Analysis & Commentary
Checks & Balances
No King Please, We’re Americans
Authored by: Frederick A.O. Schwarz and Aziz Huq
– 02/12/07
President or King?
Authored by: Frederick A.O. Schwarz, Jr., and Aziz Huq
– 02/01/07
A Spying Policy Still Without Warrant
At first it was hailed as a victory for civil liberties. But last week’s announcement that warrantless domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency has come to an end means less than it first appears.
Authored by: Aziz Huq
– 01/22/07
Disloyalty to the Constitution
“Shocking” is what he said. But it was the baldness of Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs Cully Stimson’s statement, not what he described, that proved shocking.
Authored by: Aziz Huq
– 01/16/07
Gitmo Turns Five
The first twenty prisoners arrived in hoods and shackles. American officials placed them in cages, surrounded by barbed wire, at Camp X-Ray at the US Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay. That was five years ago. More than 700 people have been detained at Guantánamo since.
Authored by: Jonathan Hafetz
– 01/11/07
Taking Back the Pentagon
These are not auspicious days for defense secretaries new and old. Incoming Pentagon boss Robert Gates must negotiate the gap between the Iraq Study Group’s position and his boss’s obdurate refusal to see the implausibility of current strategy for that war. While Iraq must loom large on the Pentagon’s agenda for the foreseeable future, there is much more unfinished business from the era of Donald Rumsfeld.
Authored by: Aziz Huq
– 12/12/06
Rendition and Democracy: Civil Society’s Role
Authored by: Aziz Huq
– 12/06/06
Waging Lawfare
Since 9/11, the Bush administration has conjured many enemies for the United States: Brutal dictators ensconced in the desert with their Weapons of Mass Destruction, airplane passengers who carry on baby-food and mascara to their flights. And now salivating hordes of foreign lawyers and judges.
Authored by: Aziz Huq
– 11/22/06
Undo the Military Commissions Act
The general understanding -if not the universal practice-is that those on Capitol Hill answer to today’s voters, but not tomorrow’s. On matters such as global climate change, the consequences are evident. Today’s leaders face too small a reckoning for their disregard of ethical obligations to our planet and future generations. Pushing back today’s problems, they store up crises for our children.
Authored by: Aziz Huq
– 11/21/06
No Blank Checks on Torture
More than two years ago, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor cautioned that “a state of war is not a blank check for the President.” The United States Congress, apparently, never got the memo. Last week, lawmakers passed a bill that hands the President sweeping detention and interrogation powers while eliminating habeas corpus review for any noncitizen he labels an “enemy combatant.”
Authored by: Jonathan Hafetz
– 10/09/06