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At approximately 10:15 this morning, the U.S. Supreme Court started hearing arguments on Proposition 8, the 2008 California initiative that banned same-sex marriage in the state. It was the court's first major hearing of gay rights in 10 years, and will be followed by consideration of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) tomorrow -- the 1996 law that struck down federal recognition of same-sex marriage. The Prop. 8 argument was scheduled for one hour, and by 11:32 a.m., the arguments were already over. As SCOTUSblog announced on Twitter, "#scotus won't uphold or strike down #prop8 bc Kennedy thinks it is too soon to rule on #ssm. #prop8 will stay invalidated."

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U.S. Army

Pfc. Bradley Manning pleaded guilty to some charges in military court this morning.

After 1,007 days in jail, Private First Class Bradley Manning, the 25-year-old soldier accused of leaking classified material to Wikileaks, appeared in military court at Fort Meade today to plead guilty to modified versions of some of the more minor charges against him.

Specifically, Manning admitted to leaking State Department cables, video that appears to show the killing of civilians by a helicopter gunship in Iraq, and the secret assessment files of Guantanamo detainees.

But Manning maintained his not-guilty plea to the most significant charges, including "aiding the enemy." He told the court he chose the leaked material because he believed that while it would be embarrassing for the United States government and might provoke policy changes, he "was absolutely sure [they] wouldn't cause harm to the United States"

Manning was allowed to read a 35-page statement to the court, in which he said that nobody from Wikileaks pressured him to leak the materials. In fact, before he turned to Wikileaks, he tried to interest press outlets including the New York Times, Reuters, the Washington Post, and Politico.

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C.S. Muncy

In the most non-rightblogger tone possible, Obama has been on quite a roll when it comes to his administration's assault on civil liberties lately.

Not one, not two, but three different pieces of legislation and policy with the potential to drastically infringe on the civil liberties of Americans have come out of the Obama administration in the past week alone.

So, tonight might be a good time for the president to address why his policies on civil liberties are even more intrusive than those set forth by his predecessor George W. Bush.

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C.S. Muncy

Protestors Flooded the Federa Court of Appeals to Rally Against the NDAA.

It sounded like a panel of Federal Appeals Court judges drilled lawyers with a barrage of questions yesterday during a hearing of oral arguments in the high-profile lawsuit against the Obama administration over the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act.

Of course, that's a bit tough to confirm considering that despite numerous requests from plaintiffs to have the arguments heard in a large courtroom, it was held in a rather small one. Unfortunate journalists and onlookers such as myself were subjected to listening to the hearing in a spacious overflow courtroom decked-out with two antiquated speakers fit for an iPod-Mini dock-system--which court technicians didn't get to work until 15 minutes into the hearing.

Public interest in the case is so high that many spectators and journalists couldn't even get into the ill-equipped overflow room. No biggie though, it's only a case that will decide whether the U.S. Military and the Executive Branch have the right to detain American citizens.

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The legal aftermath of of the NYPD's crackdown on street protest over the past year continues to unfold, with another lawsuit filed against the department in federal court.

The most recent suit is filed by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund on behalf of two protesters, Johanne Sterling and Joshua Cartagena. Sterling was one of the young women kettled and pepper-sprayed by Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna on September 24 of last year.

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Chris Hedges, one of the plaintiffs who successfully sued over unconstitutional provisions of the NDAA.

A lot of Americans breathed a little easier last week when a federal judge ruled that the National Defense Authorization Act -- which allows the executive branch, after thinking about it for a minute, to throw anyone in a military jail forever, effectively doing an end-run around the judicial branch and the whole balance-of-powers thing -- is completely unconstitutional.

Well, stop breathing so goddamn easily, you slack-diaphragmed potential future lifelong Guantanamo detainees! That was last week.

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Chris Hedges, one of the plaintiffs who successfully sued over unconstitutional provisions of the NDAA.

The Obama administration's efforts to enshrine sweeping 9/11-era rollbacks of civil liberties and constitutional rights as federal law hit a serious roadblock yesterday, as a federal judge struck down clauses of the National Defense Authorization Act as unconstitutional.

The offending section of the NDAA, signed by Obama on New Year's Eve last year, grants the government the power to put citizens in military detention indefinitely and without the usual recourse to civil courts.

Chris Hedges, along with other writers and activists including Daniel Ellsberg and Noam Chomsky, challenged the law soon after in a federal lawsuit.

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Chris Hedges outside federal court yesterday.

The question being argued in federal court in Lower Manhattan yesterday boiled down to this: Is a law authorizing the indefinite military detention of American citizens with only the barest recourse to civil courts constitutional?

The lawsuit against the Obama administration was filed in January by seven journalists and activists, including Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky, and Daniel Ellsberg. The suit challenges sections of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, which authorize the armed forces to detain

"A person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces."

The act would allow citizens to be detained in overseas military facilities like Guantanamo "until the end of hostilities."

The problem, the plaintiffs argue, is that this language is so vague as to possibly cover all kinds of activity protected by the First Amendment. What is "substantial support?" What are "associated forces?"

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Since Wednesday, we've been following news of pending legislation in Albany that would make illegal anonymous online commenting in certain contexts.

That proposed piece of law would require the removal of any comments posted on a website by an anonymous poster "unless such anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post" if someone complains about that comment.

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Yesterday, the Voice reported on pending legislation in Albany that would ban anonymous online speech. We took the time to catch up with New York State Sen. Thomas F. O'Mara and Assemblyman Dean Murray, who sponsored the bill, to see what they had to say. Quickly put, their basic idea is that the proposed legislation would cut down on cyber-bullying -- such as untrue, and unsigned, comments you might come across in a message board or on a blog.

Uncertainty over the Constitutionality of the bill persists, however, with one expert telling us: "I would like to see an argument -- and I haven't seen one -- that would authorize a legislature to determine what can be posted or not posted on a private website...the Constitution does not talk about websites or anonymity. The cases over the years suggest that the legislature has no business trying to tell editors what to print."

During our convo, we asked Murray about this. He countered that it was constitutional, citing the 1974 Gertz v. Robert U.S. Supreme Court Decision as evidence that the First Amendment does not protect against the falsehood-based mean-mongering you come across on the internet.

So what the hell is the Gertz decision, you might ask?

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