Hold Fast

Reading Glenn Greenwald’s latest posts on the war in Afghanistan and the bizarre place the rule of law currently stands in America (viz. no longer existing in a meaningful form), I can’t help but think that Hunter S. Thompson was 100% right and utterly prescient when he wrote this on the morning of September 12th, […]

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In the lead-up to the Shanghai World Expo, the Chinese government’s propaganda department has released a new set of directives for journalists covering the event. According to Reporters Without Borders, they include reducing coverage of the Jyekundo earthquake:
Reporters Without Borders has been told that another directive from the Propaganda Department on 25 April asked the […]

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Andrew Jacobs of the New York Times has a powerful first-person perspective of his experience having his email hacked in China. Jacobs is a reporter for the Times in Beijing and has done some of the most important coverage of the Chinese government, uprisings in Tibet, protests during the Beijing Olympics, and other areas of […]

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I feel like I’m in Bizarro World when the Democratic President and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize authorizes the assassination of an American citizen, without trial — something that not even George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and John Yoo had the temerity to do. Glenn Greenwald’s analysis of how outrageous this is is a […]

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Judge Vaughn Walker yesterday ruled that the Bush administration program of wiretapping Americans without warrant required by FISA was, in fact, illegal. The Obama administration had fought to protect the same powers of the executive branch used by the Bush administration in this program and had attempted to block the case by using arguments on […]

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Another day, another way in which the Obama administration is pulling from the Bush administration playbook word for word when it comes to oversight of intelligence and restoring the rule of law in the United States. Oh and the veto is also being threatened because the legislation in question would fund a renewed investigation of […]

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Glenn Greenwald writes of President Obama’s trend towards caving to conservative fear-mongers who don’t want civil liberties and the rule of law to be preserved whenever terrorism comes:
If, in the face of “GOP demands” that Mohamed be denied a civilian trial, he again reverses himself — this time on the highest-profile civil liberties decision of […]

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Hey look, the Senate just passed another extension of the USA Patriot Act!
Considering this reauthorization was something that during the course of the FISA fight civil liberties activists were told would be an opportunity to restore the rule of law, this is really disheartening. Apparently the reason there were no improvements, revisions or increased safe […]

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Working in politics, I’ve become increasingly unimpressed by charges of hypocrisy. When you look at the arguments surrounding how Democrats should strategize on the filibuster and whether there should be vocal pushes for “up or down votes,” it is not convincing to me that one party or the other has no standing to critique a […]

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It’s about damned time.
Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Russ Feingold (D-WI), and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) announced today that they will introduce the Retroactive Immunity Repeal Act, which eliminates retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that allegedly participated in President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program.
“I believe we best defend America when we also defend its founding […]

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