A state agent had posed as the girl, and the 51-year-old mayor was arrested Tuesday at the mall in suburban Milwaukee. District Attorney Michael Nieskes said during a news conference after a court hearing Thursday that investigators also found records of 1,800 sexually explicit chats on Becker's computer.

The charges include attempted second-degree sexual assault of a child under 16, possession of child pornography, child enticement, use of a computer to facilitate a child sex crime, attempt to expose a child to harmful material and misconduct in office. At least one city official has called on Becker to resign.

Becker, who is married and has two children, waived his preliminary hearing in Racine County Circuit Court on Thursday afternoon. Racine County Circuit Court Commissioner Alice Rudebusch set his arraignment for Feb. 10.

The investigation by the state Department of Justice's Division of Criminal Investigation started after city workers who helped Becker fix a problem with his personal computer found pornography files on it and alerted Racine police, the complaint said. Police had passed the case on to state investigators to avoid a conflict of interest.

After chatting online with the agent posing as a girl, Becker went to the mall to buy lingerie for the girl, according to a criminal complaint. During the chat, he offered to meet her and take her to a hotel to "have lots of fun," the complaint said.

In a ruling released Thursday, the court embraced the Protect America Act of 2007, which required telecommunications providers to assist the government for national security purposes in intercepting international phone calls and e-mails to and from points overseas.

The decision, which involves the gathering of foreign intelligence, was made last August but only released Thursday after it had been edited to omit classified information.

An unidentified telecommunications company had challenged the law.

The U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review said the time needed to get a court warrant would hinder the government's ability to collect time-sensitive information, impeding vital national security interests.

The challenge to the law has presented no evidence of any actual harm or any broad potential for abuse, the court's three judges concluded.

The 31-year-old blogger, who went by the handle "Minerva" after the Greek goddess of wisdom, rocketed to fame in South Korea for his startlingly accurate predictions about the economy, including the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

But prosecutors said he went too far in saying on an online discussion site that the government had banned major financial institutions and trade businesses from purchasing U.S. dollars in an apparent move to shore up the local currency, calling it inaccurate information that disrupted the foreign exchange market.

His arrest last week ignited a debate about freedom of speech in cyberspace in South Korea, one of the world's most wired and tech-savvy nations.

Prosecutors have extended the detention period for the blogger, identified in court documents as Park Dae-sung, for further questioning and plan to indict him next week, Yonhap news agency reported, citing an unidentified prosecution official.

Prosecutors were not immediately available for comment late Friday.

In some 100 postings on bulletin boards on a popular Internet portal last year, "Minerva" denounced the government's handling of the economy and made predictions, largely negative, for the future. His writings were sprinkled with jargon that suggested he was an economic expert, and his identity was a hot topic of discussion in South Korea.

Prosecutors say the suspect is actually an unemployed Seoul resident who studied economics on his own after graduating from a vocational high school and junior college with a major in information and communication.

Judge Hou Man of Seoul Central District Court ruled Thursday that the suspect must remain in custody, saying he was a risk for fleeing or destroying evidence, defense lawyer Park Chan-jong said.

The lawyer said the blogger did not intend to harm the public. If convicted of spreading false information, he faces up to five years in prison or a fine of up to 50 million won ($36,360).

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges cast doubt at a hearing on claims by Noriega's lawyers that the Geneva Conventions treaties regarding prisoners of war require Noriega be returned to Panama because his sentence for drug racketeering ended in September 2007.

U.S. Circuit Judge Ed Carnes repeatedly asked Noriega attorney Jonathan May whether Congress eliminated the legal underpinnings of Noriega's argument when it passed the 2006 Military Commissions Act. The law created judicial procedures for enemy combatants held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but also could be applied to POWs and anyone else, the judges said.

"Do you disagree with the plain meaning of that language, or what?" Carnes said. "You're using the Geneva Conventions as a source of your client's right ... (the law) says you can't."

May said that was an incorrect interpretation of what Congress sought to do. He insisted the law was meant to apply solely to court proceedings, not an executive branch matter such as extradition.

U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Gertner restricted the live streaming to a Jan. 22 hearing, saying she will decide later whether to make other proceedings in the case, set for March 30 trial, available online.

The lawsuit is one of a series filed by the Recording Industry Association of America since 2003 against about 35,000 people who allegedly swapped songs online. Most of those sued are college students, and many have defaulted or settled for amounts between $3,000 and $10,000, often without legal counsel.

Charles Nesson, a Harvard University professor representing BU student Joel Tenenbaum, of Providence, R.I., is challenging the constitutionality of the lawsuits, which, based on the Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999, can impose damages of $150,000 per willful act of infringement.

Nesson had asked Gertner to authorize video cameras already installed in courtrooms to be used to capture the proceedings and transmit the material to Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet, which will then stream it on its Web site for free. Gertner approved the request and authorized New York-based Courtroom View Network, which has webcast state court trials, to "narrowcast" proceedings to the Berkman Center.

Gertner said local district judges have the discretion under the guidelines of the policy-setting federal Judicial Conference to allow recording and broadcast when it serves the public interest, particularly of legal arguments without the presence of witnesses and jurors in a case.

Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden sat in front of a fire on a cold January day in a court conference room with Chief Justice John Roberts and seven other justices.

They chatted for about 45 minutes, then toured the courtroom and justices' private conference room.

Justice Samuel Alito was the only justice absent, although Alito was on the bench for two hours of argument Wednesday morning. Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said she did not know why Alito wasn't there.

Reporters and photographers were not allowed in, so this account comes wholly from Arberg.

Obama and Biden voted against Roberts and Alito when their court nominations were before the Senate in 2005 and 2006, respectively.

Roberts will see Obama Tuesday when he administers the presidential oath. Justice John Paul Stevens, who will mark his ninth inauguration on the court, will swear in Biden.

Last month, the chief justice sent a letter inviting Obama and Biden to drop by before the inauguration and promised them a "warm welcome."

Roberts' Dec. 5 letter noted that justices had occasionally met with incoming presidents and vice-presidents in the past. "The associate justices and I would be pleased to see that sporadic practice become a congenial tradition," Roberts said.

Court staffers were kept well away from Obama and Biden, who spent about an hour at the court. When employees glimpsed Obama on his way out, a loud cheer went up in a building that exudes decorum.