s been going on for at least two years; a full seven percent of business travelers now report having electronic equipment seized at the border.

The New York Times has more here.

Reuters reports:

American victims of bombings and rocket attacks in Israel have sued Swiss bank UBS AG for more than $500 million, accusing the bank of helping fund the militants behind the attacks through dealings with Iran.

The lawsuit seeks damages from Switzerland’s largest bank for more than 50 U.S. citizens hurt or relatives of those killed in bombings in Israel between 1997 and 2006 that it said were carried out by militant groups Hezbollah, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

UBS AG broke several 1996 U.S. laws that prohibit persons and companies from engaging with state sponsors of terrorism and were designed to impede Iran’s access to foreign capital, the suit said.

The lawsuit, filed on Friday in federal court in New York, cited U.S. government reports that conclude Iran has been the main sponsor of Hezbollah and Hamas since 1996, including providing tens of millions of cash annually. The U.S. government considers Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist organizations.

“UBS knew full well that the cash dollars it was providing to a state-sponsor of terrorism such as Iran would be used to cause and facilitate terrorist attacks by Iranian-sponsored terrorist organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah and PIJ,” the lawsuit said.

Fox Business News reports:

New torture claims have been leveled at two U.S. military contractors by a former Abu Ghraib “ghost” detainee who was wrongly imprisoned and later released without charge, according to a lawsuit filed today in Los Angeles federal court by his U.S. legal team.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Emad Al-Janabi, a 43-year-old Iraqi blacksmith, who alleges that he was beaten and forced from his home by people in U.S. military uniforms and civilian clothing in September 2003. He was released from Abu Ghraib without charge in July 2004.

TheAge.com reports

A US federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit against a unit of Boeing Co that accused the firm of helping fly terrorism suspects abroad to secret prisons.The American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint in May accusing Jeppesen Dataplan Inc of providing flight and logistical support to the US government with at least 15 aircraft on 70 “extraordinary-rendition” flights.

“In sum, at the core of plaintiffs’ case against Defendant Jeppesen are ‘allegations’ of covert US military or CIA operations in foreign countries against foreign nationals - clearly a subject matter which is a state secret,” Judge James Ware wrote in a ruling.

The court “grants the United States’ motion to dismiss on the ground that the very subject matter of the case is a state secret.”

PC World reports:

Two civil liberties groups have filed a lawsuit in a federal court in California in response to complaints from travelers of excessive screenings at border-entry points, including inspections of the data on laptops, cell phones and other electronic devices.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco by the Asian Law Caucus (ALC) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

In the legal filing, the two groups ask the court to order the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection (CBP) division to release records relating to its policies and procedures on the “questioning, search and inspection” of travelers entering or returning to the U.S. at various ports of entry.

The ALC and the EFF, which are both based in San Francisco, said in a joint statement that they filed the suit under the Freedom of Information Act after the DHS didn’t respond to a FOIA request the two groups submitted last October. They added that they had requested the information from the DHS in response to increasing allegations of “excessive or repeated” screenings by CBP agents.

For instance, the ALC received more than 20 complaints over the past year from individuals who said they had been “grilled about their families, religious practices, volunteer activities, political beliefs, or associations” when returning to the U.S. from trips overseas, according to the statement.

Some of the people also claimed that CBP staffers inspected and sometimes copied the contents of their laptop files and cell phone directories without providing any reason for doing so, the ALC and the EFF said. The groups are seeking the information about the screening policies so they can assess whether they should take any legal or legislative actions to try to force the CBP to change its procedures.

DHS officials referred an inquiry seeking comment about the lawsuit and the earlier FOIA request to the CBP’s press office, which didn’t immediately return a phone call placed late in the afternoon Eastern time.

The Associated Press reports:

A computer science student who unwittingly created an airport bomb scare by wearing a blinking circuit board attached to her shirt had a First Amendment right to express herself in that manner, her lawyer argued Friday.

Attorney Thomas Dwyer Jr. asked a judge to throw out the charge against Star Simpson, 19, who is accused of possessing a hoax device. East Boston District Court Judge Paul Mahoney took the motion to dismiss under advisement and said he would issue a ruling March 21.

Simpson, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology student from Lahaina, Hawaii, had gone to Logan International Airport last September to pick up her boyfriend.

She was held at gunpoint and arrested by state troopers after an alarm was raised over the battery-powered device on her shirt, which had flashing lights and the words “Socket to me” and “Course VI” (a major at MIT) written on the back.

BetaNews.com reports:

Bringing his claims to Capitol Hill for the first time, former AT&T network technician Mark Klein appeared yesterday at a press conference to reiterate his astonishing claim: AT&T operated a 24 x 48-foot room in one of its network operations centers in San Francisco, where Klein discovered his employer was cooperating with the National Security Agency in the monitoring of all Internet traffic over a major backbone line.

“I have first-hand knowledge of the clandestine collaboration between one giant telecommunications company, AT&T, and the National Security Agency to facilitate the most comprehensive illegal domestic spying program in history,” Klein remarked in his press conference yesterday.

Klein’s allegations have been part of an ongoing class-action suit against AT&T since January 2006, funded by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. While he was not able to witness everyday goings-on in the “Secure Room,” as an engineer, Klein was privy to how the room was wired. In a June 8 sworn deposition entered into evidence in this case, he described what he saw.

The Sacramento Bee reports:

Should a California man who poses little threat to his neighbors remain behind bars because of his alleged ties to a terrorist group that threatens lives halfway around the world?

Federal prosecutors say yes. They argue Rahmat Abdhir, accused of helping extremists associated with al-Qaida in the Philippines, represents a “danger to the community” - even though that community is 7,500 miles away. They’ve asked a judge to keep him in a San Jose jail pending trial.

Legal experts are watching the federal case, which could set precedent for other terrorism suspects being held without bail by greatly expanding the legal definition of community. U.S. courts have traditionally defined a community as people within close geographic proximity.

U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel said he would decide next week whether to release Abdhir on bail pending his trial. Abdhir, 43, is accused of sending more than $10,000 and military gear to his brother, thought to be a high-ranking member of al-Qaida affiliate Jemaah Islamiyah.

The Sacramento Bee reports:

A California man convicted of attending an al-Qaida camp in Pakistan was sentenced to 24 years in federal prison Monday for supporting terrorists, concluding a case that divided a Central Valley farming community.

U.S. District Court Judge Garland Burrell Jr. imposed the sentence against Hamid Hayat on his 25th birthday, saying he had “attended a terrorist training camp, returned to the United States ready and willing to wage violent jihad when directed to do so.”

Hayat faced up to 39 years in prison after his April 2006 conviction on one count of providing material support to terrorists and three counts of lying about it to FBI agents. Prosecutors said he plotted to attack hospitals, banks, grocery stores and government buildings in California.

The NY Times reports:

A federal judge yesterday struck down the parts of the recently revised USA Patriot Act that authorized the Federal Bureau of Investigation to use informal secret demands called national security letters to compel companies to provide customer records.

The law allowed the F.B.I. not only to force communications companies, including telephone and Internet providers, to turn over the records without court authorization, but also to forbid the companies to tell the customers or anyone else what they had done. Under the law, enacted last year, the ability of the courts to review challenges to the ban on disclosures was quite limited.

You can read the entire text of the decision here.