The Obama administration's decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and four alleged co-conspirators in civilian court is a laudable return to the rule of law from the Bush administration's kangaroo...
Over the weekend, six of the remaining 13 Uighurs in Guantánamo – Muslims from China's Xinjiang province – were released to resume new lives in the tiny Pacific nation of Palau (population: 20,000). I have written at length about the plight of...
Ubi jus ibi remedium. Probably nothing turns readers off more than starting a column with some incomprehensible Latin phrase. But this one's relevant. It means: Where there is a right, there is a remedy. When a legal wrong has been done, the courts should be able to...
You remember the USA PATRIOT Act, don't you? It was that 342-page bill that sped through a supplicant Congress within weeks of 9/11, dismantling our privacy rights like a castoff Hollywood set. A reauthorization in 2006 made some things better and some worse, but...
Authors of serious books seldom have cause to celebrate, but Larry Stratton and I have two reasons to open the champagne. Crown Publishing, a division of Random House, has announced a second printing of the second edition of The Tyranny of Good Intentions, and the...
Will recession-induced budget cuts result in the National Guard being deputized as lawmen in Jefferson County, Ala.? While he may be bluffing for effect, Jefferson County Sheriff Randy Christian didn't seem to be altogether unserious when he suggested that soldiers...
Since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that inmates at Guantanamo Bay have a right to go to federal court to challenge their detention, detainees have filed more than 150 such lawsuits. Thirty-five of these cases have now been completed. And of these, federal...
Back in April, the U.S. government snatched Raymond Azar out of Afghanistan. His waist, wrists, and ankles were shackled; he was stripped naked and photographed, made to wear headphones, blindfolded, hooded, and stuffed into an executive jet and flown to the United...
