Taping Cops Gains Support, NJ Considers Decriminalizing Dope, Greeks Maneuver For Next Election: P.M. Links

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  • Feel like you've been chatting on a party line? It may be for good reason. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments in an ACLU challenge to warrantless wiretaps of international phone calls and emails. The justices will decide whether the plaintiffs have standing to sue.

  • After slamming as "nauseating" the Obama campaign's attack on private equity firms (as well as Mitt Romney's attack ads), Newark, New Jersey, Mayor Cory Booker, a rising star in the Democratic Party, is carefully trying to reframe his criticisms.
  • Dharun Ravi, who used a webcam to spy on his gay roommate who then killed himself amidst the resulting embarrassing exposure, was sentenced to 30 days in jail plus three years probation.
  • Courts are increasingly pushing back against efforts to ban recording police while they perform their official duties, and even the U.S. Department of Justice is backing the right of individuals to tape cops.
  • With reports surfacing that Greece has been threatened with expulsion from the eurozone, the conservative New Democracy party and the small, free-market Democratic Alliance are joining forces in an effort to outmaneuver surging socialists.
  • The New Jersey Assembly's judiciary committee gave thumbs-up to a bill that would decriminalize possession of 15 grams or less of marijuana, so that those found in possession would face only relatively small fines.
  • NATO summit protesters allege they were mistreated by police after their arrest during a raid staged before the gathering. "For 18 hours, we were handcuffed to a bench and our legs were shackled together. Some of our cries for the bathroom were either ignored or met with silence."

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