Keep America Safe, which is run by former Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter Liz Cheney, released a video that questions the patriotic values of lawyers that legally represented suspected terrorists while they were detained in Guantanamo Bay. The video plays on complicated feelings with regard to the American standard of fair legal practices and how that applies to people accused of attacking the country.

While the video has garnered attention for the fledgling group, it may not be the type of attention Cheney was looking for.

Describing the Democratic Party as weak on national security has long been a bash tactic used by the GOP, but Keep America Safe’s latest effort to shine negative light on the Obama administration has drawn strong denouncements from prominent conservative lawyers such as Kenneth Starr.

Starr, who served as solicitor general under George W. Bush’s administration and garnered notoriety as the lawyer who went after Bill Clinton for dishonesty about his affair with Monica Lewinsky in the 1990s, signed a letter with several other conservative attorneys describing Keep America Safe’s efforts as “shameful,” according to the Associated Press.

Other former Bush administration lawyers signed the letter alongside Starr, including former deputy general Larry Thompson and Viet Dinh, the attorney who drafted the original Patriot Act.

One of the more surprising signers of the letter was former deputy assistant defense secretary for detainee affairs Charles “Cully” Stimson. Stimson resigned from the Bush administration back in 2007 after he came under attack for saying that it was shocking to him that U.S. lawyers would be willing to represent Guantanamo detainees accused of terrorist acts, according to the AP.

“The American tradition of zealous representation of unpopular clients is at least as old as John Adams’ representation of the British soldiers charged in the Boston massacre,” the letter read. “To suggest that the Justice Department should not employ talented lawyers who have advocated on behalf of detainees maligns the patriotism of people who have taken honorable positions” and “demands a uniformity of background and view in government service from which no administration would benefit.”

Deborah Burlingame, another co- founder of Keep America Safe, said the organization’s goal is to get clarity from Obama’s staff on how they make decisions about Guantanamo detainees.

“This isn’t an attack on lawyers for being lawyers,” said Burlingame, a former lawyer.

Chemicals called polychlorinated biphenyl compounds, or PBCs, were claimed by the lawyer’s suit to be found in supplements sold by CVS and Rite-Aid drugstore, and in supplements made by Houston, Tx.-based Omega Protein Inc. According to the San Jose Mercury News, Omega Protein claims to be the world’s largest producer of fish oil supplements.

David Roe filed the lawsuit in San Francisco citing Proposition 65, a law he helped write, reports the San Jose Mercury News.The law requires product labels to clearly state if an item contains toxic ingredients above regulatory safe levels.

Roe told the Mercury News that some of the tested supplements exceed the limit for PCBs by 10 times for cancer risk, as established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. A limit on PCBs with regard to birth defects has not been established.

Benson Chiles, director of the New Jersey-based Coastal Ocean Coalition, is serving as a co-plaintiff on the suit and said that buyers need to be wary of what may be in the supplements.

Other companies named as defendants in the suit include Twinlab, GNC stores, Now Health Group, Solgar, and Pharmavite, which produces Nature Made supplements.

Two manufacturers were quick to respond to the lawsuit by saying their products are indeed safe for consumption.

Representatives of Twinlab and Pharmavite told the Mercury News that they distill their fish oil products to remove impurities and that any levels of PCBs are within government guidelines.

“PCBs are ubiquitous within the environment, which means that all fish - whether fish found in oceans and rivers or fish oil supplements - contain at least trace amounts of PCBs,” Erin Hlasney with the Council for Responsible Nutrition told the Mercury News. “The lawyers are using California’s Prop. 65 statute to bring attention to their case by attempting to frame this as a public health concern, when in reality, fish oil has enjoyed decades of safe use.”

The main crux of the suit is to simply make it known to consumers purchasing for health benefits that the supplements could carry a health risk, Roe told the San Francisco Chronicle.

A five-year inquiry by the DOJ’s ethics department recommended that attorneys Jay S. Bybee and John C. Yoo be put under a disciplinary review for writing what are now described as the “torture memos.”

