To mark the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the ACLU released a report that looks at how “ever-expanding claims of national security” have subverted freedoms and justified an assault on civil liberties.

The report scrutinizes racial and religious profiling, the expansion of the surveillance state, the impunity of the Bush administration officials who created a legal justification for torture and the framework that has dominated America since the attacks: the belief that America is in an “everywhere and forever war” which justifies any program, regardless of how it undermines civil liberties or the rule of law.

According to the UK legal charity Reprieve, “the first large array of photographs depicting the devastating impact of US unmanned aircraft (‘drone’) attacks on innocent civilians in Pakistan” goes on display today at at Beaconsfield Art Gallery, 22 Newport Street, London. The show, which displays the work of Noor Behram, a 39 year old photographer from the North Waziristan Agency (NWA), runs until August 5. Reportedly, photos from 28 of 60 drone attack sites visited by Behram can be viewed at the London gallery.

The way secrecy in this country works is insidious not just because the government prevents citizens from learning the things we as citizens need to know to exercise democracy, but also because the President and other classification authorities can wield secrecy as an instrument of power, choosing to release information they otherwise claim is top secret when it serves their political purpose.

The AP noticed something troubling in Michael Vickers’ response to the Senate Armed Services Committee questions on his nomination to be Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence: the government did not include descriptions of its cyberwar activities in the quarterly report on clandestine activities.

In addition to reserving the decision for itself of who gets prosecuted or not for fraud on courts and torture, the Administration is also arbitrarily choosing who gets prosecuted for leaks.

In May 2005, Rockefeller asked John Helgerson for McPherson’s report. Then in September 2005, Rockefeller asked Porter Goss for the report directly. And Porter Goss–the guy who was actively considering destroying the torture tapes in July 2005 and who ultimately applauded Rodriguez’ success in destroying them–completely blew off Rockefeller’s request.

After the initial December 2002 review, CIA gave clear instructions to the interrogators not to destroy or edit the tapes. However, it appears that the review–inasmuch as it didn’t reveal glaring concerns with the tapes and didn’t actually review whether the interrogators were following instructions–was largely a whitewash of the original tapes in an effort to green light their destruction.

Emails released Thursday look like they could be some of the 13 documents USDOJ special prosecutor John Durham withheld in the ACLU’s FOIA.

I want to point to this 2005 article, apparently attempting to scuttle Michael Chertoff’s nomination to be Secretary of Homeland Security by raising his role in approving torture (there are a couple of versions of this article, so if you’re having problems seeing what I’m looking at try this post). The article clearly states that Chertoff opposed the approval of a technique that involved the threat of immediate death.

There’s a reason why Gul Rahman’s killer wasn’t charged with negligent homicide. The declination memo used to analyze the death worked under the claim that such laws didn’t apply.