Just a few years ago, the national debate over the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, indefinite detention, secret renditions and other legal elements of the Bush Administration’s “War on Terror” happened openly in American courtrooms and in the daily newspapers. Increasingly, those debates have receded into the rearview mirror as we content ourselves with the illusion that these issues are no longer urgent, or no longer affect us. In his thoughtful new book, Habeas Corpus After 9/11, Professor Jonathan Hafetz of Seton Hall University School of Law, reminds us that these and other legal innovations in the War on Terror are neither resolved, nor isolated, nor benign. We are still living in the legal universe that was constructed on the fly after 9/11. We just don’t want to admit it.

I suspect our founders feared the Constitution might be shredded by military coup, civil war, foreign invasion or dictatorship, but I doubt they ever suspected it would be ruined by semantics.

Stop the Inhumane Treatment of Bradley Manning Add your name to our letter urging the humane treatment of Bradley Manning by lifting unnecessary restrictions on his sleep, exercise, and communication. » Read the whole letter and add your name. Sign the letter to the Commanding Officer of Bradley Manning’s brig urging for Bradley’s unnecessary POI [...]