The Mountain States Legal Foundation has built a reputation as an influential behind-the-scenes player over the years on conservative legal causes.

It has waged battles against affirmative action and protections for endangered species while being bankrolled by some of the most powerful families in the West.

The group is now fighting a protracted legal battle with American Indians who believe the organization is trampling on their voting rights in a rural Wyoming county.

At issue is a local dispute over the election of county commissioners in Fremont County. Mountain States Legal Foundation has been representing the county pro bono for the last five years in a fight against American Indians who want greater representation on the commission.

That Mountain States has waded into such a local dispute further demonstrates the clout it seeks to wield in Western legal disputes, in this case arguing first that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 didn't apply to Indians in Fremont CountyFailing at that, it's now arguing on appeal that a federal judge can't order the county to create separate commission districts.

Montana's former tourism director who was fired last summer has filed a lawsuit in federal court contending her civil rights were violated.

Betsy Baumgart filed the suit Thursday in U.S. District Court in Missoula, arguing the state's Commerce Department violated her First Amendment rights by firing her for political reasons.

She is seeking monetary damages for wrongful discharge, emotional distress, and humiliation. She is also seeking punitive damages and attorney fees.

The Great Falls Tribune reports that Baumgart in the lawsuit contends her affiliation with the Republican Party was a factor in her firing.

A department spokeswoman declined to comment.

A hearings examiner last month upheld the Commerce Department's firing of Baumgart, ruling the agency had just cause.

The ruling in Virginia strikes the most serious legal blow yet to the Obama-backed law requiring Americans to get health insurance.

A federal judge in Virginia on Monday rejected part of the new healthcare law, becoming the first court to rule that Congress had placed an unconstitutional requirement on Americans to get health insurance.

The much-anticipated decision, which the Obama administration is expected to appeal, will not stop implementation of the sweeping overhaul that the president signed in March.

The new mandate is not set to go into effect until 2014, when Americans will also gain guarantees that they will be able to get health benefits even if they are sick.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson denied a request from Virginia Atty. Gen. Ken Cuccinelli, the lead plaintiff, to stop implementation of the law while higher courts consider the case.

A German court rejected a lawsuit filed by Khaled el-Masri seeking to force Berlin into prosecuting suspected CIA agents who he alleges illegally detained him nearly eight years ago as part of the U.S. rendition program.

The Cologne Administrative Court, in a ruling on Dec. 7, supported Berlin's decision not to seek the Americans' extradition after Washington told the Germans in 2007 it would reject any attempts to prosecute its agents, citing national security concerns. The ruling was published on Friday.

The court ruled that "the German government's decision not to seek the extradition of the agents, despite the arrest warrant issued by a German court, was legal."

El-Masri's lawyer said he and his client were considering whether to appeal the ruling. They have one month to do so.

El-Masri, 44, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, says he was illegally detained by CIA agents while entering Macedonia on New Year's Eve 2003 and then transferred to a CIA-run prison in Afghanistan, where he says he was beaten, sodomized and injected with drugs.

Swiss authorities stripped WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange of a key fundraising tool Monday -- his new bank account -- and the secret-spilling web site fended off more suspected computer attacks as it maneuvered to stay online.

Scotland Yard was now considering the Swedish arrest warrant for Assange, who is staying at an undisclosed location in Britain, the BBC reported. It didn't cite its source and the U.K. police force declined to comment. WikiLeaks tweeted that UK has received the warrant and "may issue it shortly."

In contrast to official moves against the group, an unlikely band of computer-savvy advocates were riding to its rescue, determined to ensure free information via the Internet. These geek-warriors described their efforts as new form of guerrilla combat, where sophisticated online protests were replacing traditional street marches.

"It's the start of the information war, it really looks like that," said Pascal Gloor, vice president of the Swiss Pirate Party, whose Swiss Web address, wikileaks.ch, has been serving as a mainstay for WikiLeaks traffic.

An unusual court hearing on the constitutionality of the death penalty in Texas was put on hold Tuesday after the state's highest criminal court granted a request by prosecutors to stop it.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ordered that the hearing be temporarily halted so prosecutors and defense attorneys can file motions on whether the legal proceeding should be allowed to continue.

The hearing, which began Monday and was set to last up to two weeks, had been ordered by a state district judge in Houston.

District Judge Kevin Fine last spring initially declared the Texas death penalty statute unconstitutional after granting a motion in a capital murder case he is presiding over. Under heavy criticism, Fine clarified then rescinded his ruling and ordered the hearing, saying he needed to hear evidence on the issue.

Fine is a judge in Harris County, which has sent more inmates to the lethal-injection gurney than any other county in the nation.

Lawyers for the Houston man who had asked for the hearing had already presented two days of testimony on whether problems with such things as eyewitness identification and evidence offered by informants have created flaws in death penalty prosecutions in Texas and resulted in a risk that innocent people will be executed. They said their client, John Edward Green Jr., is innocent and the case against him uses some of the same faulty evidentiary procedures that have resulted in others being wrongly convicted. Green, who is awaiting trial, faces a possible death sentence if convicted of fatally shooting a Houston woman during a June 2008 robbery.