civil liberties
Exporting the Ivory Tower

Exporting the Ivory Tower

This August, two prominent American liberal arts institutions opened educational outposts in decidedly non-liberal countries. The first is NYU Shanghai, the third addition to NYU’s self-proclaimed “Global Network University,” which also includes the main campus in New...

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Secrecy Industry Hits Home

Marylanders in Odenton, Annapolis, Frederick and our hometown of Columbia had their suspicions answered last week when The Washington Post published a three-part series about our unchecked, out-of-control expansion of the defense and intelligence operations that have grown since 2001. The expansion of this influential sector has been evident to us, as it has to Americans all around the country living near other defense and intelligence contractors and federal intelligence agencies.

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Dude, Where Are My Rights?

Guantanamo, CIA secret prisons, and Abu Ghraib represent the first round of the Bush administration’s assault on constitutional guarantees. Now they’ve introduced Round Two with an attack on habeas corpus: the right to “present one’s body” before an impartial interlocutor to contest the basis for unexplained, secret, or wrongful incarceration. Habeas corpus is the oldest civil right in the western world and the foundation of constitutional democracy.

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