By a 3-2 vote, the court issued a ruling (.pdf) that supports the opinion that the long-debated Second Amendment protects the rights of individuals, rather than a group or militia, to own firearms.

The provisions of D.C.'s gun control law struck down by the court banned the carrying of handguns inside private homes and required that all privately-owned, licensed firearms be kept locked or disassembled.

Writing in the court's majority opinion (.pdf), Senior Judge Laurence Silberman wrote, "There are too many instances of 'bear arms' indicating private use to conclude that the drafters intended only a military sense." Silberman's ruling was considered a challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court to review its landmark 1939 decision in United States v. Miller, which held that the Second Amendment bestowed gun ownership rights on a militia, rather than on individual citizens.

Gun Rights Back to Supreme Court?
In a Legal Times article by Tony Mauro, Cato Institute's Roger Pilon is quoted as stating, "The issue has been teed up by Judge Silberman in such a way that no honest court can avoid dealing with it head-on," referring to D.C.'s probable appeal of the decision. "He has cut through all the fog surrounding the Second Amendment."

It's ruling in United States v. Miller, stands today as the only definitive decision ever rendered by the Supreme Court on true meaning and legal effect of the Second Amendment, which states, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." In tying gun ownership rights to a state militias, United States v. Miller, established the government's right to limit, through gun control laws, what types of firearms the public can legally "keep and bear."

"They lost track," said the official who like others interviewed late Thursday spoke on condition of anonymity because the report had not been released.

The errors are outlined by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine in an audit to be released on Friday. The audit requirement was added to the Patriot Act by Congress over the objections of the Bush administration.

The FBI reported to Congress in 2005 that its agents had delivered a total of 9,254 national security letters seeking e-mail, telephone or financial information on 3,501 U.S. citizens and legal residents over the previous two years. That was the first year the Bush administration publicly disclosed how often it uses national security letters to obtain records. The numbers from previous years have been classified.

Fine's report, according to officials, says the numbers of national security letters, or NSLs, between 2003 and 2005 were underreported by 20 percent.

It was unclear late Thursday whether the omissions could be considered a criminal offense. One government official who read the report said it concluded the problems appeared to be unintentional and that FBI agents would probably face administrative sanctions instead of criminal charges.

The FBI has taken steps to correct some of the problems, the official said.

The Justice Department, already facing congressional criticism over its firing of eight U.S. attorneys, began notifying lawmakers of the audit's damning contents late Thursday. Justice spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos said Attorney General Alberto Gonzales "commends the work of the inspector general in uncovering serious problems in the FBI's use of NSLs."

Gonzales has told FBI Director Robert S. Mueller "that these past mistakes will not be tolerated," Scolinos said in a statement early Friday. The attorney general also "has ordered the FBI and the department to restore accountability and to put in place safeguards to ensure greater oversight and controls over the use of national security letters," she said.

Mueller was to brief reporters on the audit Friday morning, and Gonzales was expected to answer questions about it at a privacy rights event in Washington several hours later.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee that oversees the FBI, called the reported findings "a profoundly disturbing breach of public trust."

"Somebody has a lot of explaining to do," said Schumer, D-N.Y.

Fine's audit also says the FBI failed to send follow-up subpoenas to telecommunications firms that were told to expect them, the officials said.

Those cases involved so-called exigent letters to alert the firms that subpoenas would be issued shortly to gather more information, the officials said. But in many examples, the subpoenas were never sent, the officials said.

The FBI has since caught up with those omissions, either with national security letters or subpoenas, one official said.

National security letters have been the subject of legal battles in two federal courts because recipients were barred from telling anyone about them.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued the Bush administration over what the watchdog group described as the security letter's gag on free speech.

Last May, a federal appeals judge in New York warned that government's ability to force companies to turn over information about its customers and keep quiet about it was probably unconstitutional.

Khadr was only 15 years old when he allegedly trained with and fought alongside al Queda fighters in Afghanistan. His father, Ahmad Khadr, was a close associate of Osama bin Laden and other senior al Queda leaders. Omar Khadr is accused of planting mines to blow up US convoys and throwing a grenade that killed a US Green Beret. His charges were renewed last month. Earlier this week the US Supreme Court rejected his request to expedite his challenge of the 2006 Military Commissions Act.

Texas Ranger Sgt. Brian Burzynski speaks to members of a Joint Committee on the Operation and Management of the Texas Youth Commission Thursday, March 8, 2007, in Austin, Texas. Burzynski is one of the first law authorities to investigate allegations of sexual abuse at the West Texas State School.
   
Echoing the words of so many others, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said of U.S. troops: They don't have the luxury of passing the buck to somebody else. They step forward and they step up.

"I promised each one of those victims that I would do everything in my power to ensure that justice would not fail them, the Rangers would not fail them," Brian Burzynski told a legislative committee Thursday, his voice quivering. "I can only imagine what the students think about the Ranger who was unable to bring them justice."

Recent discussions of the agency's budget brought Burzynski's investigation to the Legislature's attention, and an internal investigation confirmed his findings and determined top officials knew of the abuse but did nothing to stop it.

This week, state leaders dispatched law enforcement officials to all 22 state youth facilities and the commission's headquarters to investigate as the sexual abuse scandal became public.

The Texas attorney general's office opened an investigation and aimed to bring the case before a grand jury by May. Lawmakers urged them to hurry.

The legislative committee Burzynski testified before, set up to look into the scandal, also gave the Texas Youth Commission Board of Directors a vote of no confidence during its first meeting Thursday after board members refused to resign.

"You're responsible for 5,000 children that are incarcerated and they're God's children," said state Rep. Jim McReynolds. "I read (investigation reports) last night 'til I wanted to vomit."

Lawmakers are trying to determine who knew that inmates had accused top officials of molesting them, when they knew about it and why they didn't stop the abuse and expose it.

During the often tear-filled testimony, members of the board claimed they didn't know about many of the allegations and didn't have time in their meetings to categorically address reports of abuse.

"I've never been involved in anything where you had to follow up on a case that was done by a Texas Ranger or by a police department or was turned over to a district attorney," said Board Chairman Donald Bethel. "We didn't know anything about that."

Bethel insisted that the board did the best it could with the information it had.

"I don't think anyone else would have done different than what this board did," Bethel said.

Sen. John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat who leads the committee, told the five board members they should all resign: "I think you ought to do the state and the young people of Texas a service by getting out of the way and letting someone else lead."

Investigators on Thursday converged on a halfway house in San Antonio after getting a tip that the superintendent had been shredding documents. Executive Director Ed Owens had previously ordered that no document be destroyed at any of the facilities.

"They conducted a search of her office, vehicle and residence with her consent and they seized state-issued computers as well as a shredder and its contents," said Ted Royer, a spokesman for Gov. Rick Perry. "She was immediately escorted off the facilities and Ed Owens has ordered that she be suspended immediately while this investigation moves forward."

Government prosecutors led by Patrick Fitzgerald spent nearly four years investigating the case, but never charged anyone with the leak. Libby will be the only one charged in the case, Fitzgerald said.

Libby's attorneys tried to use that during the trial to persuade jurors that, since nobody was charged in the case, Libby didn't fear prosecution for the leak and so he had no reason to lie. Juror Denis Collins summed up the dilemma that he and his associates faced behind closed doors.

"There was a frustration that we were trying someone for telling a lie apparently about an event that never became important enough to file charges anywhere else," he said Wednesday on ABC's "Good Morning America."

At the White House, press secretary Tony Snow brushed off questions about whether President Bush would entertain a pardon for Libby, saying the case remains under legal review. Snow also said Cheney's stature within the administration has not changed or waned as a result of the verdict.

Native American plaintiffs in the decade-old Indian Trust case have rejected a new $7 billion settlement proposal from the US government but the chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee nonetheless says he will hold a hearing later this month to provide administration officials, plaintiffs, and representatives from other interested parties an opportunity to testify publicly on the settlement offer. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) says the government is admitting liability, but Department of the Interior officials have disputed that interpretation. Native plaintiffs say that the offer does not go far enough, being "pennies on the dollar" in respect of the value of their claim, and that it goes too far in precluding further claims.

The class-action Indian trust litigation involves the alleged mismanagement by the US Department of the Interior of American Indian money - lease and sales revenues, permit fees and and interest - received and held for Native Americans by the US government over the last 120 years. In July, the Cobell plaintiffs said they might consider an $8 billion settlement, much lower than the $27.5 billion figure that the plaintiffs demanded for settlement in 2005.