Civil Rights

On September 18, 2009, seven former heads of the CIA publicly told President Barack Obama not to prosecute CIA torturers. On April 16, 2009, Obama had already publicly told Attorney General Eric Holder not to prosecute CIA torturers. On September 18th, Holder publicly reassured the CIA.

The coast was clear. The books started flowing. George W. Bush and John Yoo put their books out in 2010, Donald Rumsfeld in 2011, and Dick Cheney’s also later this summer.

Just as the torture techniques read more

Fifty years ago, freedom riders traveled by bus into the U.S. South.  Now American freedom riders are joining their allies from around the world on a flotilla bound for Gaza.  The U.S. ship is called The Audacity of Hope.
 
The heroes on this ship have pledged to sail unarmed and to refuse to use violence. The Israeli military, which continues to illegally blockade Gaza, causing endless suffering to the Gazan people, has pledged to use violent force to prevent the read more

I ran into some of your employees, John, at Boston Logan airport, believe it or not. In fact, I had no choice but to run into them or I couldn’t get home.

Now, I had just flown from London to Boston without blowing up the airplane, and in fact the Heathrow coppers have their own Insecurity Theater similar to yours. But that didn’t matter. I couldn’t continue on to our nation’s corporate headquarters on the Potomac without being further treated as a mass-murderer, as read more

Eight years ago, Donald Rumsfeld asked Jim Haynes whether they should seek new legislation on detainee treatment “so we get off the hook legally.” Rumsfeld’s request and Haynes’ response are here: PDF.

Haynes admitted that legislation could “reduce arbitrariness” but warned that by asking for legislation a precedent would be set for future presidents. In addition, Haynes cautioned, legislation might “limit the President’s ability . . . to gather read more

U.S. newspapers sometimes print what they call the total death count from one or more of our wars, and all the dead who are listed are Americans. They aren’t all the Americans. They don’t include contractors or suicides or various other categories of dead Americans. They certainly don’t include those who died for lack of basic needs while we dumped half of our public treasury into wars.

But they also don’t include anyone from that 95% of humanity that’s not from read more