NewsTrust - Civil Liberties - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

Obama, Gay Marriage, and the American Equality Quilt

Wed, 09 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Esquire - By Charles P. Pierce - May. 09 (Opinion) - This was no happy accident. Just look at how he wove his endorsement into the fabric of everything else he'd done for the cause of equality since he's been president.

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Technology should help us share, not constrain us

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Richard Stallman - Apr. 18 (Opinion) - Companies like Amazon can control the way we use the ebooks we buy. Instead let's build a publishing model based on freedom I love the detective novel The Jehovah Contract , and I'd like everyone else to love it, too. I have lent it out at least six times over the years. Printed books let us do that. I couldn't do it with most commercial ebooks; it's not allowed. And if I felt like telling the publishers to take their evil rule and stuff it, the software in e-readers has digital restrictions management – malicious features that restrict access, so it simply won't allow it. And the books are encrypted in such a way to force you to use that malicious software. Many other habits that readers are accustomed to are not allowed for ebooks. With the Amazon Kindle, for instance, you're not allowed to buy a book anonymously. Kindle books are typically available from Amazon only, and Amazon doesn't accept cash so users must identify themselves. Thus Amazon knows exactly which books each user has read. ...

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Editorial: An Assault on Democracy

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Iht Editorial - Jan. 23 (Opinion) - President Rafael Correa of Ecuador is trying to stifle a free press in his country and across the region.

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Bradley Manning pre-trial hearing: what we learned

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Ed Pilkington, Matt Williams, Dominic Rushe - Dec. 23 - For the past week, a military court has been considering the case of Bradley Manning, alleged to have leaked more than 250,000 embassy cables to Wikileaks. What have we learned? For seven days, a makeshift court inside a sprawling military base in Maryland has been hearing evidence in a case that that has raised questions of freedom of speech, the practices of US army intelligence, gender identity and the place of gay personnel in the armed services. Sitting sometimes in secret, at other times in a kind of pseudo-public forum, this idiosyncratic court has been considering whether a full court martial should be held for Bradley Manning, an army intelligence analyst with a troubled background who is alleged to be the source of the biggest leak of US state secrets in history. Manning faces a potential life sentence if army investigators can prove he passed the information to WikiLeaks, the whistleblowing website founded by the mercurial Julian Assange. Overview It has been a curious ...

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The American Autumn: An Accurate Protest Movement Scares The Pants Off Conservatives In Both Parties | adn.com

Sun, 16 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Anchorage Daily News - By Rudy_Wittshirk - Oct. 16 (Opinion) - Now there is another precisely-aimed protest movement in America. “Occupy Wall Street” looks like it has “legs”---and if those legs don’t freeze off this Winter, watch out!

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How states are rigging the 2012 election

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By E.J. Dionne Jr. - Jun. 20 (Opinion) - An attack on the right to vote is underway across the country through laws designed to make it more difficult to cast a ballot. If this were happening in an emerging democracy, we’d condemn it as election-rigging. But it’s happening here, so there’s barely a whimper.

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The Patriot Act and bipartisanship

Mon, 23 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - By Glenn Greenwald - May. 23 (Opinion) - Senate Democrats use classic Bush/Cheney fear-mongering to demand quick passage of the Patriot Act

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Manning and Mohammed cases: Tilting the scales of justice

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Morris Davis - Apr. 27 (Opinion) - President Obama and Atty. Gen. Holder are improperly putting pressure on those who will judge the Bradley Manning and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed cases."Command influence is the mortal enemy of military justice."

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Cowardly, Stupid, and Tragically Wrong

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Slate - By Dahlia Lithwick - Apr. 06 (Opinion) - In reversing one of its last principled positions—that American courts are sufficiently nimble, fair, and transparent to try Mohammed and his confederates—the administration surrendered to the bullying, fear-mongering, and demagoguery of those seeking to create two separate kinds of American law.

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Clarence Thomas' dangerous conceit

Sun, 06 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Los Angeles Times - By Jonathan Turley - Mar. 06 (Opinion) - The Supreme Court justice argues that criticism of him is an attack on the court itself. But a single justice doesn't define the institution.

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This CIA agent is no diplomat | Craig Murray