Bybee and Yoo wrote the memos in 2002 while working for the Justice Department during George W. Bush’s administration. The memos declared techniques such as waterboarding and sleep deprivation legal for the Central Intelligence Agency to perform on suspected terrorists, while also allowing the president freedom to order the military into action without consent of congress.

But shortly after the recommendation was made, the Justice Department’s David Margolis, a higher ranking official, overruled the inquiry ruling against the former DOJ lawyers.

Editorial writers with the Washington Post agreed with Margolis’ decision, pointing out that Bybee and Yoo were under pressure by the Bush administration to swiftly come up with a policy after terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. The Post described David Margolis’ decision as courageous and quoted him as saying Bybee and Yoo acted under “good faith” and with the backing of several court decisions that could support the memos.

But the Post also wrote that Margolis was still sharply critical of the lawyers’ actions.

“Yet Mr. Margolis also made clear that Mr. Bybee and Mr. Yoo at virtually every turn argued for the most extreme application of executive power — a particular obsession of Mr. Yoo’s — and interpreted anti-torture provisions in the narrowest way possible,” the Post wrote in their editorial. “They failed to fully air arguments that cut the other way. Their work shows how quickly matters can go awry when ideology and fear drive decision-making during a crisis.”

The New York Times chastised the Justice Department for not following through on the recommendation to place both Bybee and Yoo under disciplinary actions by their respective state bar associations.

The Times wrote that while many Americans were both scared and clamoring for harsh punishment against terrorists after the Sept. 11 attack, the Justice Department had a responsibility to be even that much more vigilant when government officials wanted to sidestep laws.

“When [the Justice Department] renders an opinion, it has the force of law within the executive branch,” the Times wrote about the Justice Department. “Poor judgment is an absurdly dismissive way to describe giving the green light to policies that have badly soiled America’s reputation and made it less safe.”

The Times also pointed out that Margolis was critical of Bybee’s and Yoo’s professionalism in writing memos that seemed to offer little more than a preemptive criminal defense for questionable actions by the Executive Branch.

The Times wrote that Bybee and Yoo aren’t necessarily in the clear, since federal House and Senate Judiciary Committees will still be holding hearings in relation to the ethics report.

“The quest for real accountability must continue,” the Times wrote. “The alternative is to leave torture open as a policy option for future administrations.”

The circumstances surrounding Gao Zhisheng, one of few lawyers who dared to stand against Chinese government, has brought international scrutiny against the large nation considering how long he has been missing. Gao also said he was on the receiving end of severe violence and torture at the hands of Chinese authorities, which has also cast a dubious veil over his case.

The Dui Hua Foundation, a human rights organization based in San Francisco, released a statement that said they were told by the Chinese embassy in Washington D.C. that Gao was in the Xinjiang region, about 1,800 miles west of Beijing, according to the Associated Press.

John Kamm, executive director of the foundation, said it wasn’t clear what Gao was doing in that area of the country or what has happened to him in the last year.

“On Feb 12, the Chinese Embassy in Washington DC informed John Kamm, executive director of The Dui Hua Foundation, that Mr. Gao Zhisheng is working in Urumqi, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and that he has been in contact with his wife and relatives in China,” according to a statement from the foundation. Gao’s wife Geng He said she has not been in touch with him.

Considered one of the best known activist lawyers in China, Gao was known for his legal work involving religious groups that were targeted by the Chinese government, including underground Christians and the banned Falun Gong spiritual group, Reuters reported.

Gao was last seen in his home in the Shaanxi province on February 4, 2009, according to the Associated Press. At the time, his wife and children had already escaped the home and fled to Bangkok where they waited to be granted asylum in the United States.

Both the U.S. and the European Union had called on the Chinese government to find out what happened to Gao.

In August 2006, Gao was arrested on a subversion charge and shortly thereafter was placed under house arrest when he was convicted after a one-day trial. Since then, he was under constant police monitoring and would be secretly detained for random periods of time, Geng told Reuters after she was granted asylum in the U.S.

In 2005, Gao wrote an open later to China’s president demanding the country stop persecuting practitioners of Falun Gong, which the Chinese government considers a fanatical cult.

