Civil Liberties & Privacy

Obama and Attention Deficit Democracy

by James Bovard May 21, 2010

In his commencement address at the University of Michigan on May 1, President Obama warned that public ignorance subverts self-government. Obama declared: “When we don’t pay close attention to the decisions made by our leaders, when we fail to educate ourselves about the major issues of the day... that’s when democracy breaks down. That’s when power is abused.” Unfortunately, most ...

Judge Denies Habeas Petition of an Ill and Abused Libyan in Guantánamo

by Andy Worthington May 10, 2010

On April 20, unnoticed by any media outlet whatsoever, a Libyan prisoner at Guantánamo, Omar Mohammed Khalifh (also identified as Omar Abu Bakr) lost his habeas corpus petition. I learned about the ruling through a “Guantánamo Habeas Scorecard” maintained by the Center for Constitutional Rights, but although Judge James Robertson’s unclassified opinion is not yet available, ...

Immigration, Civil Liberties, and the Drug War

by Sheldon Richman May 4, 2010

Arizona’s horrid law empowering cops to demand that people show their “papers” when suspected of being in the country without government permission holds an important lesson for both so-called progressives and conservatives. It’s a lesson about a seemingly separate issue: drugs. Concern about illegal immigrants along the Mexican border would undoubtedly diminish if the “war on drugs” ended. (It’s not ...

Prosecuting a Tortured Child: Obama’s Guantánamo Legacy

by Andy Worthington May 3, 2010

Since coming to power 15 months ago, promising to close Guantánamo within a year, and suspending the much-criticized military commission trial system for terror suspects, President Obama’s zeal for repudiating the Bush administration’s “war on terror” detention policies has ground to a halt. The rot set in almost immediately, when the new administration invoked ...

Why Judges Can’t Free Torture Victims from Guantánamo

by Andy Worthington April 26, 2010

Last December, I wrote about the case of Saeed Hatim, a Yemeni in Guantánamo whose habeas corpus petition had been granted by Judge Ricardo Urbina. At the time, Judge Urbina’s unclassified opinion had not been made publicly available, so all I had to go on were Hatim’s own statements at Guantánamo. In publicly available documents, he told ...

The Slippery Definition of Extremism

by James Bovard April 20, 2010

Americans are once again hearing of the perils of extremism. But the definition of this offense is slippier than a politician’s campaign promise. The definition of extremism has continually been amended to permit government policies that few sober people previously advocated. Prior to 2000, anyone who asserted that the Census Bureau was deeply involved with the roundup of Japanese-Americans for ...

With Regrets, Judge Allows Indefinite Detention at Guantánamo of a Medic

by Andy Worthington April 19, 2010

On March 25, as I explained in a recent article, “Guantánamo and Habeas Corpus: The Torture Victim and the Taliban Recruit,” Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the District Court in Washington, D.C., denied the habeas corpus petition of Mukhtar al-Warafi, a Yemeni who was 27 years old when he was seized in ...

Lawrence Wilkerson Demolishes Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld’s Lies about Guantánamo

by Andy Worthington April 13, 2010

Those of us who have been studying the recent career of Col. Lawrence Wilkerson were not surprised when, last week, he submitted a declaration (PDF) in a lawsuit seeking compensation from the U.S. government that was filed by former Guantánamo prisoner Adel Hassan Hamad. A Sudanese hospital worker, Hamad was sold ...

Abu Zubaydah: Tortured for Nothing

by Andy Worthington April 5, 2010

The story of Abu Zubaydah a Saudi-born Palestinian whose real name is Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn has always been absolutely central to the war on terror. Seized in a house raid in Faisalabad, Pakistan, on March 28, 2002, he was immediately touted as al-Qaeda's chief of operations and top recruiter, who would be ...

Will Obama Sell Out on Terrorist Trials?

by Andy Worthington March 22, 2010

In the dark farce that is the Obama administrations counter-terrorism policy, decisions are now, it seems, being made by whoever makes the most noise, regardless of whether what they are shouting for actually makes sense. Since last November, when Attorney General Eric Holder first announced that five men including ...

Guantánamo Uighers Back in Legal Limbo

by Andy Worthington March 9, 2010

Last Monday, the Supreme Court declined to review a case brought on behalf of seven men in Guantánamo whose release into the United States ordered by a U.S. judge 17 months ago. The men in question are Uighurs, Muslims from Chinas Xinjiang province, and the ruling ordering them to be re-housed in the United States was made in ...

The Folly of Blindly Trusting the Government

by James Bovard March 1, 2010

Democracy breeds gullibility. Lord Bryce observed in 1921, “State action became less distrusted the more the State itself was seen to be passing under popular control.” The rise of democracy made it much easier for politicians to convince people that government posed no threat, because they automatically controlled its actions. The result is that the brakes on government power ...