With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, aircraft maker Boeing is being sued by three suspected al-Qaida operatives transported by the CIA to Arab countries for interrogation, the Financial Times reports. The lawsuit alleges a Boeing subsidiary helped the intelligence agency fly the detainees to Egypt and Morocco knowing they would be tortured by authorities there under its controversial "rendition" program. ACLU executive director Anthony Romero said U.S. companies should not profit from a program that is "unlawful and contrary to core American values," and that such businesses "should be held legally accountable." The action was brought under the Alien Tort Statute using a legal technique perfected by the Center for Constitutional Rights, an anti-American public interest law firm profiled in the September 2006 edition of Organization Trends.

A federal judge in Oregon has sentenced convicted eco-terrorist Kevin Tubbs to a prison term of 12 years and seven months for his role in setting fire to a police substation, a forest ranger station, a dealership selling sport utility vehicles, and a tree farm. Tubbs is a member of The Family, a cell of the radical groups Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front. "Fear and intimidation can play no part in changing the hearts and minds of people in a democracy," U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken said at sentencing.

After PPL Corp. announced it might build a new nuclear power facility in Pennsylvania, the Sierra Club claimed such a move would encourage terrorism. "‘Every reactor is a potential dirty bomb, if you will, of radioactive material," said Jeff Schmidt, director of the group’s Pennsylvania chapter. "You’re creating a new target for terrorists." PPL CEO James Miller said the group’s fears were unfounded. "Given the growing concerns regarding climate change around the world and the growing need for power plants…it absolutely makes sense to create this valuable option."

Planned Parenthood Federation of America broke records in fiscal 2006, performing 264,943 abortions, and generated $55.8 million in profit while receiving taxpayer funding of $305.3 million, CNSNews.com reports. At the same time, income from clinics fell $1.5 million from the previous year – the first such decline in the group’s half century— while donations also declined by $3.6 million.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is pressing Louisiana State University to not replace its mascot, a live tiger, after the previous mascot died of kidney failure in May, the school’s student newspaper reports. PETA argues that keeping a tiger captive causes the animal undue stress, but the university responds that it treats tigers well and that tigers in captivity live much longer than those in the wild. Meanwhile, PETA also claims on a website that chickens have "cognitive abilities…above those of small human children."

U.S. drug maker Abbott Laboratories has taken the unusual step of suing Act Up-Paris, an AIDS activist group, after the group coordinated an online attack on the company’s Web site that forced it offline temporarily. The cyber-terrorist attack was a protest over the company’s move to increase the price of an AIDS drug by 400% and to halt introduction of another AIDS drug, reports the Wall Street Journal.