The CIA's defense of an indefensible position on secrecy suggests that it believes secrecy trumps all other values, even a court's common sense.
With bipartisan concern clear and public interest in the program growing, now is the time for the Justice Department to explain fully its legal support for the program, or risk more claims of the Obama administration's hypocrisy.
Questions about monitoring of privileged attorney-client communications continued to swirl around the pre-trial hearings taking place at Guantanamo Bay on Wednesday.
Testimony from the special 9/11 courtroom at Guantanamo Bay this morning confirmed what defense lawyers have been complaining about for weeks now: The microphones in the courtroom are sensitive enough to pick up lawyers' conversations with their clients.
Secrecy --a Church specialty -- has always reigned inside even its most hallowed institutions, but it cannot continue to do so. In the case of Catholic schools, the Church should first publish their so-called "master plan" for all to see, down to how they intend to spend every last nickel.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's lawyer on Thursday morning asked the military commission judge presiding over the trial of the five accused masterminds of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to halt all court proceedings until the court could determine who might be listening in on defense lawyers' conversations.
A military commission judge's attempt to explain this morning why the 9/11 pre-trial hearing being held at Guantanamo Bay was briefly blacked out from observers yesterday has only caused more confusion.
This is one of the best reasons I've heard yet for why the Obama administration should release the legal memos written to justify its overseas targeted killings of terror suspects, regardless of whether any court ever orders it to.
Just like the debt limit negotiations and super committee process that helped cause it, the so-called "fiscal cliff" of expiring laws is creating another round of secretive negotiations among our political leaders.
In an unexpected twist to the September 11 hearings at Guantanamo today, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-professed mastermind of the massive 2001 terrorist attacks, today spoke out to admonish the judge and lawyers in the military commissions.
Could the victim of a classified CIA execution program be prevented by the government from telling anyone about his experience being targeted by it?
One promising development this year was the disclosure of the intelligence budget, a figure that had never been available before.
It's not clear what national security interest is served at this point by continuing to hide what U.S. officials did to people detained after the September 11 attacks, other than to avoid U.S. embarrassment.
The poster child for disingenuous, Mitt Romney, doesn't have much going for him except a lot of gall. On July 24th, he spoke to a Reno gathering of ...
Classification is important; state secrets do need to be guarded. But more important than classification is government transparency. Classification in a democracy must be used judiciously and sparingly, else democracy itself is imperiled.
Former Governor Mitt Romney does not know where his investments are. How, exactly, is Romney so certain that he pays all his U.S. taxes if he does not even know where his funds are located?
A successful long-term relationship means being willing to share your vulnerabilities and strengths, but requires sensitivity to the consequences that sharing brings.
In Europe, where authorities' efforts have been more energetic, Google was forced to admit that its cars were drawing in material from households' unencrypted WiFi networks -- having at first denied it. Or rather claimed in Germany that it was a software programming mistake.
In general terms, secrecy can suggest bad motives or suppressed scandal, but we must simultaneously recognize that there are times and places where respectful silence is still appropriate.
The Internet blackout was an innovation for sure, but it still belongs in the category of advocacy politics that I'll called "Surround and Punish." What is missing is something the military calls "situational awareness."
If Google wants to have the role of trustee of more information about more people than any other company and even the government, then it should accept in turn public scrutiny of its actions as well.
The Department of Justice has proposed federal regulations that would authorize the United States government to lie to the American people. This is not as crazy as it seems.
The White House has issued an executive order today aimed at improving the security of classified networks and preventing the release of documents to ...
Public universities are supposed to be providing a public good to society and therefore should be forced to be transparent with their finances and accountable for their actions. Unfortunately, they are allowed to operate under the radar.
WASHINGTON -- Former Bain Capital managing director Ed Conard came forward Friday night and admitted that he is the creator of W Spann LLC, the compan...