“It would be highly unusual for the Secretary of State to intervene in a case involving the judicial process of another country,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told CNN this week.

Washington-based lawyer Reginald Brown, who is representing one of the 10 people charged in the case, sent a personal letter to Clinton asking her to step in on behalf of the Americans charged and convince Haitian authorities to reconsider their stance.

“This is all the result of a colossal misunderstanding and we are hoping it will resolve itself,” Brown wrote in his letter, describing the arrest of his client Jim Allen and nine other American missionaries in Haiti following the devastating earthquake there last month. “We would appreciate it if you could continue to devote significant personal attention to this matter, as we are confident that with your assistance, this misunderstanding could be quickly resolved.”

Brown went on to ask Clinton to directly ask the Haitian government to allow Allen to speak with his wife, as well as the lawyers she has retained, and to also allow fresh supplies to be delivered to him.

Crowley responded to the request by saying the detained Americans have been able to speak freely with anyone who has tried to get in touch with them, according to CNN.

“If family members wish to talk to them, I think that is something that can be easily facilitated through our embassy in Port-au-Prince or through the Haitian government,” Crowley told CNN.

Crowley said the U.S. is being “respectful” of both the Haitian government and their laws, since this case is about whether the 10 Americans broke Haitian laws or not.

The case involves 10 Americans who went to Haiti after the devastating earthquake on Jan. 12 that has left over 200,000 people dead, 300,000 injured and over a million people homeless.

The members of an Idaho-based church group were on what they claimed to be a missionary effort to help displaced orphaned children find homes after the earthquake. The group was arrested as they attempted to cross into the Dominican Republic with a busload of 33 children between 2 months and 12 years old.

The missionary group’s lawyer Edwin Coq has told the Associated Press that a Haitian pastor authorized the group to remove the children from the ravaged country. It has also since been found that families of the children gave them over to the group willingly to take them out.

If convicted, the church members could face nine years in prison for child kidnapping, and possibly more on charges of conspiracy.

In January, Offill went to an Alexandria, Va. courthouse because he was charged with the exact same type of crime he spent 15 years prosecuting as a federal Securities and Exchange Commission litigator.

On January 28, Offill was convicted on 10 counts of conspiracy and wire and securities fraud by a jury, according to a release from the U.S. Justice Department. Offill was immediately jailed after the verdict and faces significant prison time after the conviction.

According to the Dallas Morning News, Offill could face as many as 185 years in prison and be ordered to pay back as much as $15 million in lost funds.

“It is a sad day when a former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission attorney uses what he learned in the government to later defraud the investing public,” Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division said after the verdict was given.

In 2004, Offill and Phoenix-based attorney David Stocker were involved in a scam to drive up prices of certain securities through press releases and spam-style email blasts, only to then sell the interests once the value went falsely went up, according to UPI. This type of scam is commonly called a “pump and dump.”

Along with the spreading information through media, the two lawyers also avoided stock registration requirements in order to hide the true nature of the stocks’ value when they wanted to sell at a high price, UPI reported.

In the criminal indictment against both Offill and Stoker, the two were accused of collaborating to register millions of shares in nine small companies that the two lawyers sold to investors, the Morning News reported. Once the prices went up through their media blasts and the lack of true records about the companies’ real finances, Offill and Stocker sold all shares in the valueless companies before stocks collapsed.

Stocker pleaded guilty to charges in 2009.

Earlier in January, Offill attended a court hearing within the federal court in mid-January on a contempt of court charge. He took the stand and defended himself against charges that he helped a client violate a court-order freeze on assets. Ironically, the freeze was placed on the individual after the SEC charged him with securities fraud, which is exactly the type of crime Offill used to prosecute.

Offill argued during the hearing that the assets considered frozen belonged to other companies that were labeled in the original court order as being a part of the freeze. He is scheduled to be sentenced in April.

James O’Keefe, a right-leaning filmmaker, released his statement on Biggovernment.com while he and three other men await court proceedings for federal charges related to the incident. O’Keefe has been accused of shooting pictures and video of two men, dressed as phone repair men, entering Sen. Mary Landrieu’s Louisiana office to ask about problems with the phone system, according to a Washington Post report.

