By Jason Leopold
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy formally announced Wednesday that he will formally begin the process of exploring the formation of a commission to investigate controversial Bush administration’s policies, such as torture and domestic surveillance, enacted to allegedly defend the U.S. from terrorist threats.
By William Fisher
A leading human rights organization charges that contrary to recent U.S. Government reports that found prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, being treated humanely, “The men at Guantánamo are deteriorating at a rapid rate” due to “harsh conditions that continue to this day, despite a few cosmetic changes to their routines.”
The Center for Constitutional [...]
By William Fisher
While human rights and legal advocacy groups applauded President Barack Obama’s decision to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay within a year, many immediately raised another thorny question: “What About Bagram?”
Their answer came as a shock and a surprise. In a brief filing in federal court last week, lawyers from President Barack [...]
What follows below was transcribed from a PDF of the original document (or a copy of same), posted on the website of Senator Carl Levin, Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee. It, along with a wealth of other documentation, was used in preparing the SASC’s highly critical report late last year on interrogations and [...]
By Jason Leopold
Former White House political adviser Karl Rove has defied a congressional subpoena for the third time.
Rove was scheduled to be deposed by the House Judiciary Committee Monday about the role he allegedly played in the firings of nine U.S. Attorneys and the criminal prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman.
But Rove refused [...]
By Jason Leopold
A Justice Department inquiry has found that the Bush administration’s legal opinions justifying the torture of “war on terror” detainees were hastily drafted after one prisoner was already subjected to waterboarding, a practice that creates the sensation of drowning, according to several sources familiar with the still-classified report.
The implication of the finding [...]
By Jason Leopold
A Department of Justice investigation into the legal work John Yoo and two other former DOJ officials performed for the Bush administration was harshly critical of the former agency attorneys for failing to cite legal precedent and existing case law in legal opinions they prepared for the of Bush administration on a wide-range [...]
By Jason Leopold
One day after he was sworn in as President of the United States and in the same week signing executive orders ushering in a new era of government transparency, Barack Obama’s Justice Department quietly filed a motion in federal court to dismiss a long-running lawsuit that sought to force the Bush administration to [...]
By William Fisher
The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama must take a leadership position in championing human rights in the Middle East and North Africa by using U.S. economic and trade leverage and confronting the growing global threat of authoritarianism being promoted by Arab regimes.
This is the view of the Cairo Institute for Human [...]
By Jason Leopold
The Justice Department and White House lawyers are engaged in intense negotiations with attorneys for George W. Bush and three of his former advisers over demands that they testify before Congress and turn over documents about their alleged roles in the firings of nine U.S. Attorneys in 2006, according to court papers [...]
