Seven Saudis formerly detained at Guantanamo Bay arrived in Saudi Arabia after US authorities granted their release earlier this week.

The Saudi Press Agency reported their return, and noted that Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz "expressed his appreciation at the level of co-operation with the US authorities, hoping that this step will pave the way to free all remaining Saudis soon". The former detainees will remain in custody in Saudi Arabia until the government has finished its investigation into any possible link the men may have with militant organizations.

In December, Saudi Arabia freed eighteen former Guantanamo Bay detainees "after meeting necessary legal conditions." Earlier in December, sixteen Saudis were released from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Arabian government was holding that group of transferees to investigate whether they have ties to terrorist groups. A total of 60 Saudi detainees have now been released from Guantanamo Bay, according to AP statistics, with another 67 remaining in custody.

In Marrama v. Citizens Bank of Massachusetts, the Court ruled 5-4 that a debtor's right to convert a Chapter 7 bankruptcy to a case under Chapter 13 is not absolute. Marrama initially filed a bankruptcy petition under Chapter 7 but then attempted to convert his case to a Chapter 13 petition in order to preserve his interest in an $85,000 piece of property. Citizens Bank challenged the conversion, and the bankruptcy court refused to allow the conversion due to Marrama's bad faith. The Supreme Court upheld the lower court decision from the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, concluding "that the courts in this case correctly held that Marrama forfeited his right to proceed under Chapter 13." The Court wrote:

Nothing in the text of either §706 or §1307(c) (or the legislative history of either provision) limits the authority of the court to take appropriate action in response to fraudulent conduct by the atypical litigant who has demonstrated that he is not entitled to the relief available to the typical debtor. On the contrary, the broad authority granted to bankruptcy judges to take any action that is necessary or appropriate "to prevent an abuse of process" described in §105(a) of the Code, is surely adequate to authorize an immediate denial of a motion to convert filed under §706 in lieu of a conversion order that merely postpones the allowance of equivalent relief and may provide a debtor with an opportunity to take action prejudicial to creditors.

Although no formal lawsuit has been filed, Quantum Research said that the iPhone will definitely be plucked apart when it's released. Quantum Research owns patents related to charge transfer techonology, which it licensed to Motorola as well as STMicroelectronics.

According to Duncan Bryan, Quantum Research's licensing director, the capabilities of the iPhone belong to his company. “The description of the iPhone suggests it uses a rear-surface touch screen, and has proximity sensing which can tell if it is held to the ear. That’s a QR capability,” said Bryan. Interestingly, Quantum Research also sells chips to Apple that includes many of the features advertised on the iPhone. The two companies are still in talks about the clickwheel used in products like the iPod Nano.

Apple is currently facing legal action from Cisco Systems, which owns the trademark name "iPhone" and has even used the name on its Linksys products. Cisco extended negotiations with Apple until today, claiming that it would like to come to a mutually beneficial conclusion with Apple. Analysts say it is still uncertain of whether or not Apple will come out of the courtroom with the rights to use the "iPhone" name.

Apple's iPhone is also waiting for approval from the FCC before it can hit the market. Apple's website indicates "This device has not been authorized as required by the rules of the Federal Communications Commission. This device is not, and may not be, offered for sale or lease, or sold or leased, until authorization is obtained."

A prosecutor wants federal prison time for a 75-year-old former lawyer who bilked his elderly clients of millions of dollars.

Gordon McGilton's spotless reputation as a volunteer, church member and veteran lawyer specializing in wills was exactly why people trusted him, Crown prosecutor Francois Drolet said yesterday. He said McGilton abused that trust by misappropriating $1.7 million of his elderly clients' money.

Defence lawyer Jeffrey Boro said his client has a heart condition and is legally blind, and asked that McGilton serve two years less a day under house arrest when he's sentenced on April 10. McGilton has had to sell his Westmount home and lives in a small apartment with his wife, Boro said.

McGilton transferred the stolen money to a company owned by his cousin who was investing in a bogus Nigerian oil investment.

A Seattle attorney has filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of people who reported getting sick after eating contaminated peanut butter.

It's one of at least three lawsuits filed against ConAgra Foods, which is recalling all Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter made at its Sylvester, Georgia, plant.

Federal officials have linked the peanut butter to a salmonella outbreak that has sickened almost 300 people nationwide since August. No deaths have been reported.

The Seattle firm Marler Clark says it has been contacted by 25-hundred people. Attorney William Marler says the lawsuit seeks compensation for people who got sick, but were not hospitalized. Marler says the more-serious cases will be handled separately.

A ConAgra spokeswoman says the company takes consumer concerns seriously -- that's why it has recalled the peanut butter.

Mahala Ashley Dickerson, the state's first black lawyer, died Monday at her family homestead in Wasilla after a short illness. She was 94.

Dickerson, who was raised in the South before the era of civil rights, blazed a trail for black women in the world of law. Aside from her accomplishments in Alaska, she became the first female attorney in her home state of Alabama in 1948 and the second black woman admitted to the bar in Indiana in 1951. She was also the first black homesteader in the Mat-Su.

Attorney Rex Butler, whom Dickerson convinced to come to Anchorage, said, "I remember one lawyer telling me one time, he said, 'Rex, you see those mountains out there?' He said, 'Those mountains are littered with the bones of lawyers who underestimated M. Ashley Dickerson.' "

Dickerson had a reputation as an advocate for the poor and underprivileged. She argued many cases involving racial and gender discrimination, taking on the Anchorage Police Department and the University of Alaska, among other institutions.

"In my life, I didn't have but two things to do. Those were to stay black and to die. I'm just not afraid to fight somebody big," she told the Daily News in 1984, when, at age 71, she was still working 12-hour days at her Fairview law office. "Whenever there's somebody being mistreated, if they want me, I'll help them."

