Constitution

TeleSur | – – Trump’s picks for important security positions look intent on rolling back civil liberties. While there are many questions about what U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will change once he officially takes office on Jan. 20, one of the biggest questions, and indeed concerns, is what a Trump administration will bring in terms […]

Bill of Rights

US: Trump’s Justice, CIA Picks Threaten Rights

contributors

Human Rights Watch | – – (Washington) – President-elect Donald Trump’s selection of Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions as United States attorney general reinforces fears that Trump’s administration will threaten human rights protections, Human Rights Watch said today. Sessions has said that he supports the use of torture and has expressed a range of views inimical […]

Bill of Rights

Have Americans joined Egyptians in losing right to Protest & to Privacy?

contributors

By Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah | (Inter Press Service) | – – LONDON (IPS) – Many US citizens may instinctively believe they still live in the land of the free, but a new global rights rating system shows the country is far less tolerant than they may think. The world’s first systematic review of how well countries […]

African-Americans

Federal Judge Puts End to “Insane” Voter Suppression in N. Carolina

contributors

By Jon Queally, staff writer | ( Commondreams.org ) | – – ‘Injunction will help make sure not a single voters’ voice is unlawfully taken away,’ says Rev. William Barber II of the NC NAACP. Granting hopeful reprieve to thousands of potentially disenfranchised voters ahead of Tuesday’s election, a federal judge late Friday issued an […]

Bill of Rights

Dear Americans: Want Security? Try the Bill of Rights

contributors

By Karen J. Greenberg | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – One vivid image of the historical relationship between government power and individual liberties in America has long been the swing of the pendulum. It catches the nature of the perpetually changing balance between the two. When it comes to terrorism and civil liberties after 9/11, […]

Bill of Rights

Nixonian Donald Trump threatens writers who dare Criticize him

contributors

By Richard Tofel | ProPublica | – – In 1733, New York printer John Peter Zenger began publishing the eighth newspaper in the American colonies, and the first willing to venture criticism of the government. The New-York Weekly Journal was the second paper in a city of 10,000 or so people, 1700 of them slaves. […]

Bill of Rights

Making Case for Pardon, Snowden Says Leaks Were ‘Necessary, Vital Things’

contributors

by Deirdre Fulton, staff writer | (Commondreams.org) | – – ‘I think when people look at the calculations of benefit, it is clear that in the wake of 2013 the laws of our nation changed,’ Snowden tells the Guardian In a new interview with the Guardian, whistleblower Edward Snowden explains why U.S. President Barack Obama […]

Bill of Rights

Can Americans get back their Democracy from the Oligarchy?

contributors

By John Scales Avery | (Inter Press Service) | – – COPENHAGEN, (IPS) – As many observers around the world have pointed out, the United States is no longer a true democracy. It is an oligarchy. The US government ignores the safety, wishes and needs of the majority of its citizens, and instead makes decisions […]

Bill of Rights

On the Fourth of July: None of us has Inalienable Rights if American Muslims don’t

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – On this day when the United States was first conceived in rebellion against people being deprived of their God-given rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, it is worth remarking on our political season. One of our two major presidential candidates has targeted America’s some […]