Posts Tagged ‘Civil Liberties’

National - Monday, March 8, 2010 11:10 - 3 Comments

Trial for 9/11 Conspirator Still Up in the Air

Last Friday (timed, no doubt, to land right before the weekend when the White House hoped not many casual news readers would notice it), the Washington Post reported that anonymous sources withing the administration had told them some of Obama’s advisers were preparing to recommend that 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed be tried in a military commission. Mohammed, you may remember, was originally to be tried in a civilian court in New York City, until the White House buckled under criticism to move the trial elsewhere.

Now, the administration insists that they are far from making a final decision on KSM’s trial, but that Post story certainly feels a lot like a trial balloon. My guess is that the White House deliberately leaked the information for that story to assess the damage they would get on their left flank, getting everyone used to the possibility of a military tribunal, and then finally go through with it once the outrage had either subsided or faded into the background noise.
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Featured, National - Monday, November 16, 2009 9:30 - 14 Comments

9/11 Mastermind to Get Civilian Trial, Neocons Up in Arms

Nobody should be surprised to hear former New York mayor/failed presidential candidate/potential future governor of NY/blood-sucking specter of doom Rudy Giuliani express the above views. Stomping all over civil liberties and the rule of law is his job! It’s just unfortunate that, also unsurprisingly, the entire Republican party has mobilized behind him, to say with one voice: Due process for me, but not for thee.

For example, there’s the house minority leader claiming that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is being granted a trial by jury to appease “liberal interest groups.” And there’s another failed presidential candidate, John McCain, shaking his wizened head from side to side to express his disappointment.

Now you’re probably wondering: Is Joe Lieberman in on the grandstanding too? You bet your sweet ass he is! Dude could smell an opportunity to wrap himself in the neocon flag and condescend to the proles if it was twenty miles away and buried under a heap of garbage, which he would undoubtedly burrow into like a mole to get to the sweet stuff.
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National - Wednesday, October 28, 2009 8:00 - 0 Comments

NYT Editorial Board Runs Searing Indictment of Obama’s Poor Rule of Law Record

bringing it to my attention.

Here’s a flavor from the first couple paragraphs:

The Obama administration has clung for so long to the Bush administration’s expansive claims of national security and executive power that it is in danger of turning President George W. Bush’s cover-up of abuses committed in the name of fighting terrorism into President Barack Obama’s cover-up.
We have had recent reminders of this dismaying retreat from Mr. Obama’s passionate campaign promises to make a break with Mr. Bush’s abuses of power, a shift that denies justice to the victims of wayward government policies and shields officials from accountability.

I’ve written about this a few times, but too much attention can’t possibly be drawn to it. So, as they say, read the whole thing.

Photo by Flickr user lewishamdreamer used under a Creative Commons license.

National - Thursday, September 17, 2009 11:30 - 2 Comments

Obama Wants to Have His Guantanamo and Eat it Too

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You won’t hear me defend for a second accusations that Obama is his predecessor with a Hope-and-Change-y makeover, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some areas where their views overlap to a disturbing degree. And while Obama has firmly denounced torture, doing so is only the bare minimum required for human decency; that alone doesn’t make for a solid record on civil liberties. In fact, as of this week, his record in that department looks to be pretty damn shitty.

That’s because Obama is canceling out whatever good karma he garnered in taking steps to close Guantanamo by manuevering to turn Bagram Air Base into the new Guantanamo. Does that mean detainees will be tortured there? No. But fighting to make sure those same detainees remain stripped of all their legal rights is a stunning abuse of power on its own.

At the same time, the rules the White House is proposing for Bagram are a slight improvement over what existed under the Bush administration. But it’s a testament to the remarkable leadership of George W. Bush that Obama’s guidelines can be a slight improvement and still an affront to the Constitution. Explanation below the fold.
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