Commentary

Court Needs Racial Diversity

– 09/03/06

The Warrant’s Out on Judges

Within hours of her decision to hold the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program unconstitutional, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor was subjected to relentless personal criticism. Even in the mainstream press, she has been accused of “pos[ing] for the cameras” (the Wall Street Journal), charged with “blithely ignoring [her] own obligations” (The New York Times) and dismissed as having produced merely unscholarly “angry rhetoric” (The Washington Post). Such deeply personal invective directed at Judge Taylor drowned out commentary either applauding or disputing the merits of the decision. 

Authored by: Aziz Huq and James Sample
– 08/30/06

Threat Assessment

Terrorism penetrates the psyche by being unpredictable. Terrorists rely not only on the element of surprise but also on a second-level uncertainty to strike so deep: The difficulty of knowing exactly who the terrorist might be. Background is no guide. Many of the 9-11 plotters had tertiary educations. Others, like the self-starting (and foiled) millennium bomber and former petty thief Ahmed Ressam, came from the social margins. Ethnic profiling, proposed again recently by New York Representative Peter King, hardly works. The July 2005 London attackers and the recent High Wycombe arrestees both defied racial stereotypes. Any halfway calculating terrorist group, moreover, will simply work around ethnic profiling.

Authored by: Aziz Huqhttp://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=threat_assessment
– 08/28/06

Flying While Muslim

The partisan posturing began within hours of reports the British had arrested 20-odd suspects in connection with an alleged terrorist conspiracy to blow up passenger airplanes. Arrests were made in the U.K, not the U.S. The plot was hatched in the U.K. and Pakistan.

Authored by: Aziz Huq
– 08/17/06

First, Do Harm

Dr. Steven H. Miles is the author of Oath Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity and the War on Terror (Random House 2006). Miles, an expert in medical ethics, human rights, and international health care, is professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School and a faculty member of its Center for Bioethics. His book explores the role of military physicians in aiding and abetting abuse and torture at U.S. detention facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantamano.

Authored by: Aziz Huq
– 08/11/06