Talking Rights

A much-needed oped in Sunday’s New York Times, pointing out that the government’s investigations of legal misconduct on the part of John Yoo and Jay Bybee have not been matched by inquiries into how medical professionals designed and implemented torture.
Leonard Rubenstein and Stephen Xenakis write that “the government doctors and psychologists who participated in and [...]

This is an excerpt from an interview with Army Specialist Brandon Neely by the University of California at Davis Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas. Often overlooked in the torture debate is the effect of torture on the perpetrators.
There is a wonderful Danish documentary about this called “Your Neighbor’s Son: The [...]

One of the aspects of Bush’s “war on terror” that has not received enough attention is how appalling tactics — torture, warrantless arrests and wiretapping, detention without trial — have dug their way into the world in which we live. These abuses are not taking place entirely “over there” in places like Guantanamo. From the [...]

Another excellent Doonesbury…

I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.”
– Lewis Carroll

As the New York Times reports today, a federal appeals court yesterday found that accusations against a Uighur detainee held for more than six years at Guantanamo were based on bare and unverifiable claims.
“With some derision,” the three-judge panel said the [...]

Yesterday, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) gave a magnificent speech on the Senate floor in opposition to the FISA bill before that body. Among its other reprehensible provisions, the bill would give retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that fed information to the National Security Administration, without judicial warrant and without notifying the individuals.
But Dodd went much [...]