Prosecution

Is Andrew Sullivan King of America?

By David Swanson

Of course, I’m going to argue no, that Andrew Sullivan is no more the king of America than is Barack Obama or George Tenet or Eric Holder or any of hundreds of other people claiming to be. But nobody other than the king or queen of the USA could overrule the Constitution and place particular people and categories of people above the law while keeping everybody else under it. Let’s take a look at Sullivan’s recent Atlantic article:

Americans want, and need, to read more

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Torture Memos in a Book

By David Swanson

The New Press has just published seven of the torture memos with a 40-page introduction by David Cole and a 3-page forward by Phillipe Sands. For those who prefer books to lengthy PDFs or printouts thereof, this is a real service. If we were a literate society, a book like this would put a number of important people behind bars. In the type of society we actually are, only photographs and videos can possibly have that impact, which is why we may never see those.

Of course, there read more

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U.S. Govt. Threatens to Prosecute Waterboarding

By David Swanson

We’ve been lobbying the Department of Justice all these months without realizing that the key to justice lay in the Department of the Interior, and specifically in the National Park Service, which has told activist Steve Lane he will be prosecuted if he attempts to demonstrate waterboarding at Thursday’s anti-torture rally in Washington, D.C. The permit for the rally reads “Waterboarding exhibit will not be allowed for safety reasons.”

Of course it’s read more

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It Could Happen to Yoo

By David Swanson

Sometimes, during a tsunami of bad news, it’s nice to come up for a breath of encouraging air. The only way to do that this week that I know of is to read a beautiful 42-page order by a judge (PDF). Usually such things don’t strike me as beautiful, but this one says that leading torture lawyer John Yoo can be sued in court by one of his victims. It also says that his arguments read more

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Holder Refuses to Call Warrantless Spying Illegal

By David Swanson

In probably the most disturbing testimony to hit Capitol Hill since Attorney General Eric Holder appeared before the House Judiciary Committee in May and refused to rule out lawless detention or to agree that government officials can sometimes be prosecuted for their crimes, on Wednesday Holder appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee and, among much else, refused five times to agree that warrantless spying is illegal read more

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Holder's Plans As Clear As Gonzales' Memory

"I don’t recall" is now "that would depend." While then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, when testifying before Congress, was oddly unable to remember anything prior to that morning’s breakfast, now Attorney General Eric Holder is oddly unable to forecast what, if anything, he will do to hold government officials accountable to the rule of law.

On Thursday, Holder testified before the House Judiciary Committee. Congressman Brad Sherman asked Holder what he would read more

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