at least until it stops having problems. you can opt out. if you re covered under section five and you can show you ve gotten over the urge to run your elections in racially discriminatory ways, you can opt out if you can show you ve gotten better. until you do, you are covered and cannot change your laws without the justice department giving the okay. voting rights act has been very, very popular over the years. a few months after the federal government intervened in that greater houston college district election, president bush signed a reauthorization of the voting rights act. the vote in the senate was 98-nothing. over the next very few days, this week, these are the votes that are going to be the ones that matter. the united states supreme court set to rule this week on a key provision of the voting rightsing a. the part that s called section five. which says if your history shows you deserve it, any changes you make in holding election will get a second look unless you can show t
anymore. since the law was reauthorized in 2006, there have been 31 proposed changes that the justice department has blocked in places that are covered by this sections. before the reauthorization the brennan center counted 153 changes over 6 years in which local governments gave up on them after the federal government merely asked for more information about them. as in hey, what s up with cutting the number of polling places for latinos? the states say, were we going to do that? who, us? then they backed down because they got asked for more information by it because they re covered under the voting rights act. that is all at risk now. predicting supreme court rulings is sometimes not more scientific than reading tea leaves, but the initial reaction to the oral arguments on the voting rights act back in february was at the odds of it surviving in tact did not seem good. again, nobody knows. until we all know. and that ruling is still to come sometime this week, maybe tomorrow. and toda
they did not announce it w l willing willingly. it was broken by the washington post around 6:11 friday night that that indictment had come down. so they then confirmed it a couple hours later. it was a sealed indictment. the indictment first came on the 14th of june, so the friday previous and they weren t planning to announce it. i don t think they can be faulted for announcing the espionage charge. but i m told, and what pete williams and others who cover the justice department say is that the justice department, the fbi and justice were working very closely with hong kong authorities and thought they had a deal. they were massaging the charges to be serious enough that they could get the extradition but not over the top. this is all very well coordinated, they were saying. then perhaps after assange leaked the fact that the u.s., evidence that the u.s. wases spying, big surprise, spying on
and justice correspondent, also working this story. do we know why or do we know the conditions of his release at all? no, we don t know the conditions of his release. the latest development from the federal government has been this order from the u.s. district court for the northern district of mississippi, and all it says from the judge in this case involving paul kevin curtis, the detention, hearing and preliminary hearing on the criminal complaint in this action are hereby continued until further order of this court. so it sounds very much like a legal limbo. that s not a technical term. we re waiting for the justice department. they haven t had any comment at all. they are saying basically that the investigation into this strange case is continuing. paul kevin curtis charged with sending ricin-laced letters to president obama, other officials, including roger wicker, the senator from
it wouldn t surprise me if they did know the conditions of release. however, i found in the past, having dealt with federal marshals many times, a lot of times they don t want to be the people releasing the specific information, the where, what, when and why, the terms of releasing an individual. they leave that up to the lawyer and the justice department, chris. good point, joe. big part of being a reporter is understanding how to scrutinize nonanswers and we ll do that here as we get the information. we ll go forward with it. appreciate the latest. thank you very much, joe. we re going to take a break. when we come back, the mother of the boston bombing suspect obviously distraught over what has happened. up next, you ll hear why she believes her sons were framed. i m here at my house on thanksgiving day, and i have a massive heart attack right in my driveway. the doctor put me on a bayer aspirin regimen. [ male announcer ] be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin