If observers want to criticize the president, they should challenge his derogation in practice of the same values he professes.

Critics of Mr. Obama have described his inaugural address as radical.  But insisting on values as fundamental as "equality before the law" and the "enduring strength of our Constitution" are...

The first installment in this series reviewed President Eisenhower's prescient warnings about "the military-industrial complex...endanger[ing] our liberties or democratic processes." It also examined various casualties of the national security state, including transparency, accountability, and democratic legitimacy. Part II, below, continues the analysis and identifies further costs of national security...

President Obama's reelection has sparked an onslaught of analysis attempting to define the agenda for his second term. Will it reflect the vision of restoring liberty and security on which the president ran in 2008, or the disappointing passivity towards the national security state that characterized his first term?

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On Tuesday, August 14, a federal judge issued a disturbing ruling allowing the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to evade public accountability for infiltrating faith institutions, monitoring law-abiding people, recording sexual encounters, and then apparently lying about all of it. Carney's decision erodes democracy in two dimensions at once, enabling...

Both 2012 presidential campaigns advance the legacy of Dick Cheney

Among the most tragic casualties of the war on terror is the separation of powers that our Founders envisioned to help keep America free. Not only has executive power expanded to disturbing -- and profoundly dangerous -- proportions in the...

When the United States championed democracy, freedom, and opportunity, it made sense to celebrate the Fourth of July.  But are we still promoting those values? If we are paragons of neither opportunity nor freedom, what exactly do we celebrate today?

Our Statue of Liberty bears an inscription welcoming the world's...

For the past three years, I -- and many others, including my colleagues at the Rule of Law Institute -- have argued that the shameless human rights abuses of the Pakistani government would undermine the government's efforts to address violent extremism. Like U.S. policies that favor...

On the same day that the Washington Post revealed that our federal government is "is assembling a vast domestic intelligence apparatus to collect information about Americans, using the FBI, local police, state homeland security offices and military criminal investigators," the District of Columbia continues to reel from

This Veterans' Day, executive impunity for human rights abuses is once again in the news. Former President George W. Bush openly admitted authorizing techniques long recognized as torture in his recent memoir, and this week, Attorney General Eric Holder resigned the opportunity to file criminal charges relating to the CIA's...

Last week marked the eighth anniversary of memos written by Justice Department lawyers to authorize cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment of detainees. The Bush administration's abuses were the beginning of a dismal chapter in American history. This unhappy anniversary offers a sad reminder that this chapter remains open.

To restore...

The week before last, The Washington Post concluded a two-year investigation of our government's domestic spying activities, revealing a lack of accountability pervading its far-flung and vast operations. Last Wednesday, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, confirming that the FBI is...

Despite promises of change, the Obama administration has proven itself either unwilling--or unable--to shift the paradigm driving increasingly invasive surveillance, or increasingly pervasive profiling according to race, religion, and national origin. Nearly halfway through the Obama administration's term, the battle to banish the Bush administration's policy legacy remains largely...

In the retirement of Justice Stevens, President Obama has an immense opportunity -- should his Administration demonstrate the courage to engage it -- to begin the lagging project of reshaping a key Washington institution, while also mobilizing his liberal base heading into the mid-term elections.

After 35 years...

Nearly a decade ago, Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) stood alone as the Senate's constitutional conscience. Casting the only dissenting vote against passage of the PATRIOT Act in 2001, he was powerless to stop an opportunistic power grab by neo-conservatives who had long sought, well before the tragedy of...

We have failed to even investigate torturers, yet we have prosecuted and imprisoned millions for lesser offenses. And we allow mass murderers the benefit of constitutional rights that we deny detainees at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere. Until policymakers examine and fix these double standards, they will continue to undermine our...

Despite our Founders' vision of independent powers exercising checks & balances to prevent a "tyranny of the majority," every branch of the federal government acted last month to cast its lot with torturers. But even though President Obama, Congress and the Court have united to hide evidence of high-level...

Over the past century, our nation has triumphed over two sets of aspiring global tyrants: the axis powers in WWII, and the Soviet Union in the Cold War. Our victories over these foes were, in each case, world-historical in scale and importance. Yet within less than a century, we now...

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano recently highlighted her department's efforts to reach out to build "stronger relationships with Arab and Muslim Americans, as well as South Asian communities across the country," seemingly reflecting an awareness of how the war on terror has stigmatized and cast irrational suspicion on...

A family vacation over Independence Day offered a poignant reminder of why, over 30 years ago, my parents sought refuge in the U.S. Fleeing the racial hostility they encountered in Britain after escaping the brutality of the Indian Subcontinent's Partition, they found in rural Missouri economic opportunity, political freedom, and...

Sixty years ago, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson left Washington to pursue what he later called "the most important, enduring, and constructive work of [his] life": prosecuting international war crimes committed during WWII. Justice Jackson helped usher in a new international regime that promised to help deter human rights...