Daphne Eviatar

ICE Targets Employers Who Follow the Law

The $150,000 in fines so far charged to Los Angeles clothing maker American Apparel for allegedly employing illegal immigrants may be a welcome change from the notorious factory raids by federal agents that led to hundreds of jailed and deported employees. As The New York Times reported on Friday, it suggests a shift in strategy [...]

The Real Test for Obama on Indefinite Detention

Here’s another point I should have made in my piece earlier today: Just because President Obama’s Justice Department has been asserting a remarkably broad, Bush-like view of his detention authority pursuant to the laws of war in the Guantanamo detainees’ habeas corpus cases, that doesn’t mean the president has to stick with that definition in [...]

What Is ‘Battlefield’ Detention, Anyway?

Since my piece on the intensifying battle over “preventive detention” was published, Ken Gude from the Center for American Progress wrote to point out an important distinction that deserves more emphasis.
As I note in my story, Gude and Kate Martin, Director of the Center for National Security Studies, have both written in support of the [...]

Debate Intensifies Over Preventive Detention

A letter to the White House asks the president not to expand a controversial Bush-era policy.

Why Some Civil Libertarians Support an Executive Order on Preventive Detention

So just who are those “civil liberties groups” that have encouraged the Obama administration to issue an executive order creating a system of prolonged preventive detention?
As Spencer wrote today, someone in the administration told ProPublica’s Dafna Linzner and The Washington Post’s Peter Finn that yes, civil liberties groups support the idea of an order that [...]

ACLU to Argue Against Use of Evidence Obtained Through Torture in Federal Court

The American Civil Liberties Union will file a brief tomorrow urging the federal court to suppress evidence gathered using torture, which the government wants to rely on in the case of Mohammed Jawad, the boy who “confessed” to throwing a grenade at U.S. soldiers after being arrested and tortured by Afghan authorities in 2002, then [...]

Is SCOTUS Poised to Allow Unlimited Corporate Campaign Spending?

That’s what Rick Hasen, the uber-election lawyer and blogger is predicting.
Instead of ruling on Citizens United v. FEC, a case that questions the legitimacy of corporate funding that supported an anti-Hillary Rodham Clinton documentary released just before the 2008 primaries, the court on Monday ordered reargument of the case in September.  The court will then [...]

Conservatives Find Political Fodder in Firefighter Decision

The unsurprising decision in Ricci v. DeStefano is making for political fodder against President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee.

Right-Wingers Portray 5-4 SCOTUS Ricci Decision as 9-0 Against Sotomayor

Somehow, the 5-4 ruling from the Supreme Court earlier today in Ricci v. DeStefano has been turned into a 9-0 ruling against Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, according to some conservative critics.
“NOT EVEN ONE JUSTICE APPROVED SOTOMAYER IN RICCI CASE,” blares the headline of a statement from Wendy Long, counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network, [...]

Sotomayor’s Supporters and Foes to Debate Supreme Court’s Decision

Interest groups are already lining up to use the Supreme Court’s decision today in Ricci v. DeStefano in their favor, whether they support or oppose the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the high court.
As Aaron noted earlier, the Supreme Court this morning decided that the city of New Haven violated the federal civil rights [...]