Hold Fast

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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In an op-ed in the Miami Herald General Charles C. Krulak, the former Commandant of the Marine Corps, and Joseph P. Hoar, the former Commander in Chief of the United States Central Command, repudiate former Vice President Dick Cheney and his anti-American stance on torture. It is, quite simply, powerful stuff:
[W]e never imagined that we […]

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Glenn Greenwald on what the appointment of a prosecutor to investigate torture by Attorney General really means:
As a practical matter, Holder is consciously establishing as the legal baseline — he’s vesting with sterling legal authority — those warped, torture-justifying DOJ memos.  Worse, his pledge of immunity today for those who complied with those memos went […]

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Chinese rights attorney Xu Zhiyong is yet another activist who is being prosecuted by the Chinese government for trying to practice the law. The New York Times reports on his detention and arrest, on a bogus charge of tax evasion. The law in China is something that exists as a paper mache facade intended to […]

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Glenn Greenwald’s interview of the Beltway Conventional Wisdom Chuck Todd is pretty extraordinary. It’s hard to imagine a more vivid illustration of two world views colliding: that of someone who believes in the rule of law and someone who thrives in the Beltway petri dish of insiderism and self-congratulatory hackery. Todd dismisses upholding the rule […]

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The investigation of Bush-era US interrogation policies that include torture shouldn’t be controversial. Nor should the investigation of the illegal surveillance of Americans. But apparently it is because someone told Scott Shane that it would impair the ability for President Obama to have a positive domestic agenda.
Torture took place in our names. Pretending that it […]

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Wow. The New York Times editorial board calls for Congress to repeal the FISA reauthorization and modifications of 2008:
The 2008 expansion of FISA is a deeply flawed law. Congress needs to repeal it and re-examine, carefully this time, what powers the government really needs to eavesdrop on Americans and what limits and safeguards need to […]

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