The US Court of Military Commission Review on Sept. 9 ruled (PDF) that Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman al-Bahlul, media secretary of Osama bin Laden, was properly convicted of being a propagandist and should spend the rest of this life in prison. The 7-0 vote rejects the 2009 appeal (PDF) of his conviction and life sentence for conspiring with al-Qaeda, soliciting murder and providing material support for terrorism. His Pentagon-appointed defense lawyers argued that his constitutional rights were violated because a supposed al Qaeda recruitment film he released is protected speech under the First Amendment.

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Sept. 6 affirmed the 2010 denial of petition for a writ of habeas corpus for Guantánamo Bay detainee Shawali Khan. Khan is an Afghan citizen who, at the time of his capture in mid-November 2002, lived in Kandahar, and is accused of belonging to Hezb-Islami Gulbuddin (HIG), an active Afghan insurgency group with ties to the Taliban. On appeal, Khan contended there is insufficient reliable evidence in the form of government-offered intelligence reports to establish that he was part of HIG at the time of his capture. The court explained its standard of review in evaluating Khan's appeal:

A New York judge on Aug. 11 dismissed a suit seeking to force an investigation of New York-licensed Guantánamo Bay psychologist Dr. John Leso for his development of "interrogation techniques." The Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA) and the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) sued the New York State Department of Education Office of Professional Discipline (OPD) last year to force a professional misconduct investigation. The OPD filed a motion to dismiss the case for lack of standing:

The convicted ringleader of abuses committed at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad was released Aug. 6 after serving more than six-and-a-half years of his 10-year sentence. Army Spc. Charles Graner, who was being held at the US Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, was released early as a result of earning days off for good behavior. Graner was convicted in 2005 of conspiracy, assault, maltreating prisoners, dereliction of duty, and committing indecent acts and received the longest sentence of the six others involved in the abuses. In May 2010, the US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces heard arguments in the appeal of his 10-year sentence and affirmed his conviction the following month. Graner will remain under military supervision until 2014.

It appears that the hacker groups Anonymous and LulzSec have teamed up to issue a call to boycott PayPal, evidently if not quite logically in response to FBI raids in which 14 accused Anonymous members were arrested across the country. The only connection between the raids and the boycott seems to be that the 14 are charged in connection with a "distributed denial of service attack" against PayPal, which took down the company's website for four days in December. Here is the cyber-outlaws' joint communique, with jargon and propaganda words in bold:

The US is violating UN laws governing torture investigations by insisting on monitoring conversations with an imprisoned army private, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez said in a press release July 12. Pfc. Bradley Manning is accused of leaking a controversial classified video of a 2007 US helicopter strike in Iraq ("Collateral Murder") and classified State Department documents on WikiLeaks last year. Manning was detained in pre-trial solitary confinement at Quantico Confinement Facility, and subsequently transferred to the Joint Regional Correctional Facility at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

A judge for the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on June 10 overturned the release of Yemeni Guantánamo Bay detainee Hussein Salem Mohammed Almerfedi. After his capture in 2001 and detention at Guantánamo Bay, Almerfedi filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus which was granted by a lower court. The government had argued that Almerfedi was a supporter of al-Qaeda because of his travels to Pakistan that indicated strong ties to the group. However, the court concluded that the government had not met its burden to show by a preponderance of the evidence that Almerfedi was part of al Qaeda. The appeals court, however, found that the government had met its burden of proof by a preponderance of evidence that Almerfedi was, in fact, part of al-Qaeda:

US President Barack Obama signed a four-year extension of the Patriot Act late on May 26, minutes before it was set to expire. The bill passed the US Senate 72-23, and shortly after passed the US House of Representatives by a vote of 250-153. Although major congressional leaders of both parties had agreed to a clean extension of the act last week, delays were met when Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) filibustered the bill over the lack of an amendment process and serious concerns about privacy. After three days of filibustering, Paul received votes on two amendments that ultimately failed, both related to the ability of security officials to survey gun purchases. Controversial provisions renewed include provisions allowing the government to use roving wiretaps on multiple carriers and electronic devices and allowing the government to gain access to certain records relevant to its investigations. The "lone wolf" provision enables investigators to get warrants to conduct surveillance over targets not connected to any particular terrorist group.