2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals

The Second Circuit has ruled that the federal government must release a redacted version of the legal guidance for the targeted killings of American citizens by drones, the New York Law Journal reports. The plaintiffs, including the New York Times, wanted information about the justifications for killing U.S. citizens Anwar al-Awlaki, his 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman, and Samir Khan by drone strike in Yemen. The appellate court reasoned that the secrecy of the legal analysis was waived because of voluntary disclosures by government officials.

Even though the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Jones the law enforcement's installation of GPS devices on suspects' vehicles  are searches under the Fourth Amendment, the Second Circuit has reasoned '"Jones left open the question of whether the warrantless use of GPS devices would be 'reasonable—and thus lawful—under the Fourth Amendment [where] officers ha[ve] reasonable suspicion, and indeed probable cause' to conduct a search,'" according to The New York Law Journal. The GPS tracking of the defendants in the case before the Second Circuit was not done with delibrate, reckless or gross disregard for their Fourth Amendment rights and was done with reasonable reliance on court precedent before the U.S. Supreme Court decided Jones, The Journal also reports. So the panel decided the evidence related to the search was in good faith and didn't need to be excluded.
 

The Second Circuit has rejected a $150,000 cap on individual donations to political action committees and independent-expenditure groups, Newsday reports. The ruling rises out of legsl action by supporters for NYC Republican Mayoral Candidate Joe Lhota.

The court granted injunctive relief on the grounds of the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United holding "that the government has no anti-corruption interest in limited independent expenditures," The New York Law Journal reported. Their story:  http://www.law.com/jsp/law/index.jsp#ixzz2ijtPbEjn