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Craig Murray - Feb. 28 (Opinion) - The US says Raymond Davis should have immunity in Pakistan. Just another attempt to flout the rule of law outside its bordersI tread with some caution in discussing the case of Raymond Davis, the CIA agent facing charges of double murder in Pakistan and the threat of the death penalty. I add my plea to the voices urging the Pakistani government to ensure Davis does not hang.But one thing I can state for certain: Davis (as we will call him for now) is not a diplomat and does not possess diplomatic immunity. There is some doubt as to who he really is, with the charges against him in Pakistan including one that he obtained documents using a false identity.Watching Barack Obama's presidency has been a stream of bitter disappointments. His endorsement of Davis as "our diplomat" and invocation of the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations was, in its sheer dishonesty, as sad an Obama moment as any.As a general rule, international treaties are written in very plain language and are very accessible. That is certainly true of the Vienna convention. Unfortunately I can see scant evidence that any journalists have bothered to read it.Leaving aside staff of international organisations recognised by the host country as having diplomatic status (and there has been no claim yet that Davis was actually working for Unicef), in bilateral diplomatic relations the provision for diplomatic immunity is tightly limited to a very small number of people. That makes sense when you consider that if Davis did have diplomatic immunity, he would indeed be able to avoid detention and trial on a murder charge. The world community is not going to make that impunity readily available.Full diplomatic immunity is enjoyed only by "diplomatic agents". Those are defined at article 1 (e) of the Vienna convention as "the head of the mission or a member of the diplomatic staff of the mission". Helpfully the diplomatic staff are further defined in the preceding article as "having diplomatic rank". Those ranks are an ascending series of concrete titles from third secretary through to ambassador or high commissioner. Davis did not have a diplomatic rank.But there is a second category of "administrative and technical staff" of a mission. They enjoy a limited diplomatic immunity which, however, specifically excludes "acts performed outside the course of their duties". (Vienna convention article 37/2.) Frantic off-the-record briefing by the state department reflected widely in the media indicates that the US case is that Davis was a member of technical staff covered by this provision.But in that case the US has to explain in the course of precisely which diplomatic duties Davis needed to carry a Glock handgun, a headband-mounted flashlight and a pocket telescope. The Vienna convention lists the legitimate duties of an embassy, and none of them need that kind of equipment.It appears in any event unlikely that Davis ever was a member of the technical staff of the embassy or consulate. Under article 10 of the Vienna convention the host authorities must be formally informed – by diplomatic note – of the arrival and departures of such staff, and as embassies under article 11 are subject to agreed numerical limits, that in practice occurs when another member of staff is leaving. If this was not done Davis was not covered even in the course of his duties.Pakistani senior ex-military sources tell me there is no note appointing Davis as embassy or consulate staff, and that appears to pass a commonsense test – if the note exists, why have the Americans not produced it?Finally, possession of a diplomatic passport does not give you diplomatic status all over the world.I hope this helps clarify a position that the US government, and the media it influences, have deliberately muddied. Sadly this whole episode reflects the US's continuing contempt for the basic fabric of international law. It sits with its refusal to sign up to the international criminal court so that US citizens may not be held accountable for war crimes, with its acknowledged overseas assassination programme, its one-sided extradition treaties and claims of extra-territorial jurisdiction over offences committed outside the US.We hoped it might get better under Obama. It is not."We've got a very simple principle here that every country in the world that is party to the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations has upheld in the past and should uphold in the future, and that is, if our diplomats are in another country, then they are not subject to that country's local prosecution," Obama said in a press conference. "We expect Pakistan, that's a signatory and recognises Davis as a diplomat, to abide by the same convention ... I'm not going to discuss the specific exchanges that we've had [with the Pakistani government], but we've been very firm about this being a priority."PakistanCIAUnited StatesUS foreign policyBarack ObamaCraig Murrayguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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Mike Huckabee, gay-marriage defender

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Ruth Marcus - Feb. 25 (Opinion) - Mike Huckabee made a great argument for gay marriage. The once and perhaps future Republican presidential candidate didn't mean it that way, of course. Actually, he was slamming President Obama's decision to stop defending the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages.

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Julian Assange is very likely to be extradited, says Matrix barrister

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Joshua Rozenberg - Feb. 23 (Opinion) - It is "very likely" that a senior district judge will order the extradition of Julian Assange to Sweden to face sexual assault charges, a barrister at Matrix Chambers predicted this week.

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Harold Meyerson - Wisconsin is only part of the GOP war against unions

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Harold Meyerson, Washington Post - Feb. 23 (Opinion) - In the House, Republicans passed, as part of their continuing resolution to fund the federal government through September, a provision that slashed the funding of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) by one-third.

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Same-sex unions in Maryland

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Marc Steiner Show - By Marc Steiner, Elbridge James, Jamie Raskin, Peter Sprigg - Feb. 14 (Interview) - A measure has recently been proposed to the Maryland State House to make same-sex unions legal. If accepted, Maryland will become sixth state to approve same-sex marriage. Our guests are Elbridge James, director of the Maryland Black Family Alliance, Jamie Raskin, Maryland State Senator and Professor of Constitutional Law at American University, and Peter Sprigg, Senior Fellow for Policy Studies at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C.

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2 Detained Reporters Saw Secret Police’s Methods Firsthand

Fri, 04 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Souad Mekhennet, Nicholas Kulish - Feb. 04 (Opinion) - For a day, we were trapped in a brutal maze, throwing abuses of Egyptians into dreadful relief.

