I'm pissed about sections 1021 and 1022 of the NDAA. Extrajudicial detention has been a pet issue of mine for a long time. It's bad if George Bush does it, and it's bad if Obama does it. But who exactly did what? Here's the rough overview showing for how NDAA became law.

§1021 was added to NDAA in the House by H.AMDT.325, sponsored by Rep Connie ( Read more... )

In late October I attended an Obama rally in Reno, Nevada. I didn't stand with the crowd and cheer - I had a letter that I wanted to deliver. After talking to many different people and getting more than a few suspicious looks from secret service members I finally located a staffer from Obama's national campaign who assured me that she would give ( Read more... )

At Cloverfield last night I was momentarily startled by a poster for an upcoming new movie: Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo BayI see Guantanamo as somewhere below the Japanese internment camps and above the German concentration camps. Below the Japanese camps because the white house has taken outlandish legal measures to deprive them of due ( Read more... )

David Hicks is a detainee in Guantanamo Bay. The US Government is dropping its charges against him of conspiracy, aiding the enemy and attempted murder because it doesn't have any evidence to prove these charges. That's good. Today they charged him with "material support for terrorism" which his military-appointed lawyer Major Michael Mori says ( Read more... )

Has anyone heard the name Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari or "Michael Mixon" in the news? He's a major Republican party donor. He's also been arrested for funding terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.

The Republican Party has suddenly discovered due process, asking for patience while Alishtari is formally charged, and given a speedy and public ( Read more... )

I've been looking through the Combat Status Review Tribunal documents. They're the DoD's records of the prisoners kept in Guantanamo, released because of FOIA requests. These official government documents explain who these prisoners are and why they're being detained ( Read more... )

Representative John A Boehner of Ohio, the Republican majority leader, who wondered aloud at a news conference “whether Democrats are more interested in protecting the terrorists than protecting the American people.”

I'd like to take this moment to wonder aloud "whether Republicans are more interested in punishing someone for terrorism or making ( Read more... )

I was out running errands today when This American Life came on. Habeas Schmabeas was so good that I cut my errands short and went home to listen. Amazing stuff in there about the Guantanamo prisoners and their charges that I didn't know before. Next week when they put it up for free on RealAudio I'll write up the highlights.