Last week's Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the subject of using military commissions to try detainees in the conflict against Al Qaeda and the Taliban featured an exchange that could have been scripted by Lewis Carroll. Senator Mel Martinez (R-Fla), perhaps hoping to discredit the idea that detainees should...

Government transparency is vital to a free and well-functioning democracy, and it is particularly so in the area of national security. History shows that national security policies carry a heightened risk of intrusions into individual rights and liberties, making it all the more important that the people are kept informed...

Yesterday, President Obama signaled his willingness to consider an independent, non-partisan commission of inquiry like the one proposed last year by the Brennan Center and more recently by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy. While stopping short of endorsing a commission, Obama's comments are a marked departure from his previous...

Obama drops the name "enemy combatant" but keeps the (flawed) concept

News outlets proclaimed the end of an era earlier this month as the Justice Department filed a brief in federal court that dropped the use of the term "enemy combatant" from its description of those...

As the idea of creating an independent commission to investigate post-9/11 counter-terrorism policies continues to gain support, opponents of the idea have identified a favorite talking point: that an investigative commission would "criminalize policy differences." Senator Specter dutifully raised this objection at the Judiciary Committee hearing this week. But the...

For the past eight years, Democratic members of Congress have been issuing pleas for greater transparency, accountability, and a return to the rule of law. At the same time, the administration has been throwing up a wall of secrecy around the government's policies to ensure de facto immunity from any...