O’Keefe said in his statement that he learned Louisiana citizens looking to urge Sen. Landrieu from voting in favor of a national healthcare bill had trouble getting through on her office’s phones. O’Keefe said the senator responded to the claim by saying phones lines had been jammed for weeks.

“On reflection, I could have used a different approach to this investigation, particularly given the sensitivities that people understandably have about security in a federal building,” O’Keefe said in his statement. “The sole intent of our investigation was to determine whether or not Senator Landrieu was purposely trying to avoid constituents who were calling to register their views to her as their Senator.”

O’Keefe, who earned attention last year for filming hidden-camera interviews with the community-organizing group ACORN to expose alleged corruption, and three other men are charged with entering federal property under false pretenses with intent to commit a felony.

Penalties for conviction can include up to 10 years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines.

Joseph Basel and Robert Flanagan were described as entering Landrieu’s office disguised as telephone repair men, according to the Washington Post. Stan Dai is charged with assisting in the act, but to what extent hasn’t been reported.

Flanagan’s attorney J. Garrison Jordan was recently quoted in the New York Times describing the incident as a “prank.”

“Mr. O’Keefe has a history of trying to embarrass agencies or political entities on camera,” Attorney Jordan told the New York Times. “I think it was just an ill-designed stunt with no intent to commit a crime.”

O’Keefe also claims in his statement that the U.S. government is holding tape recordings made of the entire fiasco that will show allegations against him and the three other men among news reports are false.

The Associated Press and MSNBC reported incorrectly that he broke into the office and was under a gag order, while the Washington Post and other outlets mistakenly reported the act was an attempt to bug phones within Landrieu’s office.

The civil trial began in the wrongful death lawsuit of Althea LaCoste against the Pendleton Memorial Methodist Hospital in New Orleans.

Several differing perspectives were offered on what led to the 73-year-old woman’s death while at the hospital when flood waters led to a power outage at then hospital after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in late August 2005.

Depending on the outcome of this suit, hospitals could potentially be liable for maintaining high levels of operation during a wide range of emergencies, including viral pandemics, natural disasters and terrorist attacks.

Attorney Lawrence Best, who is representing LaCoste’s family members, said during opening arguments that he will focus on the hospital’s alleged failure to supply power to the hospital with an emergency backup that could stand up to a powerful storm. Best claimed during the Jan. 12 start date that the neglect of such a system is what caused her death, according to the Times Picayune.

David Bowling, serving as attorney for both Methodist and its parent owner Universal Health Services of Pennsylvania, asserted that hospital staff did everything that could be expected to save lives before and after floodwaters filled the city. Bowling added that ruling in favor of LaCoste’s relatives would set a standard too high for hospitals to actually meet, the Times Picayune reported.

LaCoste was taken to Methodist for congestive heart failure one day before the storm caused an immense amount of damage both in the New Orleans area and along the Gulf Coast. She was put on a mechanical respirator which went out when the hospital lost power after a fuel pump was flooded.

Nurses kept her alive throughout the 18 hour power outage with manual breathing assistance using hand pumps, but she passed away some time after power came back on.

“Some of them knew this (fuel pump) was on ground level,” Best said. “Some of them should have known. And all of them should have done something about it.”

While Bowling did not argue how detrimental the fuel pump’s low placement was on the hospital, he pointed out that LaCoste’s physical condition played a role in her passing. Bowling said LaCoste also suffered from persistent infections and diabetes along with heart failure, according to the Times Picayune.

The trial has continued with testimonies from former Methodist staff and administrators, as well as LaCoste’s family members. In 2002, former Methodist vice president Cameron Barr wrote that the hospital did not have a backup generator system that could withstand 15 feet of flood waters.

At the Jan. 15 court date for the trial, former Methodist CEO Larry Graham said he was not aware of Barr’s report.

Federal prosecutors have decided not to bring John A. “Junior” Gotti to court for a fifth trial on organized crime-related related charges. Gotti Jr. has been tried four other times in federal court over the last five years on similar mob charges, and all four ended with hung juries.

