Analysis & Commentary
Liberty & National Security
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
A Spying Policy Still Without Warrant
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
Gitmo Turns Five
Authored by: Jonathan Hafetz
– 01/11/07
Vindicating the Rule of Law: The Legacy of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
Authored by: Jonathan Hafetz
American Justice on the Line
Last week, a district judge in Washington dismissed the case of Guantanamo Bay detainee Salim Hamdan. In June, Hamdan won a landmark Supreme Court decision striking down President’s jerry-rigged system of military trials at Guantanamo. Now, thanks to a new law stampeded through Congress in October, Hamdan cannot even get into court. This decision should alarm all Americans who care about their country’s most basic rights and values.
Authored by: Jonathan Hafetz
– 12/19/06
Continental Divide
In the run-up to last month’s Dutch election, Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk, known locally as “Iron Rita,” declared her intention to pass a ban on religious garments that cover all of a woman’s face. According to one Dutch parliamentarian, full face covering is so rare that the ban would apply to less than one hundred of the Netherlands’ one million Muslims. Verdonk nevertheless insisted the ban was a needed from a “security standpoint.” Picking up on recent comments by British parliamentarian Jack Straw, Verdonk elaborated that “people should be able to communicate with one another.” Apparently, communication is impossible with a veiled woman.
Authored by: Aziz Huq
– 12/12/06
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