In a packed room of civil libertarians assembled for a Constitution Project dinner, Attorney General Eric Holder gave a passionate if unpopular defense of the use of military commissions in addition to civilian courts to prosecute terrorism detainees.
Save the date: Attorney General Eric Holder will interrupt his bureaucratic battle to keep Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and the other 9/11 conspirators tried in federal court on the evening of April 15 to deliver an address to the civil liberties group the Constitution Project at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington. More…
One concern that may animate the Obama administration’s Guantanamo task force deciding that about 50 detainees must be held indefinitely without trial is that the basis for any prosecution is evidence obtained through torture or abuse. Judge John Coughenour, a sitting federal judge on the U.S. District Court in Seattle, More…
In reaction to the Obama administration’s Guantanamo Bay task force recommending that about 50 detainees at Guantanamo be indefinitely detained without trial, the Constitution Project, a prominent civil-libertarian advocacy group, released the following statement:
“Even if the Obama administration continues to work to close Guantánamo, by pursuing a policy
Former congressman and federal judge Abner J. Mikva and former Illinois U.S. Attorneys Thomas P. Sullivan and Dan K. Webb today sent a letter urging Illinois members of Congress and state officials to support the use of federal and state prisons, including the one in Thomson, Ill., to More…
A bipartisan group of more than 120 judges, prosecutors, diplomats, former members of Congress and high-level military and government officials yesterday released a proposed plan for closing the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and trying all suspected terrorists in civilian federal court.
“Some have opposed the closing of Guantanamo More…
Seven major civil rights and open government organizations today sent a letter to leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees urging them to pass legislation to restrict the government’s ability to use the “state secrets” privilege to dismiss litigation charging government wrongdoing. Although the Obama administration yesterday announced a More…
Eight years after it was passed, the USA Patriot Act remains among the most controversial pieces of counterterrorism legislation in the so-called “war on terror.” On December 31 of this year, some of its more controversial provisions will expire, forcing Congress to revisit it More…
In a highly unusual decision, a majority of Supreme Court justices yesterday ordered that a federal judge in Georgia must hear new evidence that lawyers for Troy Davis have been saying for years will prove his innocence.
Davis, as I’ve explained before, has been on death More…
Ever since President Obama said in his speech at the National Archives that he believes there’s a category of people at Guantanamo who can’t be tried in criminal court or by military commission but are too dangerous to release, legal and More…
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