The issue was whether $5.2 million transferred from Colombia to the accounts of attorney Ben Kuehne were exempt from criminal prosecution because they were essentially legal fees. Kuehne's lawyers and defense attorneys' groups argued that the conspiracy charge against him violated the Sixth Amendment's guarantee that a person charged with a crime has a right to a lawyer.

U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke agreed, rejecting the U.S. Justice Department's contention that the payments were not necessary for the defense of Colombian drug baron Fabio Ochoa, who was eventually convicted and sentenced to prison.

"Congress has explicitly exempted from the money-laundering statute transactions necessary to preserve a person's right to representation," Cooke said in a 13-page ruling. "If I were to construe the statutory exemption as the government suggests, the exemption for such transactions would amount to no exemption at all."

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, which filed briefs in the case, had argued that the conspiracy charge against Kuehne could deter lawyers around the country from representing numerous clients whose legal fees might stem from questionable sources.

In a recent letter to a federal judge, the receiver said founder Marc Dreier also may seek protection too.

Prosecutors have accused the 58-year-old Dreier of tricking hedge funds into making bogus investments. They say losses could top $380 million.

He ran a mid-size law firm that has represented celebrities including retired football star Michael Strahan and former News Corp. publishing executive Judith Regan.

Thomas Tamm, whose suburban Washington home was searched by federal agents last year, told the magazine he leaked the existence of the secret program to The New York Times 18 months before the newspaper broke the story.

"I thought this was something the other branches of the government and the public ought to know about. So they could decide: do they want this massive spying program to be taking place?" Tamm told Newsweek in what the magazine said were a series of recent interviews that he granted against the advice of his lawyers.

"If somebody were to say, who am I to do that? I would say, 'I had taken an oath to uphold the Constitution.' It's stunning that somebody higher up the chain of command didn't speak up," the magazine quoted Tamm as saying.

Tamm, 56, told the magazine he called the Times from a subway station pay phone in Washington.

In December 2005 the Times published a story exposing the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program to eavesdrop on international phone calls and e-mails of U.S. residents without court warrants.

The story cited multiple anonymous sources. Newsweek said the Times reporters who wrote the story refused to say whether Tamm was one of them.

The eavesdropping had been conducted without public knowledge and without any court approval. It has since been put under the authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Tamm, who left the Justice Department in 2006, had worked in the department's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review, a secretive unit that oversees surveillance of terrorist and espionage targets, according to Newsweek.

He told the magazine he has since struggled to make a living in private practice. Tamm has not been charged with any crimes, though the magazine said his friends and relatives have been questioned by federal agents.

The justices seemed reluctant to accept the arguments put forth by the religious group known as the Summum that once a government accepts any donations for display in a public park, it must accept them all.

"Do we have to put any president who wants to be on Mt. Rushmore?" Chief Justice John Roberts asked.

Yet the court also was uncomfortable with the position of Pleasant Grove City, Utah, which rejected the Summum's request to erect a monument similar to a Ten Commandments display that has stood in the city's Pioneer Park since 1971.

Justice David Souter wondered how the city could accept the Ten Commandments display and then say, "'We will not on identical terms take the Summum monument because we don't agree with the message.' Why isn't that a First Amendment violation?"

The Salt Lake City-based Summum wants to erect its "Seven Aphorisms of Summum" monument in the park.

The Summum argued, and a federal appeals court agreed, that Pleasant Grove can't allow some private donations in its public park and reject others.

The contractor, Connex Railroad, provides the engineers who run Metrolink trains.

Investigators have said the Metrolink train went through a red signal and its engineer had repeatedly sent text messages on duty that day — one just seconds before the impact that killed 25 people.

Rail authority board Vice Chairman Keith Millhouse says the suit was filed Thursday in federal court. He declined to comment further on it.

A Connex spokeswoman says she hasn't seen the lawsuit.

U.S. District Judge William Steele didn't want to order Patrick Lett, a 17-year Army veteran who served two tours in Iraq, to prison after the former soldier pleaded guilty to cocaine possession. But the judge thought the law required prison time.

When Steele learned differently, he reduced the punishment to 11 days of time served and three years of supervised release. That didn't satisfy prosecutors, who appealed the lighter sentence on the grounds that Steele didn't have the authority to change the initial five-year sentence.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the judge could not undo his sentence, and the Supreme Court rejected Lett's appeal of that decision without comment.

A new sentencing hearing is set for Oct. 24, though one of Lett's attorneys said a delay may be needed to prepare arguments.

Attorney Douglas Berman of Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law in Columbus said Monday that defense attorneys are expected to argue Lett initially had ineffective legal representation.

A Justice Department spokesman was not immediately available for comment on the high court's ruling.

At the initial sentencing, Steele noted that Lett had led "an exemplary life up until the time of the offenses and even after," when Lett re-enlisted and served another 17 months before his indictment.

Lett, now 39, pleaded guilty to cocaine possession for his involvement in a cousin's drug operation.

Lett works full time doing fiber optics work at a shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss. His two children, who live with Lett's mother, visit him on weekends. He supports his family as a single parent, his attorney said.

Several lawyers and government watchdog groups said Wednesday they are mulling legal action to block any changes without the approval of voters, who passed a two-term cap by referendum in 1993.

Bloomberg was expected to announce Thursday that he will ask the City Council to pass a bill giving him and other officeholders the option of running for a third consecutive term.

Even before the specifics of the mayor's plan have been revealed, the idea has already inflamed some critics who are promising a fight.

Public advocacy lawyer Norman Siegel said he has received calls from several people urging him to file a lawsuit, including a political candidate whose campaign plans would be disrupted by a change in term limits.

"The legal question is, can you undo a public referendum by legislative fiat?" Siegel said.

He promised "a hard look" at a legal challenge, a vow repeated Wednesday by other attorneys.

"Lawyers all around the city are going over this with a fine-toothed comb," said Gene Russianoff, a senior attorney for the New York Public Interest Research Group.

Veterans of similar fights, however, say Bloomberg's opponents might not find much solace in the courts.

State and federal judges in New York have a history of rulings that would seem to affirm the City Council's authority to extend or repeal term limits without going back to the voters.

A state appeals court ruled in 1961 that Buffalo's City Council could legally repeal voter-approved term limits without holding a new referendum.

A lower-level appeals court backed New York's City Council when it made minor alterations to the term limits law in 2002 to erase a quirk that would have limited some of its members to no more than six consecutive years in office, rather than eight.