To the people in control of the Executive Branch, violating our civil liberties is an essential government service. So – to ensure total fulfillment of Big Brother’s vast responsibilities – the National Security Agency is insulated from any fiscal disruption. The...
There’s something profoundly despicable about a Justice Department that would brazenly violate the First and Fourth Amendments while spying on journalists, then claim to be reassessing such policies after an avalanche of criticism – and then proceed, as it did...
Now that public pressure has foiled U.S. plans to bomb Syria, the next urgent step is to build public pressure for stopping the deluge of weapons into that country. Top officials in Washington are happy that American “lethal aid” has begun to flow into...
The sun rose with a moral verdict on Bradley Manning well before the military judge could proclaim his guilt. The human verdict would necessarily clash with the proclamation from the judicial bench. In lockstep with administrators of the nation’s war services,...
It’s now painfully clear that the president has put out a contract on the Fourth Amendment. And at the Capitol, the hierarchies of both parties are stuffing it into the trunks of their limousines, so each provision can be neatly fitted with cement shoes and delivered...
The part of the First Amendment that prohibits "abridging the freedom … of the press" is now up against the wall, as the Obama administration continues to assault the kind of journalism that can expose government secrets. Last Friday the administration got...
For more than a month, outrage has been profuse in response to news about NSA surveillance and other evidence that all three branches of the U.S. government are turning Uncle Sam into Big Brother. Now what? Continuing to expose and denounce the assaults on civil...
Rarely has any American provoked such fury in Washington’s high places. So far, Edward Snowden has outsmarted the smartest guys in the echo chamber – and he has proceeded with the kind of moral clarity that U.S. officials seem to find unfathomable. Bipartisan...
Edward Snowden’s disclosures, the New York Times reported on Sunday, "have renewed a longstanding concern: that young Internet aficionados whose skills the agencies need for counterterrorism and cyberdefense sometimes bring an anti-authority spirit that does not...
House Speaker John Boehner calls Edward Snowden a “traitor.” The chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein, labels his brave whistleblowing “an act of treason.” What about the leadership of the Congressional Progressive Caucus? As the largest caucus...
