abuse

Thomas Frank has a terrific op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today, praising President Obama’s recent presidential memorandum declaring the end of an era of unrestrained government outsourcing.
The president “meant to put the kibosh on the GOP’s favorite method for spreading the wealth around,” Frank writes, noting the astronomical growth of federal spending under former [...]

According to a lawyer with the respected British human rights group Reprieve, abuse of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp has actually gotten worse since President Obama took office.

Since my story a few weeks ago on the Jeppesen Dataplan case, there’s been growing pressure on the Obama administration to reverse course and stop asserting “state secrets” to thwart the case, which in addition to compensating these victims, could reveal critical information about the Bush administration’s torture and abuse of detainees in the “war [...]

After hearing arguments on whether prisoners held indefinitely without charge at the U.S.-controlled prison at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan have the right to challenge their detention in American courts, Judge John D. Bates of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia late Wednesday ordered the government to provide certain basic information [...]

This is a really creepy press release that the U.S. military command in Afghanistan just emailed reporters under the headline “Suspected Militants Die In Zabul Province.” I reprint it here in its entirety: