NewsTrust - Law Enforcement - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

The right's nonsensical arguments against trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York.

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Slate - By Dahlia Lithwick - Nov. 17 (Opinion) - Opposition to the Obama administration's plan to try alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his confederates in a federal court in New York City is hardening into two camps. One is concerned that we may be unwittingly playing into the terrorists' hands. The other is incensed that we already have. What both camps share, besides a kind of unhinged logic and complete disregard for the legal process, is an obsessive fascination with the accused. The result is a broad willingness to sacrifice our commitment to legal principles in favor of the symbolic satisfaction of crushing the hopes and dreams of a motley group of criminals.

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Accept the facts – and end this futile 'war on drugs'

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Independent - By Johann Hari - Nov. 10 (Opinion) - The prohibitionists are – from the best intentions and the highest motives – unleashing a catastrophe. Human beings have been finding ways to get stoned or high since we lived in caves. In our attempt to end this natural impulse, we have created a problem worse than drug use itself.

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Did California police use a Taser on an unarmed, legless man in a wheelchair?

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:14:32 -0700

McClatchy - Sep. 21 -

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Fear was no excuse to condone torture

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Miami Herald - By Charles C. Krulak, Joseph P. Hoar - Sep. 15 (Opinion) - In the fear that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Americans were told that defeating Al Qaeda would require us to ``take off the gloves.'' As a former commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps and a retired commander-in-chief of U.S. Central Command, we knew that was a recipe for disaster. But we never imagined that we would feel duty-bound to publicly denounce a vice president of the United States, a man who has served our country for many years. In light of the irresponsible statements recently made by former Vice President Dick Cheney, however, we feel we must repudiate his dangerous ideas -- and his scare tactics.

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Priority Test: Health Care or Prisons?

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Nicholas D. Kristof - Aug. 20 (Opinion) - Astonishingly, many politicians seem to think that we should lead the world in prisons, not in health care or education. The United States is anomalous among industrialized countries in the high proportion of people we incarcerate; likewise, we stand out in the high proportion of people who have no medical care — and partly as a result, our health care outcomes such as life expectancy and infant mortality are unusually poor.

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A summer of race talk

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Root - By Sherrilyn A. Ifill - Aug. 10 (Opinion) - Judge Sonia Sotomayor is the first Latina Supreme Court justice. The Cambridge police dropped the charges against Professor Henry “Skip” Gates, an action supported by the mounting evidence that he was the subject of a false and racially charged arrest.

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Welcome to the ‘Club’

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Charles M. Blow - Jul. 25 (Opinion) - For many black men, a negative, sometimes racially charged, encounter with a policeman is a far-too-common rite of passage.

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All right, everybody, let’s cool off

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Boston Globe - By Derrick Z. Jackson - Jul. 25 (Opinion) - Crowley should never have arrested Gates for being upset at lingering police presence in his home, having proved it was his. But Crowley’s history is that he’s not a rogue policeman. Gates calling him one on national TV Wednesday blurred the line between the act and the man.

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Black officer at scholar’s home supports arrest

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Bob Salsberg - Jul. 24 (Press Release) - CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- A black police officer who was at Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s home when the black Harvard scholar was arrested says he fully supports how his white fellow officer handled the situation.

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Editorial - Slain for Daring to Report - NYTimes.com

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - Jul. 17 (Editorial) - New York TimesSlain for Daring to ReportNew York TimesThe murder of Natalya Estemirova, an investigator into the brutality of Chechnya's Kremlin-backed regime, has the grisly signature of a long string of murder with impunity in Vladimir Putin's Russia. Ms. Estemirova was kidnapped by gunmen Wednesday in ...Lawless Atmosphere Cited in Death of Russian JournalistVoice of AmericaAnother Death in RussiaWall Street JournalDimitry Medvedev rejects claim Chechen leader ordered killingguardian.co.ukBBC News?-Reuters?-The Associated Pressall 467 news articles??

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Congress must assert its right to oversee the intelligence community

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Times - Jul. 14 (Editorial) - U.S. intelligence operations require secrecy and operational flexibility, but the programs do not operate outside or above the law. All Americans need to know whose authority was invoked by Vice President Cheney when he ordered Congress be denied information the law says it must receive. Congress and the White House can stay focused on the issues before them. These are not political hunting expeditions, but specific grievances grounded in a legal system others actively chose to ignore.

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Now Can We Investigate?

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - By William Rivers Pitt - Jul. 13 (Opinion) - Half a dozen times since his inauguration, President Obama has seen his agenda depth-charged by a report on some nefarious activity by the previous administration. Not only have his plans and intentions been derailed by these reports - whether they be about torture, government secrecy, indefinite detention, or whatever else - he has himself become culpable for the damage done by either trying to ignore these transgressions or by adopting them himself.

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New York City Homicides Map

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - Jun. 18 (Research) - [Interactive Graphic] Each day, the New York Police Department announces major crimes, including most homicides, in the five boroughs. This data is compiled from those reports, in addition to news accounts, court records and additional reporting. The map will be updated as new information becomes available.

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Amnesty International Human Rights Report: 'We Are Seeing a Catastrophe' - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

Thu, 28 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Der Spiegel - May. 28 (Interview) - This is very worrying. Obama has been alarmingly ambiguous on the issue, hinting at some new legislation. But incarceration without a trial can never be within the rule of law. We are asking the government in Washington to release all innocent prisoners from Guantanamo and to try the rest in a US court. The government should show some confidence in its own justice system.

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Close Read: See You in Court

Sat, 23 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New Yorker - May. 23 (Opinion) - The practice of rendition, the conditions at Guantanamo, the lack of evidence and tainting of evidence, and, above all, the prior Administration’s paralytic fear of the courts and of the Constitution—did all that make it more expedient to simply shuffle them off to Yemen or Saudi Arabia?

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Bernie Madoff

Sat, 02 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Time - By Michael Moore - May. 02 (Opinion) - he stole $65 billion from some already quite wealthy people. I know that's upsetting to them because rich guys like Bernie are not supposed to be stealing from their own kind. Crime, thievery, looting — that's what happens on the other side of town. The rules of the money game on Park Avenue and Wall Street are comprised of things like charging the public 29% credit card interest, tricking people into taking out a second mortgage they can't afford, and concocting a student loan system that has graduates in hock for the next 20 years. Now that's smart business! And it's legal.

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The Torturers’ Manifesto

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - Apr. 18 (Editorial) - These memos make it clear that Mr. Bybee is unfit for a job that requires legal judgment and a respect for the Constitution. Congress should impeach him. And if the administration will not conduct a thorough investigation of these issues, then Congress has a constitutional duty to hold the executive branch accountable. If that means putting Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzales on the stand, even Dick Cheney, we are sure Americans can handle it. After eight years without transparency or accountability, Mr. Obama promised the American people both. His decision to release these memos was another sign of his commitment to transparency. We are waiting to see an equal commitment to accountability.

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Put enough cameras on the police and even the serially deferential wake up

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Marina Hyde - Apr. 11 (Opinion) - If there is anything to feel optimistic about today, perhaps it is the hope that we are witnessing the flowering of an effective inverse surveillance society. Inverse surveillance is a branch of sousveillance, the term coined by University of Toronto professor Steve Mann, and it emphasises "watchful vigilance from underneath", by citizens, of those who survey and control them.

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Spain investigates what America should

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - By Marjorie Cohn - Apr. 06 (Opinion) - Universal jurisdiction complements, but doesn't supersede, national prosecutions. So if the United States were investigating the Bush officials, other countries would refrain from doing so. When the United States ratified the Convention Against Torture, it promised to extradite or prosecute those who commit, or are complicit in, the commission of torture.

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How we betrayed the rule of law for the fool's gold of security

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Miami Herald - By Leonard Pitts Jr. - Apr. 03 (Opinion) - People came out of the McCarthy era marveling at how easily fear and paranoia had stampeded us into surrendering principles that are supposed to define us. Mark my words: We will look back on this era the same way.

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Why Legalizing Marijuana Makes Sense

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Time - By Joe Klein - Apr. 03 (Opinion) - Beneath the furious roil of the economic crisis, a national conversation has quietly begun about the irrationality of our drug laws. It is going on in state legislatures, like New York's, where the draconian Rockefeller drug laws are up for review; in other states, from California to Massachusetts, various forms of marijuana decriminalization are being enacted. And it has reached the floor of Congress, where Senators Jim Webb and Arlen Specter have proposed a major prison-reform package, which would directly address drug-sentencing policy.

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Rachel Maddow Interviews Colon Powell

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

MSNBC - By Powell, Maddow - Apr. 02 (Interview) - [Video]

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Seattle to London: globalization and the voices of protest

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Times - By Amy Goodman - Apr. 01 (Opinion) - "We're now reaping what we have sown in the form of unbridled globalization and unfettered free trade ... it's time for all of us in this country, as we attempt to pull ourselves out of this global economic meltdown, to really take a look at what issues of social and economic justice mean within the context of globalization."

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Judges should recuse themselves from cases involving campaign benefactors

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Seattle Times - By Robert Utter, Charlie Wiggins - Mar. 02 (Opinion) - The U.S. Supreme Court should reverse a lower court ruling in the case of Caperton v. Massey, argue retired Washington Supreme Court Justice Robert Utter and attorney Charlie Wiggins. In the case, a judge who received $3 million in campaign funds from the defendant refused to recuse himself. They also support the Washington State Supreme Court adopting a rule to prevent this thing from happening here.

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A depressing saga of secrets, lies and medieval horrors

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Independent - By Yasmin Alibhai-Brown - Feb. 23 (Opinion) - The US and the UK can claim ignorance of what goes on in those dark cells pierced by screams; and obliging nations can do their business efficiently in countries without any transparency. There is a long history of such mutuality in evil. Apartheid had willing black operators; the transatlantic slave trade depended on black suppliers. These colluders always get away with it. The UN Convention against Torture states: “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification for torture.”

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