Jeanne Theoharis is professor of political science at CUNY’s Brooklyn College, one who takes the responsibility of her profession towards her students, and to the society she lives in, very seriously. When she discovered that one of her former students, Syed Farad Hashmi, was being treated unjustly by the U.S. judicial system, she spoke out, and she continues to do so.

Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsySR), a non-profit organization of psychologists committed to social change and social justice, has written a letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, protesting ” the needless brutality of the conditions to which PFC Bradley Manning is being subjected” at the Marine Corps brig at Quanitco, Virginia. The tortuous conditions of Manning’s confinement are similar to those of America’s Supermax prisons, except Manning has not been convicted of any crime.

Lt. Col. Frakt, who was the lead defense counsel in the Guantanamo military commissions trials of Mohammed Jawad and Ali al Bahlul, has written an important analysis of the President Obama’s new military commission rules. These rules, released without public comment and only a day before the trial was to start in the case of former child soldier, Omar Khadr, rewrite law in order to prosecute “war crimes”, even where none exist.