Edwin Meese III, who served as Attorney General under President Ronald Reagan, has written a defense of the military detention and interrogation facility at Guantanamo. He asserts it continues to serve an “important role in the war against terrorists.” But Gitmo continues to be and be seen by the international community as a blot on the US and legal and moral black hole.

In the aftermath of the attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009 by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) moved to increase airport security. Passengers flying “non-stop” to the US were subject to enhanced screenings, including in some cases a full-body pat-down. But, immediately, TSA realized that this placed an “extraordinary burden” on airports and airlines and TSA moved to develop a “regime” that would subject a “reduced pool” of passengers to “enhanced screenings.”

On January 13, 2010, it was announced a list of fourteen countries of interest. The list included: Cuba, Sudan, Syria, Iran (four countries on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism) and Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen. The new regime meant all passengers traveling from any of the fourteen countries would, regardless of nationality or US citizenship, be subject to increased security and possible violations of privacy.

Newly published cables from WikiLeaks shed light on reactions from leaders of countries on the list.

The findings led Sam Zarifi of Amnesty International to declare, “The Obama administration must explain the legal basis for drone strikes in Pakistan to avoid the perception that it acts with impunity. The Pakistan government must also ensure accountability for indiscriminate killing, in violation of international law, that occurs inside Pakistan.” In fact, that is what Akbar, whom the CIA calls a spy, is trying to do: challenge the legality of drone strikes. And, clearly establishing what is legal and not legal about drone strikes is exactly what the US does not want to do, preferring to keep courts from deliberating on the issue in the same way the Bush administration worked to keep courts from deliberating on the issue of torture.

What continues to unfold in Syria is a massive crime against humanity. The UN Security Council has unanimously condemned the violations against human rights and use force against civilians by President Bashar al Assad’s regime. But sending a US envoy to open lines of communication with the Syrian people and the Syrian government could further aggravate the situation in Syria.

Keith Olbermann continued his coverage of US citizens, who are suing former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for torture. On “Countdown” on Friday night, Donald Vance, a US navy veteran and former defense contractor, appeared on the show to describe how he came to be held and tortured in an American-run prison in Iraq for almost 100 days.

n the aftermath of a massacre in Hama, Syria state media broadcasted images of “burnt, buildings, makeshift barricades and deserted streets strewn with rubble,” according to the New York Times and claimed the revolt in Syria has ended. Meanwhile, The Guardian reports tens of thousands have taken to the streets all over the country and are continuing a five-months old uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

More than a thousand government organizations and nearly two thousand private companies currently work counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence programs. Well over two million Defense Department civilian, military and contractor personnel hold confidential, secret and top secret level security clearances. At the same time, the US government engages in a gross amount of classification of information, significantly limiting what citizens are allowed to know about the operations of government and effectively shielding routine abuses of power from scrutiny and outrage.

A government can say they are taking a holistic approach to something like the ‘war on terror’ but that does not mean that they are actually doing it. The Center for Human Rights and Global Justice has a new report out showing just how poorly the United States is doing in this area.

Calling attention to how the US government’s counter-terrorism measures impact women and sexual minorities (those in the LGBTI community), the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) has released a report that suggests the USG government cannot continue to claim it is taking a “holistic” approach to countering terrorism while at the same time failing to address how the so-called “war on terrorism” impacts women, men and sexual minorities differently.

From President Barack Obama’s inauguration to now, he has treated the issue of torture and the legalization of this supreme violation of human rights as an inconvenience. Obama has kept the possibility of holding former Bush Administration officials accountable for torture shrouded in remarks that contain platitudes on nobody being above the rule of law, yet, in those same remarks, he has shifted the responsibility to people like Attorney General Eric J. Holder to prosecute Bush officials, effectively freeing him of any obligation or liability that might stem from having to launch an investigation.