Dickerson grew up in Alabama on a plantation owned by her father. She attended a private school, Miss White's School, where she began a lifelong friendship with Rosa Parks, who would become a hero of the civil rights movement.

Dickerson graduated from Fisk University in 1935, married Henry Dickerson and had triplets, Alfred, John and Chris. She later divorced, and when the boys were 6, she went to Howard University School of Law, becoming one of four women to graduate in her class of '36. After working as an attorney in Alabama and Indiana, she moved to Alaska with her sons, where she homesteaded in the Valley.

"I didn't know a single person, and there were very few black people in Alaska then, but everyone welcomed me, white and black alike," she said in a 2001 interview.

Dickerson opened her law practice in Anchorage in 1959, and her name is still on the answering machine, along with that of her long-time law partner, Johnny Gibbons. In 1995, she was awarded the Margaret Brent Award from the American Bar Association, an honor also given to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day O'Connor, a justice of the nation's top court who has since retired.

Dickerson wrote a book about her life, "Delayed Justice for Sale," in 1998. She continued to practiced law until she was 91.

In addition to encouraging Butler to practice in Anchorage, she was a mentor to many other young attorneys, Butler said.

Dickerson often took clients who didn't have the means to pay, said Leroy Barker, the historian for the Alaska State Bar Association, who practiced law with Dickerson in the 1960s.

"I don't think anybody thought of her as a black woman lawyer, she was just a lawyer," he said. "I think she worked very hard to get where she was, and she was a strong personality."

Joshua Wright, an Anchorage dentist, was a friend of Dickerson from the time she moved to Alaska. He remembered her as "a fighter."

"When she was younger, oh, God, when she got on a roll, you better clear out the room," he said, laughing.

He and his wife visited Dickerson over the weekend. She'd been lucid until a stroke a few weeks ago that left her without speech, he said. She responded to them in the room, he said, and when they left, she smiled and closed her eyes.

"That's our lasting picture of her," he said.

Dickerson's legacy will be the way she overcame obstacles, giving back to the community, said Celeste Hodge, former local head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who now runs Mayor Mark Begich's office of equal opportunity.

"Once you know her story, especially as an African-American woman, you know that you are able to achieve anything," Hodge said.

Dickerson will be buried on her land near her son, Alfred, who died in 1960. Sons John and Chris will attend a private Quaker graveside service today. A memorial will be held at a later date.

In one of the first ever extraditions for an intellectual property offense, the leader of one of the oldest and most renowned Internet software piracy groups was arraigned today in U.S. District Court, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg for the Eastern District of Virginia announced today.

Hew Raymond Griffiths, 44, a British national living in Bateau Bay, Australia, appeared today in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., before Magistrate Judge Barry R. Poretz. The defendant was extradited from Australia and is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and one count of criminal copyright infringement. If convicted on both counts, Griffiths could receive a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $500,000 fine. Prior to his arrival in the United States, he had spent nearly three years incarcerated at a detention center in Australia while fighting his extradition in Australian court.

“Griffiths claimed to be beyond the reach of U.S. law, and today, we have proven otherwise,” said Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher. “This extradition represents the Department of Justice’s commitment to protect intellectual property rights from those who violate our laws from the other side of the globe.”

“Our agents and prosecutors are working tirelessly to nab intellectual property thieves, even where their crimes transcend international borders,” said U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg.

The indictment, which was returned in March 2003, charges Griffiths with violating the criminal copyright laws of the United States as the leader of an organized criminal group known as DrinkOrDie, which had a reputation as one of the oldest security-conscious piracy groups on the Internet. DrinkOrDie was founded in Russia in 1993 and expanded internationally throughout the 1990s. The group was dismantled by the Justice Department and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as part of Operation Buccaneer in December 2001, with more than 70 raids conducted in the U.S. and five foreign countries, including the United Kingdom, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Australia. To date, Operation Buccaneer has resulted in 30 felony convictions and 10 convictions of foreign nationals overseas. Prior to its dismantling, DrinkOrDie was estimated to have caused the illegal reproduction and distribution of more than $50 million worth of pirated software, movies, games and music.

“Counterfeiting and piracy of intellectual property are global parasites estimated to rob the legitimate world economy of more than $400 billion annually,” said Assistant Secretary Julie Myers. “The indictment charges that Griffiths was co-leader of DrinkOrDie, which was part of an underground online community that consisted of individuals and organized groups who used the Internet to engage in the large-scale, illegal distribution of copyright protected software, games, movies and music worth $50 million.”

According to the indictment, Griffiths, known by the screen nickname “Bandido,” was a longtime leader of DrinkOrDie and an elder in the highest echelons of the underground Internet piracy community, also known as the warez scene. He held leadership roles in several other well-known warez groups, including Razor1911 and RiSC. In an interview published in December 1999 by an online news source, he boasted that he ran all of DrinkOrDie’s day-to-day operations and controlled access to more than 20 of the top warez servers worldwide. In fact, Griffiths claimed to reporters that he would never be caught.

According to the indictment, Griffiths oversaw all the illegal operations of DrinkOrDie which specialized in cracking software and distributing the cracked versions over the Internet. Once cracked, these software versions could be copied and used without limitation. Members stockpiled the illegal software on huge Internet computer storage sites that were filled with tens of thousands of individual software, game, movie and music titles worth millions of dollars. The group used encryption and an array of other sophisticated technological security measures to hide their activities from law enforcement.

This case is being prosecuted by Deputy Chief Michael DuBose and trial attorney Jay Prabhu of the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Wiechering of the Eastern District of Virginia.

The charges contained in the indictment are allegations only and the defendant is presumed innocent until convicted at trial.