A US federal judge has reaffirmed an Obama administration policy granting officials the authority to search Americans’ laptops, citing a controversial premise that makes citizens within 100 miles of the border eligible for a police check.

District Judge Edward Korman made his ruling in New York on Tuesday, more than three years after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed suit. The ACLU claimed that – since Americans put so much of their lives on their computers, cell phones, and other devices-border officials should have reasonable suspicion before sifting through someone’s personal files.

Attorneys argued that searches conducted without reasonable suspicion are a violation of the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure.

Not so, according to Judge Korman. In his decision Tuesday he argued that the area 100 miles inland falls under a “border exemption.” Read more…

Last week, I (Christopher Booker, writer for the Telegraph)investigated a story as shocking in its own way as that which I broke last month about the Italian woman detained in a psychiatric hospital who, on the orders of a secret court, was then forced to undergo a caesarean section so that her baby could be sent by social workers for adoption- Christopher Booker

TO SUMMARIZE THE ABOVE:  To summarize, a pregnant Italian woman was sent to Stansted for a training session. She was sectioned under the Mental Health Act after becoming distressed. But worse was to come:  By now Essex social services were involved, and five weeks later she was told she could not have breakfast that day. When no explanation was forthcoming, she volubly protested. She was strapped down and forcibly sedated, and when she woke up hours later, found she was in a different hospital and that her baby had been removed by caesarean section while she was unconscious and taken into care by social workers. She was not allowed to see her baby daughter, and later learnt that a High Court judge, Mr Justice Mostyn, had given the social workers permission to arrange for the child to be delivered. In October, at a hearing before another judge, she was represented by lawyers assigned to her by the local authority and told she would be escorted back to Italy without her baby.

Recent case of Mother locked up:

13 November 2013, WikiLeaks released the secret negotiated draft text for the entire TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) Intellectual Property Rights Chapter. The TPP is the largest-ever economic treaty, encompassing nations representing more than 40 per cent of the world’s GDP. Read more..

Update:

TPP Environment Chapter Analysis by Professor Jane Kelsey, New Zealand

Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) Series so far:

• TPP Intellectual Property Chapter
• TPP Agreement Documents
• TPP Environment Chapter Consolidated Text
• TPP Environment Chapter Working Group Chairs’ Report