In newly released grand jury testimony, Nixon leaned on familiar national security tropes

Richard Nixon is perhaps the best-known outed liar in history. In 1975, the year after he resigned in disgrace and was lifted away from the White House in a helicopter, the ex-president gave testimony before a grand jury investigating his administration. University of Wisconsin professor Stanley Kutler recently persuaded a More…

Conflict Heats Up Over Government’s Firing of Former Military Commission Prosecutor

The New York Times editorial board weighs in today in defense of Col. Morris Davis, the Air Force officer fired from the Congressional Research Service after he publicly criticized the government’s handling of Guantanamo detainee cases. That’s sure to ratchet up the pressure on CRS to More…

White House Issues Transparency Directive and Progress Report

Following up on President Obama’s Transparency Memoranda signed on his first day in office, the White House today issued two new documents pledging openness: An “open government directive” instructing the heads of federal departments and agencies to take specific actions to open their operations to More…

House Passes FOIA Amendment to Hide Abuse Photos

Notwithstanding Rep. Louise Slaughter’s (D-N.Y.) impassioned plea, the House this afternoon passed that amendment to alter the Freedom of Information Act and hide detainee abuse photos — and to keep the question of what’s secret and what’s not away from the courts.

Louise Slaughter Slams Effort to Amend FOIA to Shield Abuse Photos

Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) today blasted the Obama administration, as well as some of her colleagues in the House and Senate, for including a provision in the Homeland Security Appropriations Bill that would amend the Freedom of Information Act to exempt from disclosure photos depicting the abuse of detainees in More…

Obama Administration Still Fighting Release of Torture Evidence

This case has dropped a off the radar screen lately, but Bob Egelko at the San Francisco Chronicle today reminds us that the Obama administration is still fighting on three different fronts release of information that would likely show that U.S. officials tortured British former Guantanamo detainee Binyam More…

AIPAC Case Collapses

The Obama Justice Department has asked a judge to dismiss charges against two former American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobbyists accused of receiving classified information from the Bush Pentagon and passing it on to journalists and Israeli government officials. Good.

Put aside whatever you may feel about AIPAC. The More…

Winging it on Whistleblowers

On March 11, President Obama issued a signing statement attached to an omnibus spending bill that qualified a small but important provision that would deny a salary to a federal manager who “interferes with or prohibits certain communications between federal employees and Members of Congress.” In his signing statement, the More…

U.S. Tried to Get Gitmo Detainee to Waive Rights in Exchange for Release

The U.S. government tried to get Binyam Mohamed — the British resident who was held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay for four years and allegedly tortured in CIA “black sites” — to promise not to speak to the media or sue the United States as a condition More…

Frank: Sue the Bastards!

Opening today’s House Financial Services Committee hearing on AIG, Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass) makes a strong case for suing all those executives who got their multi-million dollar bonuses despite their high-risk incompetence that ultimately led the company down the toilet.

Reading from the contracts — which still appear not to More…