Also coverage by the great Wendy Kaminer in the Atlantic last year: http://www.theatlantic.com/national...idd-and-the-case-for-judicial-empathy/239698/ Though with this new news Mike has posted, it looks like he does have some legal redress after all. I don't understand all the legal ins and outs.
And here's a section for Elizabeth: Then again, this is the same Court that, less than a year later, ruled that strip-searches for minor alleged offenses are okay. Sadists indeed.
I think their problem was very simple -- they tried to create a case with a celebrity scapegoat (Ashcroft) rather than simply seeking a redress of grievances. The Constitution allows you to petition government for redress of grievances. There is no provision for playing "pin the tail on the donkey".
I think that parts of the NDAA of 2012 were designed to protect individuals serving in the Federal Executive Branch from personally facing charges over their gross malfeasance against victims of the War on Terror and the War on Drugs. I'm not so happy about these protections. I think some of the things Ashcroft did qualify as atrocities. If officials, be they lowly policemen or attorney generals, enjoy near unqualified immunity from prosecution, then what protects ordinary citizens from abuse? We pay twice. First we're abused as individuals caught up in government witch-hunts, then as taxpayers who pay compensation for crimes we never authorized.
