ACLU challenges government's no-fly list -- 10 years late

News that the American Civil Liberties Union had filed suit to challenge the federal government's "no-fly list" should be regarded as both good news and bad news for U.S. residents concerned about Washington's growing authority over their lives. That it has taken so many years to assemble a credible constitutional challenge to what assuredly was an immense power grab by federal authorities speaks quite loudly about the passivity of most Americans and their lack of involvement in governing their country. To be sure, the circumstances that led the feds to closely monitor airplane travel after the Sept. 11 attacks were unprecedented and outrageous. But the emergency that arguably justified the imposition of such a draconian regulatory regime -- barring U.S. citizens from traveling on airplanes based on possibly incorrect but still secret information -- has surely passed. And that it took a citizens group to mount that challenge, and not any of the array of federal agencies whose taxpayer-funded mission is to defend the U.S. Constitution, is nothing short of disgraceful. Even the lawsuit filed Wednesday tacitly accepts the legality of the restrictions, since it argues on behalf of 10 residents that the rules are unconstitutional because they do not permit people on the list to challenge their inclusion, according to the Reuters international news service. An ACLU lawyer told Reuters that the lawsuit was the first filed on behalf of legal U.S. residents challenging the no-fly list system. A lawsuit by a non-citizen seeking to get removed from the list is still pending, Reuters said. "The Constitution does not permit such a fundamental deprivation of rights to be carried out under a veil of secrecy and in the absence of even rudimentary process," the suit filed Wednesday says. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Portland, Ore., and names Attorney General Eric Holder, FBI Director Robert Mueller and Timothy Healy, director of the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center, Reuters said.

They're back! Obama to revive military commissions to try terror suspects

Maybe the most important thing to remember is that the Obama administration is still a work in progress, even if it is filled with very smart, capable people and led by an apparently very smart and capable president. Otherwise, it's hard to see Barak Obama's expected decision today to resume military trials for high-profile terror suspects as anything but a betrayal of a promise he made to millions of voters in the 2008 presidential campaign. If media reports are true, Obama plans to announce today that the Bush-era military commission system will be reinstituted, albeit with changes to better-protect detainees' rights, according to Cable News Network (CNN). CNN cited three unamed administration officials who said the commission trials would resume with expanded due process rights for suspects. Among the changes will be outlawing the use of evidence obtained using controversial invasive interrogation techniques, new restrictions on the use of unsubstantiated allegations, guaranteeing the right to remain silent and allowing suspects more say in choosing their lawyers, according to a statement released by the White House. "These reforms will begin to restore the Commissions as a legitimate forum for prosecution, while bringing them in line with the rule of law," Obama said in the statement. "This is the best way to protect our country, while upholding our deeply held values." Administration critics and some allies jumped on the statement, calling it a retreat. The administration denied that, but that's exactly what it was. Obama apparently decided that it was not worth all the problems that completely doing away with the commissions would create, even though he strongly objected to them in Congress and during the campaign. But some commentators speculated that Obama's decision merely reflected the difference between campaigning and governing.