His father, famed Gambino crime family figurehead John Gotti Sr., was nicknamed the ‘Teflon Don’ after he also evaded several convictions after going to court on federal charges. Prosecutors, however, broke through Gotti Sr.’s nonstick surface and sent him to a federal prison in Texas after he was convicted on racketeering charges, according to CNN.

Gotti Sr. died in that Texas prison in 2002.

The U.S Attorney office’s New York City branch filed a notice on January 8 of nolle prosequi or “non prosecution.” Shortly after filing, U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel effectively dismissed the case by signing the notice, CNN reported.

No clear reason was offered by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for ending their pursuit of 45-year-old Gotti Jr. in court, aside from a vague statement found in court papers filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Elie Honig.

“In light of all the circumstances, the government has decided not to proceed with the prosecution against John A. [Junior] Gotti,” according to court papers.

These aren’t “Junior’s” first criminal charges. In 1999, he pleaded guilty to racketeering charges and spent the next five years in prison as part of a plea agreement, according to CNN. Since he was sentenced, Gotti has insisted that he has had no involvement with organized crime.

But authorities said otherwise. While still in prison, he was named in other federal cases and has been heavily monitored by authorities since his release.

In 2004, Junior faced a 42-page federal indictment that included fraud, extortion, loan sharking and kidnapping, according to a 2005 New York Times article. The kidnapping charge stems from the June 1992 attack on Guardian Angels leader Curtis Sliwa, where Sliwa was shot several times while in a taxi cab on the way to a radio broadcast.

Gotti Jr. allegedly ordered the attack on Sliwa after the activist described Gotti’s father as a “crook” and a “thug” on a radio show, the Times reported.

In 2008, a murder charge was added to the extensive indictment against Junior, according to CNN. But since 2004, four trials for the indictment all ended in mistrials because of deadlocked juries.

Attorney Ron Kuby, who represented Gotti Sr. for several trials, told CNN that the U.S. government can’t keep trying Gotti over and over.

“He has been a full time defendant for the last five years,” Kuby said. “If Gotti [Jr.] is going to go to prison, he’s going to have to commit a brand new crime.”

Born into a low income family, Guzman was a poorly educated child who was kicked out of his home at a young age - but now he has made it on two Forbes lists as one of the most powerful and wealthiest people in the world.

Guzman was ranked at number 41, beating Oprah Winfrey on the most-powerful list. Winfrey was ranked number 45. Many people consider Winfrey a very influential and powerful woman with her huge number of devoted fans across the nation.

But this is not the first time Guzman has made one of the magazine’s top lists. In March, he was placed as one of the wealthiest people with a net worth of over $1 billion. The Forbes article stated that Guzman was a self-made billionaire and only in his 50’s.

Authorities state Guzman controls the Sinaloa Cartel – a very powerful cartel in Sinaloa, Mexico.  Sinaloa has a big drug trafficking operation.

According to a TIME Magazine article, he began his career in the drug trade as an apprentice of “El Padrino” Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, who was once in control over Mexico’s most powerful drug cartel.

Guzman then founded his own drug cartel in 1980, setting up control over 17 states in Mexico.

Authorities believe the drug lord shipped between $6 billion and $19 billion worth of cocaine to the U.S. over an eight year time span. Over the years there have been severe power struggles with government to control transports at the U.S. /Mexican border.

U.S. officials have offered rewards in the amount of $5 million for anyone with information about the whereabouts of Guzman in hopes to find him and arrest him.

Guzman was arrested once before in 1993 for homicide, drug charges, bribery and conspiracy. He escaped in 2001. He allegedly bribed guards at the Puente Grande prison in Jalisco, Mexico.

The guards allegedly smuggled him out via a laundry truck. Mexican officials arrested more than 70 prison officials for helping Guzman escape.

After Guzman escaped, he gained back control of the drug trafficking operations and is still at large today.

Guzman is currently under indictment in the state of Illinois for drug trafficking charges for smuggling cocaine into the state.