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 military commissions, which convened offshore in Guantanamo to avoid giving defendants full legal rights under domestic or …
Continue reading “Civilian Trials for 9/11 Suspects Aren’t Enough”
The war is a test for taking our liberties, says Alfred McCoy
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 Guantánamo’s Uighurs, innocent men caught up in the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in …
Continue reading “Who Are the Six Uighurs Released From Guantánamo to Palau?”
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 order some kind of relief, otherwise what good …
Continue reading “Uighurs Deserve Legal Remedy”
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 mostly the law stayed the same – really bad for American …
Continue reading “A Golden Opportunity to Declaw PATRIOT Act”
Kelley Vlahos on Obama’s latest letdown
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 noted civil libertarian and defense attorney, Harvey Silverglate, has just …
Continue reading “The Threat to Your Liberties Is Here”
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 might be brought in to supplement policing gaps supposedly left by a $4 million budget …
Continue reading “Mission Creepy: The Rise of the ‘Daddy State’”
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 judges have ruled that 29 prisoners are being unlawfully detained. …
Continue reading “Cleared for Release, but Still at Gitmo”
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 States. Azar says his eyeglasses were taken and he was left in an …
Continue reading “Luster Is Off Obama’s ‘High Moral Ground’” 
