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The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects” and requires the government to get a warrant based on probable cause before a search1.” With an eye towards guarding that right, Congress set up the FISA court to issue domestic [...]

The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing Friday on a resolution to censure President Bush for his domestic warrantless wiretapping program1. The censure would be only a slap on the wrist, but would serve notice that the Senate is watching and disapproves. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), the lone senator to vote against the [...]

A fever took Helen Keller’s sight and hearing at the age of one-and-a-half. On March 3, 1887, when Keller was six, a teacher, Anne Sullivan, came to stay at her house. Sullivan taught Keller language by spelling into her hand. Keller wrote about the first word that she understood1:

I knew then that [...]

Judge Samuel Alito, nominee to the United States’ Supreme Court, champions an “unitary executive” doctrine that gives the President as Commander in Chief unlimited power. President George W. Bush has already claimed “unitary executive” powers to imprison citizens without charges, spy on citizens without warrants, and ignore laws he doesn’t like1. Use of [...]

President George W. Bush has acted as a dictator, “a ruler who is unconstrained by law1”, as shown in three cases recently in the news. In one case, Bush violated the fifth amendment to the Constitution by labeling a US citizen, Jose Padilla, an “enemy combatant” and holding him for three-and-a-half years without charge2×3. [...]