The majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, who was appointed to the court by President George W. Bush, said the law is unconstitutional as applied to issue ads that a Wisconsin anti-abortion group wanted to broadcast before the 2004 election.

The ruling was a victory for the group Wisconsin Right to Life, which argued the law violated its free-speech rights under the First Amendment to the Constitution.

"The First Amendment requires us to err on the side of protecting political speech rather than suppressing it," Roberts wrote. "Where the First Amendment is implicated, the tie goes to the speaker, not the censor."

The court upheld a ruling that the ads were not election ads covered by the law, but were general issue ads that did not aim to influence voters.

The court's four liberals dissented and said campaign finance reform laws seek to protect the integrity of elections from huge amounts of money.

"After today, the ban on contributions by corporations and unions and the limitation on their corrosive spending when they enter the political arena are open to easy circumvention," Justice David Souter said for the dissenters.

The part of the law at issue in the ruling bans corporations, unions and special interest groups from using unrestricted money to run television or radio ads that refer to a candidate for federal office two months before a general election or one month before a primary election.

In 2003, the Supreme Court by a 5-4 vote upheld the law, including the ban on certain issue ads broadcast before an election.

But since then, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who cast the decisive vote in 2003, has retired and has been replaced by the more conservative Justice Samuel Alito, Bush's other appointee to the court, who joined the majority opinion.

The ads criticized Sen. Russell Feingold of Wisconsin for supporting efforts to block confirmation of several of Bush's judicial nominees. Because Feingold, a Democrat, was running for re-election at the time, the ads were prohibited.

Feingold had co-written the landmark campaign finance law, along with Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican who is running for president.

McCain called it regrettable that the court carved out a narrow exception by which some corporate and labor expenditures can be used to target a federal candidate in the days and weeks before an election.

"It is important to recognize, however, that the court's decision does not affect the principal provision of the (law), which bans federal officeholders from soliciting soft money contributions for their parties to spend on their campaigns," he said.

One of McCain's Republican presidential rivals, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, hailed the ruling "Score one for free speech," he said.

Griles, the highest ranking official convicted in the scandal, pleaded guilty in March to charges of lying about his relationship with Abramoff.

"This has been the most difficult time in my life," Griles said before the verdict was announced Tuesday. "My guilty plea has brought me great shame and embarrassment. I have lost my business, my income and, most importantly, my reputation."

However, Huvelle pushed aside Griles' claims of remorse.

"You held a position of trust as number two in the Department of Interior, and I will hold you to a higher standard," Huvelle told Griles. "I find that, even now, you continue to minimize and try to excuse your conduct and the nature of your misstatements."

EU regulators took legal action against Germany on Wednesday for Berlin's refusal to change a law shielding Deutsche Telekom AG's high-speed Internet network from rivals.

The European Court of Justice will now have to decide if Germany can keep a law giving Deutsche Telekom a de facto monopoly on a glass-fiber DSL internet network it built to allow it recoup the cost without of setting up an infrastructure with sharing it with others.

The EU executive's arm said this departure from normal regulation breaks Europe-wide telecom rules giving new providers the right to use telephone and Internet networks.

"The Commission has repeatedly warned Germany that its new telecoms law violates EU telecom rules but without success," said EU Telecom Commissioner Viviane Reding. "We want to ensure Germany can benefit from a healthy, competitive and fully functioning market."

Despite last-ditch negotiations, the EU said the German government was unwilling to change the law the way the EU wanted and continued to defend its position.

Deutsche Telekom aims to roll out a high-speed optical fiber network that will transmit data up to 20 times faster than current offerings.

The plan is to provide Germany's 50 largest cities with high-speed broadband lines by 2007. Berlin had agreed with Deutsche Telekom's argument that it could only make a decent profit on the network if it was exempt from any requirement to offer its lines to rivals.

However, the Commission says Deutsche Telekom's heavy share of the German market already give it a major advantage over other companies. It controls more than 9 million telephone lines out of the country's 12.9 million connections.

Sedgwick Detert Moran & Arnold LLP bought a boutique law firm that specializes in representing landlords, expanding the San Francisco firm's real estate practice.

Led by Jeffery Woo, the boutique focuses on institutional and regional property holders and real estate professionals. Along with Woo, associates David Blumenfeld, Harrison Nam, Scott Okamoto, Stanley Riddell and Stephen Sherman join Sedgwick.

Sedgwick's real estate offerings already include litigation and transactional services for a wide range of commercial real estate owners, developers, managers, lessees and professionals.

The move by Woo and his associates to Sedgwick is part of a growing trend among small firms that move their practice to firms with a national or international presence. Larger firms offer a network of administrative support and can provide a platform to launch services into new geographic markets.

http://www.sdma.com

The two will be sentenced in November, along with four other defendants who pleaded guilty in Milwaukee in April.

Rockwell Automation produces, among other products, specialized factory management software. The majority of the software applications sold by these defendants on eBay had retail prices ranging from about $900 to $11,300.

From September 2003 to September 2004, Koster offered counterfeit software in 105 or more online auctions, receiving a profit of more than $23,000, the DOJ said. The retail value of the software was more than $5 million.

From December 2003 to August 2004, Yamamoto initiated at least 92 auctions, for a profit of $6,000, the DOJ said. The retail value of the software was about $543,000.

Including Monday's pleas, the DOJ has gotten nine convictions involving eBay auctions of counterfeit Rockwell Automation software. In addition to six pleas in Wisconsin, there have been two convictions in the Eastern District of Michigan and another in the Southern District of Indiana. The combined retail value of the counterfeit software in all nine prosecutions is approximately $30 million, the DOJ said.

Frederick's sign was ambiguous. Was the 18-year-old supporting drugs or Christianity? The ambiguity matters because it places Frederick's sign within the confines of protected speech.

Supreme Court members, in a majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, convinced themselves that Frederick's banner was a public promotion of the use of illegal drugs. School authorities, according to Roberts — joined by Justices Thomas, Scalia, Alito and Kennedy — did not violate Frederick's constitutional rights when they went across the street, snatched his sign and ripped it to shreds.

The Supreme Court recognized student political speech with its 1969 decision, Tinker v. Des Moines (Iowa) School District. Justice Stephen Breyer, while siding with the majority, asserts that Frederick and his bong-hits banner make for an inadequate foundation on which to limit students' right to political speech.

The court's dissenters - Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg - go further. Stevens, penning the dissent, called the student's banner "nonsense" and the court's ruling a reach for broad censorship that would ban speech that advocated for medicinal marijuana use or other related messages.

The majority worries that illegal drugs are a serious danger in schools. This argument gets some sympathy but not enough to trample on the First Amendment.