Guantanamo Detainees Can Use U.S. Courts; NATO Offers to Help Secure Iraq; CERT’s Advice: Ditch IE

Guantanamo Detainees Can Use U.S. Courts

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that foreign terrorism suspects held at a U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, can challenge their legal detention in the American court system. The justices ruled, in a 6-3 vote, that American courts have jurisdiction to consider claims of prisoners who say in their lawsuits thay they are being held illegally, according to a Reuters report.

The justices overturned a lower court ruling that dismissed the lawsuits on the grounds that the military base was outside U.S. soverign territory and foreign nationals are not protected under writs of habeas corpus. Roughly 600 foregn nationals, designated as “enemy combatants” are held at Guantanamo Bay as suspected al Qaeda members or Taliban fighters.

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NATO Offers to Help Secure Iraq

NATO heads of state meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, this week have agreed to grant an Iraqi request for military training assistance. According to a stroy in The New York Times, the United States handed power to the Iraqi leadership Monday morning, two days prior to the June 30 deadline a move that sources say may may mitigate the political unrest in the country.

According to the story, NATO remains steadfastly against sending troops to Iraq.

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CERT’s Advice: Ditch IE

US CERT (the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team) is recommending that Web surfers stop using Internet Explorer because of the browser’s security flaws. According to a story in The Register, a new threat known as “Scob” or “Download.Ject,” which was originally posted on a Russian site last week, could be downloaded on to websites that use Microsoft’s Internet Information Server 5.0. Visitors to sites infected with this code could be subject to keystroke-capturing spyware that could extract information such as passwords or credit card numbers from their computers. CERT says users can reduce their exposure to vulnerabilities by ceasing their use of Internet Explorer and instead using some other browser. In a statement, Microsoft said that users should use a firewall and ensure that they have the latest updates of Internet Explorer and anti-virus software.

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