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Food and failed Arab states

Wed, 02 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Asia Times - By Spengler - Feb. 02 (Opinion) - Not the destitute, to be sure, but the aspiring and frustrated young, confronted the riot police and army on the streets of Egyptian cities last week. The uprising in Egypt and Tunisia were not food riots; only in Jordan have demonstrators made food the main issue. Rather, the jump in food prices was the wheat-stalk that broke the camel's back. The regime's weakness, in turn, reflects the dysfunctional character of the country. 35% of all Egyptians, and 45% of Egyptian women can't read. Nine out of ten Egyptian women suffer genital mutilation. US President Barack Obama said Jan. 29, "The right to peaceful assembly and association, the right to free speech, and the ability to determine their own destiny … are human rights. And the United States will stand up for them everywhere." Does Obama think that genital mutilation is a human rights violation? To expect Egypt to leap from the intimate violence of traditional society to the full rights of a modern democracy seems whimsical.

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Obama's gay rights challenge

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Kerry Eleveld - Jan. 21 (Interview) - Less than a month after President Obama repealed "don't ask, don't tell," his Justice Department filed its latest brief defending the so-called Defense of Marriage Act - the law that makes gay Americans second-class citizens by outlawing federal recognition of their legal marriages. This action underscores the point that the battle over gay rights is just beginning.

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Nasty words: Toxic v ballistic rhetoric

Sun, 16 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Economist - Jan. 16 (Opinion) - What's scary about extreme right-wing rhetoric, to a great extent, is the way it's bound up with a legitimation of private violence as a defence of freedom. This has not always been the exclusive domain of the right. In the late 1960s and 1970s, it was extreme leftist groups such as the Black Panthers and the Weathermen whose rhetoric legitimated armed violence as a defence of "the people". It was appropriate for cooler heads then to denounce such rhetoric as scary on its own terms, and crippling to democratic politics. That lesson was effective: even the most inaccurate and excessive rhetoric on the left these days doesn't invoke violence. For the same reasons, today's right should drop its habit of couching political points in violent terms.

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Politics: Obama is back -- squarely in the center

Wed, 29 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Los Angeles Times - By Richard Wolffe - Dec. 29 (Opinion) - The president has been castigated from both sides of the political spectrum. But progressives should not be surprised by his compromises, and GOP leaders have just placed him in the reasonable middle of American politics.For someone who is supposedly cool and detached, President Obama has triggered outraged and outsized reactions on both sides of the political spectrum in the last year. Conservatives loathe his healthcare reforms; progressives hate his tax compromises.

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Obama is back -- squarely in the center

Wed, 29 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Los Angeles Times - Dec. 29 - The president has been castigated from both sides of the political spectrum. But progressives should not be surprised by his compromises, and GOP leaders have just placed him in the reasonable middle of American politics.For someone who is supposedly cool and detached, President Obama has triggered outraged and outsized reactions on both sides of the political spectrum in the last year. Conservatives loathe his healthcare reforms; progressives hate his tax compromises.

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Do We Want to Live in the Libertarians' World?

Sun, 26 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0800

New York Magazine - By Christopher Beam - Dec. 26 (Opinion) - There’s never been a better time to be a libertarian than now. The right is still railing against interventionist policies like TARP, the stimulus package, and health-care reform. Citizens of all political stripes recoil against the nanny state, which is nannier than ever, passing anti-smoking laws, banning trans fats, posting calorie counts, prohibiting flavored cigarettes, cracking down on Four Loko, and considering a soda tax in New York. All that, plus some TSA agent wants to handle your baggage.

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Obama's victory lap

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Eugene Robinson - Dec. 20 (Opinion) - President Obama must be tempted to respond to his progressive critics with a quote from the old-school rapper Kool Moe Dee: "How ya like me now?" Repeal of the military's bigoted and anachronistic "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military - a campaign promise that seemed to be slipping out of reach - doesn't fully mend the relationship between Obama and the Democratic Party's liberal wing. But it's a pretty terrific start.

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Abortion in Europe: A right that isn't

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - Dec. 20 (Opinion) - Ireland is only one of several European nations to take a restrictive approach to abortion The greatest achievement of Europe's human rights framework has been to banish the death penalty from its shores. The same continental unanimity is entirely lacking in other matters of life and death. Europeans may listen in with amusement to the loony tunes that emanate from culture wars of the United States, but on abortion the truth is that they have themselves avoided bitter divisions only by agreeing to disagree. For all the qualifications and attempted reversal, the Roe v Wade decision still provides American women with a right to abortion which has no European counterpart. The position varies wildly across the continent , with Malta banning the practice entirely , and Ireland being almost as restrictive, as a Strasbourg ruling underlined last week. The European court of human rights last week settled the case of three Irish residents who argued that their wellbeing had been jeopardised by their ...

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TSA Chief: 'We'll Never Eliminate Risk'

Wed, 08 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Atlantic Monthly - By James Fallows, Jeffrey Goldberg - Dec. 08 (Interview) - Ever since new airport security procedures went into effect in late October, the Transportation Security Administration has been at the center of controversy. The combination of enhanced image screening with invasive patdowns for those who opt out has rankled civil liberties advocates and some of the flying public...

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