(1) First came Bushworld attempts to suppress public scrutiny of questionable decisions taken in the name of national security, most of which involved violence to the constitution and/or other laws of the land. Then came multiple instances of the Obama administration’s full-throated support of...

It’s getting so that this kind of thing hardly qualifies as news any more: The Justice Department is defending a provision in a 2008 surveillance law that provides legal immunity to telecommunications companies that cooperated with the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance progr...

A lawyer for Guantanamo detainees is alleging that abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay has worsened sharply since President Barack Obama took office: Abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay has worsened sharply since President Barack Obama took office as prison guards “get their kicks in” ...

On October 8, US District Judge Ricardo Urbina ruled that 17 ethnic Uighurs detainees at the Guantanamo Bay camp should be released immediately since they were not regarded as enemy combatants by the administration, and there was no evidence against them. We were not just holding them indefinitely w...

Last year, the Justice Department’s ethics watchdog unit, the Office of Professional Responsibility had launched an investigation into the conduct of senior lawyers who approved waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics. Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff reported over the weekend that...

So now we know what Barack Obama really meant when he promised us change we can believe in. Believe it or not, he meant “the more things change, the more they stay the same”. First, there was the whole surrealistic plot line of The Stimulus Bill’s Progress. Matt has put it pretty w...

Reuters reported a sad and sorry Guantanamo tale yesterday: Two senior British judges accused the United States on Wednesday of threatening to end intelligence cooperation if Britain released evidence about the alleged torture of a Guantanamo detainee. The judges quoted lawyers for Foreign Secretary...